Stuart Hamblen

Stuart Hamblen, the first singing cowboy on radio, was the son of a Methodist minister who composed and sang cowboy songs and acted in movies with John Wayne, Roy Rogers and other Western stars. When not singing and composing songs he was a hard-drinking man who often got into fights leading to jail time. In 1949 when a young evangelist named Billy Graham pitched a tent near Los Angeles Stuart Hamblen invited Graham to appear on his cowboy music radio show and promote his crusade. Billy Graham visited his radio show and invited Hamblen to visit the church crusade that evening, and it was after the service while visiting Graham in his hotel room that Stuart Hamblen prayed with Billy Graham and turned his life around. Later, while talking with John Wayne about his experience he mentioned that it was no secret what God could do with a person, given the opportunity. John Wayne remarked that it sounded like a song, and Stuart Hamblen became more famous for the song, "It Is No Secret" than for anything else that he wrote of performed.