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(Excerpt from the article mentioned above)
By Dennis McLellan
(Los Angeles) Times Staff Writer
Wesley Tuttle, a singer and recording artist who helped popularize country and western music
in Southern California in the 1940s and '50s on such television programs as "Town Hall Party," has
died. He was 85.
Tuttle, who was inducted into the Western Music Hall of Fame in 1997, died of heart failure
Monday in a nursing home in Sylmar. He lived in San Fernando.
Known for his versatility, which ranged from a hard "hillbilly" sound to smooth
western vocals, Tuttle signed with Capitol Records in 1944. He was the third country singer
signed by the label, following Jack Guthrie and Tex Ritter.
In 1945, Tuttle's "With Tears in My Eyes" spent four weeks at the top of Billboard's
country chart. He also had other hits in 1945 and '46, with "Detour," "I Wish I Had Never
Met Sunshine" and "Tho' I Tried."
During the 1940s, Tuttle sang in nearly a dozen B-westerns starring Ritter, Johnny Mack Brown,
Russell Hayden, Jimmy Wakely and others.
He also had the distinction of being one of the singers who did the yodeling for the
dwarfs in Walt Disney's 1937 animation classic "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
On local television in Los Angeles, Tuttle appeared on Cliffie Stone's "Hometown Jamboree"
in the late 1940s and on "Foreman Phillips' Round--Up" in 1950. But Tuttle was best known
as a regular on "Town Hall Party," a Friday-night radio show broadcast on KFI and a
Saturday-night television show broadcast on KTTV from a dance hall in Compton.
Born in Lamar, Colo., on Dec. 30, 1917, Tuttle moved with his family to San Fernando in 1922. At age 6, while helping his father in his Chatsworth butcher shop, Tuttle's hand got caught in a meat grinder. The accident cost him the middle three fingers of his left hand.
In addition to his wife of 57 years, Tuttle is survived by two sons, Wesley and Matt;
seven grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
A memorial service with music by Gail and Curly Musgrave will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday
at First Church of Christ, 606 Chatsworth Drive, San Fernando.
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