Tommy Hunter gave Canadian country music a national stage. Now the country gentleman is gone.

Tommy Hunter spent nearly three decades welcoming Canadians into his living room every week, and now the country is saying goodbye to him.

The London, Ontario native, known across the country as “Canada’s Country Gentleman,” died Thursday at age 89. His business manager, Brian Edwards, confirmed he passed of natural causes at a London retirement home, where he had been living for the past few months.

How he died

Edwards said Hunter passed peacefully in his sleep, surrounded by his family and his dog.

“As the old saying goes, we’re all heartbroken at the same time,” Edwards said. “When someone goes peacefully like that and everything, it’s kind of a blessing.”

Edwards had spoken with the family throughout the week as Hunter’s health declined, and said they are doing well under the circumstances.

Hunter’s dog, a rescue, was by his side when he died.

“That was his little heart and soul,” Edwards said.

The country star was a longtime animal lover who supported the Humane Society and various rescue dog charities over the years, according to Edwards.

Hunter is survived by his three children, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

From guitar picker to CBC star

Hunter was born on March 20, 1937. He picked up the guitar at age nine and made his professional debut just a few years later, playing hospitals, movie theatres and garden parties for whatever they’d pay him.

He was still a teenager when he landed his first real break: a spot as rhythm guitarist with King Ganam’s band, Sons of the West, on the CBC-TV series “Country Hoedown.” As his profile grew, CBC handed him a daily lunchtime radio program where he mixed country music with pop tunes.

At 28, after nine years on “Country Hoedown,” Hunter got his own show.

He knew right away he wanted to break from the hayseed image that shows like “Country Hoedown” had leaned into. He wanted country music treated with legitimacy, and he wanted an audience beyond the genre’s core fans.

Twenty-seven years on the air

“The Tommy Hunter Show” launched in black and white in 1965 and stayed on CBC until 1992, a run of nearly 27 years that made it the longest-running music program in North America at the time of its cancellation. It later aired on The Nashville Network too, where it was often the country station’s most-watched show.

Hunter picked up a Gemini Award for the program along the way. But he never pretended the competition was fierce.

“There was one network,” he told The Canadian Press in a 2010 interview, reflecting on the show’s early days. “So they didn’t have a lot of choice. (The TV) was either on or off.”

The guest list over those 27 years reads like a country music hall of fame roll call: Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Alan Jackson, Anne Murray, Trisha Yearwood, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, the Judd family, Hank Snow, Clint Black, Martina McBride, and a young Shania Twain, back when she still went by Eileen.

“We had the old and the new,” Hunter said of the booking philosophy in that same 2010 interview. “I never turned my back on the new performers that were coming along but I never turned my back on the old ones either.”

He was equally clear about the tone he wanted.

“I tried to hit a very high quality mark. I wanted it to be a good family show, that familes could sit down and watch together. There were no dirty jokes and there was no smutty language. There was none of that.”

The hits and the honours

Hunter charted a string of hits during his TV run, most famously “Travellin’ Man,” which doubled as his show’s theme song. Recording for Columbia and its Harmony label through the 1960s and ’70s, he also landed successful singles with “Cup of Disgrace,” “Walk With Your Neighbour,” “Born to be a Gypsy” and “The Battle of the Little Big Horn.” He won the Juno for top male country artist in 1970.

Cancellation didn’t slow him down much. Hunter kept touring, playing as many as 70 dates a year, and returned to CBC for a 2003 special that drew more than a million viewers.

He beat prostate cancer after surgery in 2004, and by 2010 said he felt healthy with nothing pressing to worry about. Still, that year he announced his final Canadian tour, splitting the dates between 2011 and 2012. He was 73, and he wasn’t interested in overstaying his welcome.

“One of the things that I was always fearful about, and I always said to people around me, is that if I ever felt that I couldn’t hit that mark, I would throw in the towel very, very quickly,” he said at the time.

“Well, I haven’t hit that point yet, but it’s like anything else: you know that you’re getting older and someday it’s going to happen. And I’m in good health, I can still sing, so I want to go out when I can still do the things and not disappoint an audience.”

Hunter was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 1984, and was named to both the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada.

Edwards said Hunter’s legacy will always come back to the TV show, and to the fans who kept it on the air for nearly three decades.

“Those fans meant everything to him … he knew that they were the ones that kept him on there (on TV) and he always respected that.”

Tributes from the country music community

The Canadian Country Music Association released a statement mourning Hunter as one of the most influential and beloved figures in the history of Canadian country music.

The organization credited him with helping define the identity of Canadian country music and inspiring generations of performers, pointing to his 1984 Hall of Fame induction as recognition of his lasting impact on the genre. The CCMA also noted his Order of Canada and Order of Ontario appointments among the honours celebrating a career devoted to Canadian music and public service.

“Tommy Hunter’s legacy is woven into the fabric of Canadian country music,” the CCMA said. “His influence lives on in the artists he inspired, the audiences he brought together, and the enduring spirit of a genre he helped elevate for generations.”

Front Porch

In country music, the Front Porch has long been a place of reflection. A place where you can look at the life you have inside that front door. A place where time almost seems to stand still, where you can get away. It’s also a place where you can go to observe the world as it passes by you. To think about your place out there beyond the driveway.