Hank Snow CD: Tales Of The Yukon (CD)

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catalog number:BCD16767
weight in Kg 0.115
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1-CD-Album with 36-page booklet, 8 tracks. Playing time approx. 38 mns. One of Canada's...more

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Hank Snow: Tales Of The Yukon (CD)

1-CD-Album with 36-page booklet, 8 tracks. Playing time approx. 38 mns.

One of Canada's best-known poets, Robert William Service was a man who celebrated the untamed vastness of the Canadian north, yet Service was from England and spent just a small part of his life in Canada. Born in Preston, Lancashire on January 16, 1874, he was the first child of a bank cashier who married the daughter of a wealthy distillery owner. Five years later, he went to live with his paternal grandfather, the postmaster at Kilwinning, Ayrshire in Scotland. He composed his first poem there - on his sixth birthday. By 1883, the Service family had moved from Preston to Glasgow, and Robert rejoined them. After leaving school, he followed his father into banking and worked at the Commercial Bank of Scotland. Selling verse as a sideline, he absorbed the work of his favorite poets, Browning, Tennyson, Thackeray and Keats. He also discovered Glasgow's music halls, and developed an ear for common or vernacular speech (check out Bear Family's music hall box, 'Around The Town' for much more on music halls). Moving on to the University of Glasgow, he studied English Language and Literature.

In 1895, Robert Service turned 21, resigned from the bank, and left Glasgow for Montreal. From Montreal, he took the train across Canada, selling off his possessions for meal money until he reached Vancouver Island. He worked as a farm laborer for a Scottish family in the Cowichan Valley and then moved on to a more remote township to work for a man he called Hank in his autobiography, 'Ploughman Of The Moon'. On Hank's farm, Service found a stack of 'Harper's' magazines together with a banjo. He eventually moved to Victoria to work on another dairy farm. His employer also ran a general store and post office, and Service became a storekeeper for four years, trading with the Siwash Indians and the local white settlers.

After saving $200, Service tried to return to university, but failed algebra. He took a job at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Victoria, and transferred first to Kamloops, in the B.C. interior, and then to Whitehorse in the Yukon in 1904. He entertained at church socials by reciting Kipling and singing songs to his banjo accompaniment. 'The Whitehorse Star' editor suggested that he write something original about life in the Yukon. Service had heard about a prospector who had cremated his partner and he'd heard other tales from the pioneer settlers, so he began adapting them into verse. He eventually sent The Cremation Of Sam McGee and other poems to his father in Scotland asking him to arrange a small vanity printing for family and friends. He received a reply from the publisher returning his cheque and offering terms for publication rights.

Service was working at the CIBC in Dawson City when, on June 22, 1908, he and his bunkroom mates celebrated the publication of 'Songs Of A Sourdough'. He wrote two autobiographical works, 'Ploughman Of The Moon' (1945) and 'Harper Of Heaven' (1948), and six novels, including 'The Trail Of '98' (1912) about the Klondike Gold Rush. He also wrote more than 45 verse collections containing over one thousand poems. Several of his novels and his poem McGrew were adapted to movies. He made a brief appearance with Marlene Dietrich in the 1942 film 'The Spoilers'.

A conscientious objector during World War I, he worked as an ambulance driver, and eventually married a French girl, Germaine Bougeoin. They lived in Brittany, France until the outbreak of World War II and then in California. They returned to Brittany after the war and Robert W. Service died there on September 11, 1958.

Colin Escott,

Nasville, Tennessee, July 2007

PS: Hank Snow's LP, 'Tales Of The Yukon,' included Robert W. Service's poems together with Face On The Bar Room Floor, attributed to Service, but actually by Hugh Antoine D'Arcy. The latter, a Frenchman (1843-1925) became a pioneer motion picture executive, and wrote The Face On The (Bar-Room) Floor in 1887. It became the basis of a Charlie Chaplin movie as well as a song. D'Arcy became a publicist for Lubin Studios and died in New York.

Article properties:Hank Snow: Tales Of The Yukon (CD)

Interpret: Hank Snow
Album titlle: Tales Of The Yukon (CD)
Genre Country
Label Bear Family Records
Preiscode AH
Artikelart CD
EAN: 4000127167675
weight in Kg 0.115

Snow, Hank - Tales Of The Yukon (CD) CD 1
01	The Face On The Barroom Floor	Hank Snow
02	Dangerous Dan McGrew	Hank Snow
03	The Cremation Of Sam McGee	Hank Snow
04	The Spell Of Yukon	Hank Snow
05	The Ballad Of Blasphemous Bill	Hank Snow
06	The Ballad Of One-Eyed Mike	Hank Snow
07	The Ballad Of Hard Luck Henry	Hank Snow
08	My Friends	Hank Snow

Hank Snow Hank Snow represents the archetypal rise from marginal existence to iconic... more

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"Hank Snow"

Hank Snow

Hank Snow represents the archetypal rise from marginal existence to iconic status—without romantic distortion: his career began with improvisation and calculated risk. At his 1936 audition for RCA Victor in Montreal, he simply claimed to have original songs—and wrote them overnight. Prisoned Cowboy and Lonesome Blue Yodel were technically simple, but sufficient to launch a recording career that would span more than six decades.

His formative years were defined not by comfort, but by hardship: escape from an abusive stepfather, work as a cabin boy in the North Atlantic, and musical socialization through records by Vernon Dalhart and Jimmie Rodgers. From this emerged a clearly identifiable style—most notably the blue yodel as a defining expressive element.

His early RCA Canada recordings achieved regional success but failed to penetrate the U.S. market. Only an external disruption—the 1948 recording ban by the American Federation of Musicians—led to the release of his Canadian masters in the United States. The decisive breakthrough followed in 1950 with I’m Moving On: 44 weeks on the charts, 21 of them at No. 1—a clear indicator of exceptional market impact.

The Bear Family Records® website documents this trajectory with high precision and provides one of the most reliable discographic and historical references available.

The long-term preservation of this cultural legacy is ensured by the Friends Of The Hank Snow Society. Their mandate: to promote traditional country music, operate a museum in Nova Scotia, and organize key events such as the Summer Festival and the Hank Snow Tribute Show—functioning as the institutional backbone of Hank Snow’s legacy.

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