Slim Whitman talks about reports of his death

From The Tennessean
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Slim Whitman talks about reports of his death

By LINDA ZETTLER
Entertainment Editor
Published: Wednesday, 01/23/08

Slim Whitman would like to clear something up: He’s alive and doing pretty well despite reports of his death on MondayThe country singer, who experienced his first surge in popularity in the ’50s, has no idea how it got started. But e-mails began circulating and next thing you know, a disc jockey was announcing it on the air, a tearful friend performing on stage was announcing it to his audience and online sources reported it in news updates, including Tennessean.com on Monday.“All of a sudden on Sunday, Jan. 20, I died,” said Whitman, who turned 84 on Sunday. “I knew it was a lie. I kept looking at it. I thought, this could sort of get out of hand here. I thought, oh well, if it gets out of hand, I’ll go on a TV show and show them that I’m not dead.”Whitman, a Grand Ole Opry guest in the mid-1950s, has traveled the world spreading his brand of country music, enjoying chart success in England in particular. Known for his high falsetto on songs such as “Indian Love Call” and “Secret Love,” Whitman toured last in 2002. But that’s not because of his physical condition.“The wife is on dialysis, so she can’t go. I would not go back to England and leave her, so I just tell them I can’t go. I take care of her,” he said. Whitman met his wife Jerry when she was 13, and they’ve been married 66 years. She bought him his first guitar and was his announcer as he started in radio. “I would probably not have gone on radio if it hadn’t been for the wife…. She is probably the reason I was in show business.”Whitman lives on his Woodpecker Paradise estate outside Jacksonville, Fla. He says he’s in great shape. The only medication he takes is an aspirin every other day because his doctor told him to. He doesn’t even wear glasses.“As a matter of fact I don’t feel anything like 84 years old. …I don’t know why I don’t, but I don’t feel like an old man,” he said. The fact that people recognize him in the grocery store still leads him to believe he doesn’t look like an old man either.This morning, Whitman spent time on the air for a Jacksonville radio station and he has gotten many inquiries since the news of his death circulated.“It seems like every 10 years something weird happens like that,” said Whitman. Last decade, it was that the 1996 Tim Burton film Mars Attacks! used his voice as a martian-killing weapon, saving the world from invaders.It keeps things interesting.“I’m here," he said. "I’m happy to be alive.”Published: Wednesday, 01/23/08