Stuart Hamblen born October 20, 1908

                 

Stuart Hamblen (October 20, 1908 – March 8, 1989) was an American entertainer who in 1926 became one of radio's first singing cowboys, going on to become a singer, actor, radio show host and songwriter.

Carl Stuart Hamblen was born in Kellyville, Texas, four miles west of Jefferson, the son of itinerant Methodist preacher Dr. J.H. Hamblen.  As a boy, he spent much of his time traveling with his father on his evangelical pursuits, eventually taking the young Stuart to Hamlin, Texas, out Abilene way.  There he encountered the lore of the western cowboy, and his songs, as well as that of black field hands.  He attended McMurry College with intentions to become a teacher, but instead was drawn to music.  In 1926, Stuart Hamblen began singing on KFYO in Abilene, by some accounts making him radio’s first singing cowboy.  Three years later, he won a talent contest in Dallas, and used the cash prize to secure passage northward to Camden, New Jersey, home of the Victor Talking Machine Company, where he aimed to make some records, following much in the footsteps of his antecedent Carl T. Sprague.

On June 6, 1929, Hamblen made his recording debut with four sides for Victor, singing and strumming his guitar to “The Boy in Blue”, “Drifting Back to Dixie”, “When the Moon Shines Down Upon the Mountain”, and “The Big Rock Candy Mountains, No. 2”.  Thereafter, the young man went west, to California, where he became “Cowboy Joe” on Los Angeles’ KFI.  Meanwhile, he made a further ten sides for Victor through 1931, culminating with his own popular compositions “My Brown-Eyed Texas Rose” and “My Mary”, both later popularly covered by the the Light Crust Doughboys and Milton Brown.  

By the middle of the 1930s, Hamblen had formed a western band called his “Covered Wagon Jubilee” (or simply his “Gang”), which at one point included guitarist Wesley Tuttle, and with whom he recorded again, first making a pair of unreleased sides for the American Record Corporation in 1934, before signing with Decca for another nine that year and the next, of which all but one were released. He became a top Western singer- songwriter with "My Brown-Eyed Texas Rose", "Out On The Texas Plains", "Golden River", "My Mary", etc. His Decca sides proved to be his last records for nearly a decade, none of which ever seemed to sell very well, and he focused primarily on his radio work.

                                   

In his early career as a singing cowboy Hamblen composed the song "Texas Plains". It was this song that Patsy Montana reworked into her million-seller hit "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" (1935).

From the late 1930s through the ’40s, Hamblen also appeared in several motion pictures, several of which starred Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and John Wayne.  In 1938, he ran for Congress in California, as a Democrat.  During World War II, he wrote and sang some patriotic songs, and recorded again for Russian spy Boris Morros’ American Recording Artists (ARA) label in 1944. 

At the height of his singing cowboy fame, Stuart Hamblen built up quite a reputation as a hard drinker, gambler, and all-around hellraiser.  He’d get drunk, shoot out streetlights, and get sent to jail, only to have his sponsors bail him out so he could be on the radio the next day.  But that changed when Billy Graham came to Los Angeles on his first Crusade in 1949.  Hamblen’s wife persuaded him to attend the revival, and the reverend turned his life around.  Hamblen experienced a religious awakening, and announced the very next day on his radio program that he was “hitting the sawdust trail.”

Hamblen's recording career began anew in 1949, this time on Columbia Records. During 1949-54 he scored four self- penned Top 10 country hits: - I Won't Go Huntin' With You Jake (But I'll Go Chasin' Women). (Remember Me) I'm The One Who Loves You. A # 2 hit in 1950. It Is No Secret (What God Can Do). This was a pop hit for both Jo Stafford (# 15) and Bill Kenny and the Song Spinners (# 18) in 1951. This Ole House. Hamblen's own version (on RCA) went to # 2 on the country charts and # 26 on the pop charts, but in the version of Rosemary Clooney it topped the hit parade in both the USA and the UK (1954).

From then on out, Hamblen dedicated his work to sacred music and recording far more prolifically—and successfully—than ever before, with sessions for Columbia, RCA Victor, and Coral.  "This Ole House" was inspired during a hunting trip in the High Sierras with John Wayne and guide Monte Wolfe. The two men came upon what looked like an abandoned shack, wherein they found the body of an elderly man, apparently dead of natural causes. Hamblen came up with the lyrics to the song while riding horseback down the mountain, and composed the melody within a week. In addition to being a No. 1 hit for Clooney, it was later recorded by Roberta Sherwood and The Statler Brothers, among many others.

He also prominently supported the temperance movement, and, after his radio show was cancelled because he refused to do advertise beer, he renewed his political ambitions in 1952 with a presidential run on the Prohibition Party ticket, garnering 72,949 votes.  He also remained associated with Billy Graham, who credited much of his success to Hamblen’s timely conversion. In 1955, Hamblen had a hit single with "Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Sunshine In)" (B-side "The Lord is Counting on You"), performed along with his family under the name "The Cowboy Church Sunday School." Hamblen was accompanied by wife Suzy, daughters Veeva Suzanne and Obee Jane (Lisa), and two of the girls' friends. The song was recorded at the phonograph speed of 33 RPM so that, played back at the normal 7-inch–single speed of 45 RPM, it sounds like children singing. The tune hit No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop charts in 1955.

Hamblen was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. Received the ACM Pioneer Award (1972) and was honoured with “Stuart Hamblen Day” Los Angeles on February 13, 1976 and was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Radio at 6419 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 19, 1976. He also received the Gene Autry Golden Boot Award (1988).  Following a battle with brain cancer, Stuart Hamblen died at the age of eighty on March 8, 1989 in Santa Monica, California. He was posthumously Inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame (1994),the Western Music Hall of Fame (1999), and the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame (2001).

(Edited from Old Time Blues, Wikipedia & This Is My Story)