Wesley Tuttle

Wesley Tuttle played an important role in the development of country music in California. A fine tenor, he enjoyed a number of major hits, including "With Tears in My Eyes" and "Detour", and became a mainstay of the region's leading radio and television barn dances, the Town Hall Party and the Hometown Jamboree, before becoming a noted interpreter of gospel music.

Wesley Tuttle, singer and guitarist: born Lamar, Colorado 30 December 1917; married 1947 Marilyn Myers (one son, and two daughters deceased); died Los Angeles 29 September 2003.

Wesley Tuttle played an important role in the development of country music in California. A fine tenor, he enjoyed a number of major hits, including "With Tears in My Eyes" and "Detour", and became a mainstay of the region's leading radio and television barn dances, the Town Hall Party and the Hometown Jamboree, before becoming a noted interpreter of gospel music.

He was born in Colorado, in 1917, but his family moved to California's San Fernando Valley when he was just four and he regarded it as home for the rest of his life. Both of his parents sang and he was encouraged to perform, eventually learning the ukulele. A freak accident in his father's butcher's shop left him with just a thumb and one finger on his left hand and looked set to curtail his musical activities. However, he relearnt the ukulele and then taught himself to play rhythm guitar.

While still a teenager, Tuttle began to perform locally, briefly joining the western harmony group the Sons of the Pioneers when its founding member Tim Spencer left, and then rejoining them when the vocalist Len Slye departed to pursue a new career as Roy Rogers. He worked alongside his hero, the country pioneer Stuart Hamblen, and later contributed the yodelling heard in the "Silly Song" sequence of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

In 1944, having played guitar on sessions by Capitol Records' first country signing, Tex Ritter, Tuttle became the second act in the genre to be signed by the label. His first release, a version of the Delmore Brothers' "Raining on the Mountains", was backed by "I Dreamed That My Daddy Came Home", a sentimental number that he co-wrote with the guitarist Merle Travis, and proved highly popular. He followed it with "With Tears in My Eyes" (1945) and topped the country charts for a month.

Further substantial hits included "Detour", "I Wish I Had Never Met Sunshine" and "Tho' I Tried (I Can't Forget You)" (all in 1946). He also carved out a decent career on the silver screen, appearing in a series of now largely forgotten westerns alongside Charles Starrett, Russell Hayden and Jimmy Wakely. Tuttle cited his work on Wakely's Song of the Sierras (1946) as a personal favourite.

By this time he had begun both a professional and personal relationship with Marilyn Myers, a one-time singer with the Sunshine Girls whom he married in 1947. They began to concentrate on duet work, and in 1954 enjoyed a Top Twenty hit with "Never". They were also in demand on the area's country-oriented radio and television shows. Having appeared daily on the Foreman Phillips Show, they had a three-year association with the Town Hall Party, a weekly radio and television programme showcasing the region's country-music talent. Its stars during Tuttle's tenure included Tex Ritter, Johnny Bond, Tex Williams, and Joe and Rose Lee Maphis; the show also nurtured the careers of up-and-coming acts such as the Collins Kids.

In 1957 the Tuttles left the Town Hall Party and, following the traumatic death of their four year-old daughter, decided to focus solely on gospel music. They recorded a clutch of gospel albums and sang at religious gatherings and festivals until failing eyesight forced Wesley Tuttle's retirement from performing in the 1970s.

Paul Wadey