It wasn’t a great time to be starting out, but the couple began dating and soon were married; a couple of years later a son came along, Jimmie Rodgers Snow, named after Hank’s favorite, who had recently passed away in New York. About this time, Hank finally found a big-time sponsor for his show: Crazy Water Crystals, the wonderful laxative company who had sponsored groups like the Carter Family, the Monroe Brothers, Mainer’s Mountaineers, and others.
To streamline his act, Hank began calling himself “Hank, the Yodeling Ranger.” A tribute to Rodgers, the title was drawn from a song Rodgers had written after being named an honorary Texas Ranger. Later, when his voice deepened and yodeling became less important in his act, Hank changed the name to “Hank, the Singing Ranger.” Many of his early records do not even mention his last name: just “Hank, the Singing Ranger” appears on the label.
Other breaks followed as people throughout eastern Canada began to notice the smooth, confident singing and yodeling that would become the Snow trademark. A spot on Canadian network radio helped him build a coast-to-coast following, and on October 10, 1936, in an old church in Montreal, he made his first records—two Snow originals entitled “Prisoned Cowboy” (a prison song) and “Lonesome Blue Yodel” (“a Jimmie Rodgers type thing”).
A series of releases on RCA’s Canadian Bluebird label followed, and a string of early hits: “The Blue Velvet Band,” “Galveston Rose,” “My Blue River Rose,” and “I’ll Not Forget My Mother’s Prayer.” Between 1936 and 1949, when he began recording for RCA’s United States label, Hank had over ninety songs issued in Canada—records that were seldom released in the States. His American fans had to smuggle them in from Canada when and where they could.