Family: Country singer Slim Whitman dies at age 90
Family: Country singer Slim Whitman dies at age 90
MIAMI (AP) — Country singer Slim Whitman, the high-pitched yodeler who sold millions of records through ever-present TV ads in the 1980s and 1990s and whose song saved the world in the film comedy "Mars Attacks!," died Wednesday at a Florida hospital. He was 90.
Whitman died of heart failure at Orange Park Medical Center, his son-in-law Roy Beagle said.
Whitman's tenor falsetto and ebony mustache and sideburns became global trademarks — and an inspiration for countless jokes — thanks to the TV commercials that pitched his records.
But he was a serious musical influence on early rock, and in the British Isles, he was known as a pioneer of country music for popularizing the style there. Whitman also encouraged a teen Elvis Presley when he was the headliner on the bill and the young singer was making his professional debut.
http://news.yahoo.com/family-country-singer-slim-whitman-dies-age-90-142807940.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Most Americans would be shocked at the reception Country and Western music receives in the rural Caribbean. Even today they play a lot of Jim Reeves and Slim Whitman in rural rum shops 
It took months of hinting to my father ("that man can really sing!"
before he finally bought her that Slim whitman's greatest hits LP being flogged on TV.
When it finally arrived, she excitedly put it on the turntable to listen. It took only minutes before I was rolling on the floor laughing and making unfavourable comparisons to howling coyotes. It took all the pleasure out if for her, and she never listened to that LP again.
Sorry, Slim, but I have no regrets. R.I.P.
