Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2002 | Page 144

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Popular Culture Review

changed under the influence of popular music and rock and roll over the next decades
(Toches, 1977, p. 90). This cut into his record sales, but he kept recording and
selling until R.C.A. released him from the label after 45 years—the longest tenure
of any artist with a record label in music history—and not coincidentally after Snow’s
longtime accountant audited R.C.A. and found that the company had short-changed
him on royalties. (Mason, 1985, pp. 74-75; Snow, 1994, pp.479-483).
During his long career. Snow did a lot of what he later called “hard
travelling.” He spent endless days and nights in tour buses moving coast to coast
across the United States and Canada. He also toured Europe and Asia several times.
During the Korean War, he performed for the troops and, upon returning home, he
sent letters to the families of many of the servicemen he had met. In Tokyo, he
sang on the local version of the Grand Ole Opry and brought several Japanese
performers to Nashville to perform there. (Snow, 1994, pp.342-350).
In a way, this all reflected a contradiction. Once he had become established
as a country star in the United States, Snow traveled heavily, but his life centered
on his hard-won home. Thus while he had to be on the road, constantly moving, at
home he kept things just the way they were. Even in his career he proved able to do
this: the Saturda 䁹