Slim Whitman

Who was Slim Whitman?

Ottis Dewey Whitman, Jr., known professionally as Slim Whitman, was an American country music and western music singer, songwriter and instrumentalist known for his yodeling abilities and his smooth high three octave range falsetto. He stated that he had sold in excess of 120 million records. In the 1950s Whitman toured with Elvis Presley.

Although once known as Americas Favorite Folk Singer, he was consistently more popular throughout Europe, and in particular the United Kingdom, than in his native America, especially with his covers of pop standards, film songs, love songs, folk tunes and melodic gospel hymns. His 1955 hit single "Rose Marie" held the Guinness World Record for the longest time at number one on the UK Singles Chart for 36 years until Bryan Adams broke the record in 1991 and was listed in British Hit Singles & Albums. In the US his "Indian Love Call" and "Secret Love" both reached number two on the Billboard country chart. Whitman had a string of hits from the mid-1960s and into the 1970s and became known to a new generation of fans through television direct marketing in the 1980s. Throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century, he continued to tour extensively around the world and release new material, Whitman garnered a new generation of fans when his music was featured in the 1996 film Mars Attacks!, where everytime an old lady and her resourceful grandson plays his music, the heads of the invading aliens explode. His last album, Twilight on the Trail, produced by his son Byron Whitman was a cover of western standards including the Gene Autry single Back in the Saddle Again and was released in 2010.