Tennessee Ernie Ford Biography

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Tennessee Ernie Ford
Country Music | 3 CD Set
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Ernie Ford took his Tennessee hillbilly image to California and built a career while offering one of the most versatile packages of entertainment in show business. Born in Bristol, Tennessee in 1919, Ernest Jennings Ford began singing at age four when he learned the words to "The Old Rugged Cross," certainly an early indication of where this eventual bass/baritone singer was headed. Considered a country singer with a corny image, Ford nevertheless by the end of his career was equally well known for his gospel singing. He was not a preacher sort of gospel singer and he even said at one point that gospel had many different styles, from black music to old-fashioned hymns and that the singer "didn't have to sign them with a black robe on" to get the point across. However, Ford began his show business career when he took a job with a local radio station while taking singing lessons. He subsequently did radio announcing at stations in Atlanta and Knoxville (where he was working in 1941; he announced the attack on Pearl Harbor). After service in the Army Air Corps, he moved to California to work at radio stations in San Bernardino and then Pasadena, tossing in cowbells and some bass harmonies to records he was playing. This led to his Tennessee Ernie Ford character and his "Tennessee Pea-picker" image as he wore overalls and assumed the yokel role. Ford was heard on the radio singing along with something when a record executive heard him and queried his boss, Cliffie Stone (who soon became his manager), and in 1949 Ernie had his first record, "Milk 'Em In The Morning Blues." Then came country chart success. He also did his version of "Mule Train" despite its overwhelming success by Frankie Laine, Vaughn Monroe and Gene Autry, Ford's topping the country chart. (He had occasional other hits with other people's songs.) Capitol Records also teamed him up with other artists for duets with Ella Mae Morse, Dinning Sisters and Kay Starr. His popularity was high as the '50s began, including chart-toppers in the United Kingdom. Soon he was hosting a daily television show that apparently was taking more time than Capitol Records cared about, so the company told him he would have to record soon or be in breach of his contract. So Ford decided to record a song he had been signing on his television show, a Merle Travis tune about a coal miner. Travis' song was about his miner father, who had told him many times while growing up that "his soul belonged to the company store." Ford made the song, "Sixteen Tons," a major hit on both country and pop charts, where it lasted at No. 1 for eight weeks in 1955. It carried Tennessee Ernie to new heights. His next television show ran 1956-61. He ended each thirty minute show with a hymn, putting another stamp of approval on his career as he recorded some 400 gospel songs, including an album, HYMNS, that stayed on the album chart for five years. He won a Grammy in 1964 for GREAT GOSPEL SONGS, done with the legendary gospel group The Jordanaires. By the 60's, he was slowing down in live shows but continued recording, going from gospel to country and pop, including an album ERNIE SINGS & GLEN PICKS with Glen Campbell. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1990. He died in 1991.

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