Search - Hank Snow :: I've Been Everywhere: Encore Collection

Hank Snow never sounded so good!

conconwon | Boise, Idaho | 06/19/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I bought this album for my dad as a Father's Day gift. He loved it! It brought back great memories from "the days of his youth." The sound and clarity of the music were much better than on the old 78 records. Hank's songs are uplifting and no one has a voice with such mellow tones and rapid diction as Hank Snow. This CD will be played and enjoyed for many hours. Thanks for bringing back the old favorites on today's audio media."

Celine dion and bryan adams weren't born yet

perryink2 | castle rock | 09/03/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This post-mortem 2 CD retrospective catches up with Nova Scotia's Clarence Eugene Snow in 1950, kicking off with his biggest - and best known - hit, I'm Movin' On. By this time Snow had honed his skills in Halifax clubs, on local and national airwaves, changed his name to the more Western-friendly Hank, signed to RCA and, after years of struggling to break the U.S. market, had cracked the American market. The success of I'm Movin' On opened the floodgates and within the year Snow had struck gold with two more chart-toppers The Golden Rocket and The Rhumba Boogie, establishing him as a bona fide country star alongside pioneers like Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers and Roy Acuff. It's easy to tell just how big Snow became: a quick look over the first disc finds 22 songs recorded between 1950 and 1954, solid hits all which even now make for a colourfully evocative overview of Snow's capacity for pushing his songwriting across the spectrum - from travelling songs and country boogie to rhumba, old-fashioned cowboy tales and even Hawaiia-flavoured ditties. The second disc continues on in 1954, with the remainder of the 24 Top Ten hits Snow racked up between 1951 and 1955 (Let Me Go Lover, I've Forgotten You, Yellow Roses, Would You Mind, Mainliner). By the mid-50s Snow was a star not only in North America but around the world (most notably in Britain, a country not known for it's acceptance of country and western) and was hobnobbing with a young Elvis. When his protege signed on with the infamous Colonel Tom Parker and ushered in the rock n' roll revolution in 1956, Snow responded in kind, pumping out his own brand of rockabilly (Hula Rock shows up here). But country was Snow's forte and he continued on until the mid-60s, an unstoppable hit machine (Beggar to a King, I've Been Everywhere, Ninety Miles an Hour) who only slowed in the latter half of the decade. As disc 2 reveals, Snow didn't fare very well in the transition to the new, heavily orchestrated country-pop of the late `60s and early `70s: listeners jump from 1963's Blue Roses to Snow's comeback hit Hello Love in 1974. Though his career cooled off for the remainder of his life, Snow was celebrated in all circles and his music has been recorded by a mind-boggling array of admirers, from Elvis Presley and Al Hirt to Emmylou Harris and Big House, who offer their interpretation of I'm Movin' On on their new album Woodstock Nation. It's hard to imagine how anyone would need anything other than this expansive collection of Snow's major hits and b-sides, being as it's a remarkable monument to a Canadian legend whose list of international hits makes Bryan Adams, Celine Dion and Shania Twain look like regional novelty acts."