Comedian Cowboy Bill Martin has been busy these days touring all over the world. The comedy veteran now splits his time sometimes as the headliner of his own U.S. tour, sometimes as a featured fly-on entertainer on Carnival cruise-ships, other times on goodwill tours to soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has also just shot his first one-hour television special that will air 2014. ?But one of his latest acts is, well, a hat act — but perhaps not in the way you’re thinking.
Martin, who is an actor, screenwriter, songwriter, and has toured over the years with George Strait, Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts, the late, great, George Jones and all four Blue Collar men, is also the President, Founder and CEO of a non-profit organization called, Cowboys Who Care Foundation which provides financial support, smiles and Free Resistol cowboy and cowgirl hats to kids with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.
Martin is also the President, Founder and CEO of a non-profit organization called, Cowboys Who Care Foundation which provides financial support, smiles and Free Resistol cowboy and cowgirl hats to kids with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.
Martin came up with idea after being asked to perform at a fundraising golf tournament for a young fan named Ashley Miller from Celina, TX, who was battling a rare form of cancer. Martin said, “Ashley’s story had such an impact on me. And when she bravely lost her battle in June 2011, I knew I wanted to help other kids like her. And I couldn’t figure it out.
Then one day I searched on my computer, ‘Kids with cancer – Images’, just to sort of open it up to the universe. I found all these pictures of kids with big, beautiful smiles and baldheads and in the mirror, I could see my cowboy hat. And then it hit me, ‘these kids need cowboy hats’. After all, what kid wants to wear a wig, but what kid wouldn’t want to wear a cowboy hat?”
In their first year, CWCF delivered a little over 1,600 brand new Resistol cowboy and cowgirl hats to children’s hospitals around the country including Las Vegas, Sacramento, Cleveland, Dallas, Fort Worth, Kansas City, Little Rock, Columbia, and to organizations like Camp COCO, a summer camp for kids with cancer in Southern Illinois.
Martin says they are not stopping there. “At night, when you come see my show, I want to double you over with laughter,” Martin recently said, “but just importantly to me in every chance we get to make those afternoon visits to the children’s hospitals in the cities we are touring. Those smiles on those kids’ faces beat anything else I do professionally.”
Martin has traveled the world doing his own brand of original stand-up comedy with talk about love, the frailty of life and the magnitude of being a modern man. Sure he wears cowboy garb on stage and he speaks with a Texas accent but his comedy touches people of all cultures.
JD Ryan with CBS Radio, calls Martin’s act “raucous, rowdy and nothing you’ve come to expect with a ‘country’ comedian. It’s like spending time late night at the kitchen table with your cousin, laughing until you cry. Then you find out he’s a big, loud Texan with a great big heart. And you can’t help but love the guy.” So whether you are from the big city or a small town, get ready to see America’s brightest new stand-up star.
