Slim Whitman - Biography
Slim Whitman—he of the stratospheric falsetto, otherworldly yodel and seemingly permanent smile—was one of the biggest selling international favorites of country music. Known as the Smilin’ Starduster (since his far-reaching tenor “could surely dust the stars”) and later, as “America’s Favorite Folk Singer,” Whitman’s clean cut image and repertoire—he vowed never to perform any song that he “would be ashamed to sing in church”—won him innumerable fans worldwide (Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and George Harrison among them), but also made him the butt of countless jokes among his more worldly peers and listeners. Nonetheless, Whitman sold well over 60 million records during his career and became a record-breaking top draw in Europe and Australia, attaining a level of success and recognition which very few have been able to match.
Born Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr. in Tampa Florida on January 20, 1924, the boy grew up with an avid love of baseball and fishing. Yet, despite Whitman’s childhood appreciation of early country stars Jimmie Rodgers and Montana Slim (whose yodeling styles he imitated to perfection as a youth), he never evinced an interest in a musical career. A lifelong member of Tampa’s Church of the Brethren, Whitman married the preacher’s daughter when he was 17-years-old and moved with his bride north to Jacksonville. He took a job as a meat packer, which resulted in the loss of a finger from his right hand, yet Whitman didn’t take up the guitar (playing left-handed) until he was serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII, when he joined an informal combo and began his musical career entertaining other Navy personnel. Discharged in 1946, Whitman was singing on several Tampa area radio stations by 1948 and assembled a band shortly thereafter, The Variety Rhythm Boys.
After the notorious showman Colonel Tom Parker heard a broadcast—at the time acting as manager for Eddy Arnold and Hank Snow—he got in touch with the singer and struck a management deal. The deal didn’t involve the Colonel himself, but rather Parker’s son-in-law, Bob Ross, and the latter sent an acetate recording of Whitman to RCA Victor. The label signed him and released Whitman’s debut single, “I’m Casting My Lasso Towards the Sky,” and by early 1949, he was being regularly featured on Shreveport, Louisiana’s famed KWKH Louisiana Hayride.
An audience favorite from the onset, Whitman was sill more of a bashful amateur than a polished performer, but after he got some critical encouragement and advice from Hank Williams Sr., his career began to go into high gear. Wooed away from RCA by Imperial Records in 1951, Whitman issued a series of evocative singles that frequently visited the country chart’s upper reaches for the rest of the decade. Titles like “Love Song of the Waterfall,” “Indian Love Call,” “North Wind” and “Serenade” were big sellers for Whitman, both in the United States and in Great Britain (where his cover of Victor Herbert’s light opera chestnut “Rose-Marie” remained perched at #1 for almost three months).
Whitman joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1955, and he remained there for decades. He comfortably, if not spectacularly, weathered the rise of rock & roll and subsequent British Invasion, placing over a dozen records in the country charts throughout the 1960s. But it was a 1979 deal with Suffolk Marketing for a 20-track Whitman compilation that was to be sold exclusively via television commercials which proved to be the most fortuitous move of his career. Though the singer was hesitant at first to shoot the television spot, the tactic resulted in sales of four millions albums, initiated a string of similar releases and making him a maddeningly ubiquitous broadcast presence. This newfound fame also initiated an odd love/hate cult of followers and an ambiguous fascination, resulting in director Tim Burton’s use of Whitman’s “Indian Love Call” as the alien-destroying secret weapon of his 1995 film, Mars Attacks!
Whitman continued touring constantly, often with son Byron at his side, took all the japes in stride, earned tons of money and never deviated from his long established formula of clean-cut charm, slightly exotic material and wily employ of his formidable falsetto and yodeling skills. The indefatigable Whitman finally retired from performing in 2009, after over six decades in country music. Slim Whitman died of heart failure June 19, 2013. He was 90 years old.