Country CKSW

Art Wallman was one of southwest Saskatchewan’s most beloved country broadcasters, singers, and community entertainers — a man whose voice became part of everyday life for generations of CKSW listeners in Swift Current. Born Arthur L. Wallman on July 12, 1928, at Kelvington, Saskatchewan, he built a remarkable public life despite the challenges of spastic paralysis. Determined, musical, and deeply connected to people, Wallman taught himself to read and play guitar, eventually turning that persistence into a career that joined radio, country music, dance bands, community service, and public inspiration.

Before becoming a fixture on the airwaves, Wallman was already active as a musician. From 1952 to 1957, he performed with Johnny Manz Radio Rangers, a Regina-based group, and by the 1960s he had found the platform that would define him. In 1960, he joined CKSW in Swift Current, where for thirty-six years he greeted his afternoon listeners with the warm invitation to “pull up a plank and draw in real tight, we’ve got some pickin’ to do.” His radio presence was intimate and familiar — not distant broadcasting, but conversation with neighbours, farmers, dancers, families, and country-music fans across the southwest.

That bond with his audience sits at the heart of Country CKSW, Wallman’s privately released LP. In the liner notes, he writes of the voices in his earphones each afternoon, the faces on the street, and the people on crowded dance floors as “my friends and my life.” The album was dedicated to those listeners who had stood by him for more than two decades. Its songs were not chosen for novelty or fashion, but because he had played them for his audience over the years and loved to sing them: country standards and sentimental favourites such as “Jambalaya,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “Heartaches By The Number,” “Crazy Arms,” “The Keys In The Mailbox,” “My Woman My Life,” and “Power In The Blood.”

Recorded at JK Musical Services Ltd. in Regina, the album surrounded Wallman with a polished studio band, including Larri Oakman on drums and backing vocals, Mel Matthews on electric bass, Murray Fiesel on guitar and steel guitar, Stan Olenick on piano, Dave Voneau on backing vocals, and a string section featuring Howard Leyton-Brown, Ernie Kassiam, Marcell Stuppard, and Ray Hoffman. Ken Hartfield produced, arranged, and engineered the project, with additional engineering by Murray Fiesel. Wallman thanked the players for performing “like they were backing Ray Price or Marty Robbins,” a revealing comparison that places the record squarely in the smooth, heartfelt country tradition he admired.

Outside the studio, Wallman was also a working bandleader. Art Wallman and the Ambassadors played wedding dances and special events throughout southwest Saskatchewan for more than twenty-five years, carrying the same warmth and accessibility that marked his radio career. His life was inseparable from community: the dance floor, the airwaves, local service clubs, charity events, country-music gatherings, and the rural people who regarded him not simply as a broadcaster but as one of their own.

Wallman’s achievements were widely recognized. He received the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 1989, was named Swift Current Citizen of the Year, became a member of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Quarter Century Club, received life membership in the Western Association of Broadcasters, and earned honours from the Saskatchewan Country Music Association. Swift Current recognized him with Wallman Place, and he was also honoured by local service and civic organizations. In 2003, he was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame as a broadcaster, and in 2011 he received the Scotiabank Humanitarian Award for Lifetime Achievement.

He also wrote his autobiography, A Good Day To Be Alive, a title that perfectly captured the spirit people associated with him. Wallman’s life was not defined by limitation, but by gratitude, humour, persistence, and connection. He married Marlene Abell, the love of his life, in Las Vegas in 1989, and remained a cherished figure in Swift Current and beyond.

Art Wallman died on June 23, 2011, but his legacy remains unusually broad: country singer, dance-band leader, radio host, disability pioneer, community builder, and Hall of Fame broadcaster. Country CKSW preserves the musical side of that story — the voice of a man who spent decades speaking and singing directly to the people of southwest Saskatchewan, and who meant it when he called them his friends and his life.

-Robert Williston