'Canada's Country Gentleman' Tommy Hunter, host of long-running TV show, dies at 89
· Toronto Sun
Tommy Hunter, aka “Canada’s Country Gentleman,” has passed away at age 89 of natural causes according to tommyhunter.com .
Known best as the host of The Tommy Hunter show, which aired on CBC for 27 years from 1965 to 1992, Hunter was born in London, Ont., on March 20, 1937, and died on Thursday.
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His business manager Brian Edwards of 43 years said the late country star died in a London retirement home with his son, Greg, and his 10-year-old mixed-breed rescue dog, Desi, at his side.
“He went peacefully in his sleep,” Edwards told the Toronto Sun on Friday. “I was just talking to him a couple of weeks ago and you’d never know anything was wrong with him.”
Edwards said his longtime client and friend was the same offstage as he was on a TV set.
“They gave him the name Canada’s Country Gentleman many years ago and he certainly lived up to every aspect of that. I mean what you see on TV was exactly the type of guy that he was. He opened himself up to public at all times. He was very accessible to shaking hands and kissing babies. He was very, very much the type of guy who respected his audience.”
Hunter learned to play the guitar when he was nine years old and was still a teenager when he ended up in 1956 on the CBC-TV series Country Hoedown, as the rhythm guitarist with King Ganam’s band, Sons of the West.
He was given his own show at the age of 28 and at the time of its cancellation, The Tommy Hunter Show was the longest-running music program in North America.
At its height, The Tommy Hunter Show seen in 75 million U.S. households
For many of those years The Nashville Network aired The Tommy Hunter Show throughout the U.S. at times reaching as many as 75 million homes.
The guests on Tommy’s show represented traditional country artists like Hank Snow, Roy Acuff, Kitty Wells and Johnny Cash, newer generation stars like Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Carroll Baker and Reba McEntire, and upcoming Canadian acts like Rita MacNeil, Michelle Wright and Shania Twain.
“What I hear continuously is that the kids would rush upstairs after doing the dishes, and the old man would throw some logs on the fire to keep the place warm, and the kids would have a bath and put on fresh pyjamas, and run down and jump up on the sofa, and they were told, ‘Be quiet, now, because Tommy’s coming on and we want to watch the show,’” Hunter told the Toronto Sun in 2012.
Hunter’s goal was to bring country music into the mainstream without a corny TV set that included barns, hay bales and corn stalks.
“With country music on TV back then, the first thing they’d say is, ‘We don’t know anything about country music, we have this pimply faced 19-year-old kid playing a guitar, let’s just build a barn set and throw in some bales of hay,’ ” Hunter told the Toronto Sun .
“But that’s the last thing I wanted. Over time we acquired the best producers, directors and writers, a great team. When I introduced Johnny Cash, I wanted him to come right into your living rooms all across Canada, and you weren’t seeing cattle moving in the background and pitchforks and all that stuff. Because I thought our music had progressed to a level.”
Hunter’s Travellin’ Man was theme song for The Tommy Hunter Show
His own Canadian country music hits included his most famous tune, Travellin’ Man, which also served as the theme song for his TV show, and he also recorded for Columbia and its Harmony label in the 1960s and ’70s.
He returned to CBC for a 2003 special and underwent successful surgery for prostate cancer in 2004.
After his TV show ended, Hunter performed concerts until the last time on his 75th birthday in 2012.
“I know I still can sing and perform, but what you do at 25 you can’t do when you’re 75,” Hunter told the Toronto Sun .
“You have to face facts and reality. Tony Bennett (age 85 at the time) is probably one of the rare exceptions who still is doing it. But I rather would have people come to one of my final shows and say, ‘Why is he retiring?’ I want people to leave happy, saying, ‘Boy, that brings back a lot of memories.’”
Edwards said after his retirement, Hunter just hung out with family friends and neighbours and some travelling.
The recipient of three Juno awards and one Gemini award, Hunter was also inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and was a proud member of the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada.
Canada Post also recognized Tommy’s significance by honouring him with his own postage stamp.
He is survived by his three children, four grandchildren and one great grandchild.
Funeral arrangements and a public memorial will take place at a later date.
“I would think there’d be a public celebration of life element that will have a public aspect to it and then a more of a private family service and burial and all that stuff,” said Edwards. “So he was born and raised in London and the last 13 years of his life, he was back in London, so he will be laid to rest in London as well.”
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the London Humane society or any animal rescue organization.
“He really was into rescue animals and all that sort of stuff,” Edwards said. “He was basically very fond of the Humane Society and any animals that were left homeless. He had a couple of them over the years. It was more so in the latter years for sure. He had a little bit more time to do that sort of thing.”