Is it a scandalous admission that Canada’s Country Gentleman, Tommy Hunter, prefers listening to classical music than new country?
“I could make up a nice story and say ‘I love it,’ but what I hear has changed so drastically from what was,” says Hunter, who will be performing on the afternoon of Saturday, Jan. 30, at the Memorial Centre.
While he occasionally puts on albums by Vince Gill, Alan Jackson or Rhonda Vincent, Hunter admits he’s more likely to listen to CDs by Andrea Bocelli or the late Luciano Pavarotti than new country artists, who sound more pop or rock.
“I enjoy classical music — and it’s a whole new thing with me,” says the 72-year-old singer. “I just discovered this in the last 15 years.” He has even begun appreciating operas, such as Carmen — in which “everybody always dies at the end,” he adds with a chuckle.
But Hunter continues performing old-time country music for the benefit of his loyal fans. Some of them have been following his career since the rhythm guitarist first started with CBC TV’s Country Hoedown way back in 1956.
“That’s why we tour — there’s nothing for that audience anymore,” says Hunter, since most music is being marketed to younger generations.
He’s criss-crossed the country for more than 50 years, and yet remains enthusiastic about his latest concert plans, which will take him to 20 large and small communities between Summerside, P.E.I., and Edmonton. “It’s a new show every night — and a new audience,” says the singer, who believes this keeps him fresh.
He recounts the familiar pattern of arriving at the next concert venue: “There’s always the travelling time, then you’re in the building getting ready, and you’re all dressed and ready to go. . . . You have to start the show on time. . . . ”
At some point, his adrenaline kicks in. “Business people can only take you to the edge of the stage — the rest is up to you,” he says, “You don’t take it for granted.”
The lanky performer who’s best remembered as the star of The Tommy Hunter Show, which started on CBC Radio and went to television in 1965, has had a storied career. It has taken him from small-town Canada to all over the world — even the Middle East, where he entertained for Canadian peacekeepers and United Nations forces in the 1960s.
A reminder comes in the form a bottle of slivovica, or plum brandy, that was signed by an appreciative battalion of Yugoslav soldiers who Hunter once entertained. “I still have it.”
Hunter also retains quirky memories of having tea with sheiks — including one who offered to pay two camels and a donkey for an attractive blond female entertainer he was travelling with. “We said, ‘I’m sorry, but she’s not for sale,’ ” recalls Hunter, who later glibbly told the young woman to take it as a compliment.
“Believe me, two camels is a lot — and he even added a donkey. If she’d played her cards right, he might have thrown in a couple of goats!”
Once, Hunter was entertaining Canadian troops outdoors in Pakistan “and there was a little Arab kid standing behind a fenced-off area with a donkey. When I finished singing, the boy piped up, ‘Can you sing Tom Dooley?’ Everybody cracked up laughing, wondering how did this kid know Tom Dooley?”
Hunter is now single and spends half the year living in Florida and the rest in his native Ontario.
He is proud of his three sons — one is a WestJet pilot, one a pilot for Air Canada and the third a transport driver for an auto race team, who used to work with Mario and Michael Andretti.
Perhaps his sons learned the self-discipline required for their high-pressure careers from their father, who still avoids eating anything heavier than a salad after 2 p.m.
“You can’t wolf down an eight-ounce steak before you perform — you’d feel bloated. I’d never want to do that,” said Hunter.
Tickets for his 2 p.m. concert at the Memorial Centre are $48.80 from the Black Knight Ticket Centre.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com