Tommy Hunter Tickets

Tommy Hunter
Tommy Hunter is a Canadian performer, singer and song writer, known as Canadas Country Gentleman. He was born in March 10, 1937 in London, Ontario, Canada.

He was one of the most enduring, best-loved performers in Canadian country music. With his timeless appeal, Tommy Hunter is an entertainer with a long history of involving people in his brand of country music.

Although hes been identified with country music over the past half century, Tommy Hunter, like a great part of his loyal audiences, cant be pinned down to simply one genre of music. Hes had them singing along on trains and in the finest theaters, and hes generated the same responses with TV audiences and even in peoples living rooms with people who were not necessarily country music fans.

He became interested in country music at age nine. He made his professional debut at age 12 at a theater in Woodstock, Pennsylvania. At age 16, he left home to play in country clubs all over North America, making his CBC radio debut in 1952. Four years later, he was performing with the Sons of the West. In 1956, he began performing as a rhythm guitarist on the CBC television show, Country Hoedown.

For a year the stage-frightened youngster developed his skills in front of church audiences and even patients at the War Hospital. Then get his first paid job, a spot in the customary variety shows that would fill the time between features at local movie theaters. It would mark the onset of a non-stop love affair with country music and country music audiences, as well as the certain, unwavering choice of a career path for Tommy.

It also marked the beginning of the evolution of a naive kid emulating his favorite entertainer, into one of the longest playing country personalities that Canadian television has ever known.

A typical job in that earliest stage might have had Tommy catching a bus to showcase his toddling skills for a fee of a dollar or two at a garden party, or a strawberry social, or perhaps peddling his bicycle across town to perform through a cigar-smoke haze for a group of happy war veterans at a legion dinner.

Tommys love for country music would impel him down to the local record shops, with their listening booths, where hed play the latest record by Eddie Arnold or Hank Snow. But during those early, tough times there was rarely enough money for such frivolities as records, so hed sit in a booth with a pencil and paper, writing down all the lyrics. Occasionally, his attitude toward performing got some tough, but meaningful, shaping.

Once, after auditioning for a theatre production of a Carolina-oriented play that called for the part of a hillbilly singer, he was stung as the production staff began to laugh. I started to sing the hillbilliest thing I could come up with, and theyd never heard anything like that.

Well, they started laughing, and I walked out of there, just fuming. But a disk jockey friend, who had steered him to the audition in the first place, argued him into going back.

Apparently the producers really wanted him for the play. An apology cemented the deal and Tommys zeal had soon won him some of his early converts. Later, as the cast and crew traveled with the play for several days across Canada by train, they would call on Tommy to pick his guitar. Arriving at the radio station, the 15-year old singer was shocked to find himself called upon to do a live and totally spontaneous 30-minute show.

Instantly, an Acuff-like performer came to the forefront in Tommy, complete with all the showman patter, and, just as quickly, he discovered another of his entertainers skills. As he continued on his path, sometimes as a single, but often as a member of this group or that band, he also began to play the bars and honky-tonks, all the time continuing with his education in the performing arts.

Then, in 1956, his career took a major spurt forward when he cracked into network TV as a regular on Country Hoedown. After several years with his grueling TV commitment, he was also invited to host his own network radio show, simultaneously. From the very beginning his aim was to bring respect and credibility to an industry that, in his words, deserved more than just a barn and a hayseed image.

During his record-breaking run he would make it a point to involve the best writers and production people available. Over the years, the list of those he worked with included Norman Jewison, Chris Beard, Joan Tasoni, Les Pouliot, and Stan Jacobson, to name a few, all of whom helped him to set many standards for his country music TV show.

On March 19, 1997 he was the focus of a major black tie Tribute to Tommy Hunter at Torontos world-famous Imperial Room of the Royal York Hotel. He celebrated both his 60th birthday and his 50th anniversary as an entertainer.

In 1990 he received one of the ultimate symbols of a country artists stature and contribution to the genre, in the eyes of country musics capitol, Nashville, inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame Walkway of Stars.

His most recent CDs include Timeless Country Treasures Vol. 1, 2 & 3, Songs of Inspiration, Vol. 1 & 2, Readings, Tommy Hunters Traditional Country Christmas, and Tommy Hunter Sings For You.

His autobiography, My Story, was published in 1985 by Methune Publishing out of Great Britain and has been re-released, with Tommys own company handling printing and distribution.