Tennessee Ernie Ford

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Tennessee Ernie Ford

Tennessee Ernie Ford (13 February 1919 – 17 October 1991) an American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country & western

Country music

Country music is a blend of popular American music forms originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains. It has roots in Traditional music, Celtic music, gospel music, and old-time music and evolved rapidly in the 1920s....
, pop

Pop music

Pop music is a music genre that features a noticeable rhythmic element, melodies and hook , a mainstream style and a conventional structure.The term "pop music" was first used in 1926 in the sense of "having popular appeal" , but since the 1950s it has been used in the sense of a musical genre, originally characterized as a lighter alternat...
and gospel

Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
musical genres.

Ernest Jennings Ford in Bristol

Bristol, Tennessee

Bristol is a city in Sullivan County, Tennessee, Tennessee, United States. The population was 24,821 at the United States Census, 2000. It is the Twin cities of Bristol, Virginia, which lies directly across the border between Tennessee and Virginia....
, in Sullivan County

Sullivan County, Tennessee

Sullivan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2000, the population was 153,048. Its county seat is Blountville, Tennessee....
in far northeastern Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States United States. In 1796, it became the sixteenth state to join the United States....
, to Clarence Thomas Ford and Maud Long, Ford began his radio career as an announcer at station WOPI in Bristol.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Tennessee Ernie Ford'

Start a new discussion about 'Tennessee Ernie Ford'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

Tennessee Ernie Ford (13 February 1919 – 17 October 1991) an American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country & western

Country music

Pop music

Gospel music

Biography

Early years

Born Ernest Jennings Ford in Bristol

Bristol, Tennessee

Sullivan County, Tennessee

Sullivan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2000, the population was 153,048. Its county seat is Blountville, Tennessee....
in far northeastern Tennessee

Tennessee

Cincinnati Conservatory of Music

The Cincinnati Conservatory of Music was a conservatory, part of a girls' finishing school, founded in 1867 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It merged with the College of Music of Cincinnati in 1955, forming the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, which is now part of the University of Cincinnati....
in Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern United States U.S. state of the United States. As part of the Great Lakes region , Ohio has long been a cultural and geographical crossroads in North America....
. First Lieutenant

First Lieutenant

First Lieutenant is a military rank.The rank of Lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations , but the majority of cases it is common for it to be sub-divided into a senior and junior rank....
Ford served in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
as the bombardier

Bombardier (air force)

A bombardier , in the United States Army Air Forces and United States Air Force, or a bomb aimer, in the Royal Air Force and other Commonwealth of Nations air forces, was the crew member of a bomber responsible for assisting the flight officer in guiding the plane to a bombing target and releasing the aircraft's bomb load....
on a B-29 Superfortress

B-29 Superfortress

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was a four-engine Fixed-wing aircraft#Propeller aircraft heavy bomber that was flown by the United States Military in World War II and the Korean War, and by other nations afterwards....
flying missions over Japan

Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
. After the war, Ford worked at radio stations in San Bernardino

San Bernardino, California

San Bernardino is the county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States. San Bernardino's estimated population, as of 2006, is 205,010....
and Pasadena, California

Pasadena, California

Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, California, United States. Famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl Game American football game and the Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home of many leading scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet Propulsion Laboratory ,...
. In San Bernardino, Ford was hired as a radio announcer. He was assigned to host an early morning country music disc jockey program titled "Bar Nothin' Ranch Time." To differentiate himself, he created the personality of "Tennessee Ernie," a wild, madcap exaggerated hillbilly. He became popular in the area and was soon hired away by Pasadena's KXLA radio.

Ford also did musical tours. The Mayfield Brothers of West Texas

West Texas

West Texas is a region in Texas that has more in common geographically with the Southwestern United States than it does with the rest of the state....
, including Smokey Mayfield, Thomas Edd Mayfield, and Herbert Mayfield, were among Ford's warmup bands, having played for him in concerts in Amarillo

Amarillo, Texas

Amarillo is the 14th-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas, the largest in the Texas Panhandle, and the county seat of Potter County, Texas. A portion of the city extends into Randall County, Texas....
and Lubbock, Texas

Lubbock, Texas

Lubbock is an United States of America city in the U.S. state of Texas. Located in the West Texas part of the state, a region known historically as the Llano Estacado, it is the county seat of Lubbock County, Texas, and the home of Texas Tech University....
, during the late 1940s. At KXLA, Ford continued doing the same show and also joined the cast of Cliffie Stone

Cliffie Stone

Cliffie Stone was a country music singer, musician, record producer, and music publisher.Stone's father was country musician Herman the Hermit....
's popular live KXLA

KXLA

KXLA channel 44 is an independent station television station licensed to Rancho Palos Verdes, California and serving the Los Angeles area. It telecasts languages of Asia programming in Japanese language , Korean language and Vietnamese language as well as infomercials....
country show "Dinner Bell Roundup" as a vocalist while still doing the early morning broadcast. Cliffie Stone, a part-time talent scout for Capitol Records

Capitol Records

Capitol Records is a major United States-based record label owned by EMI and located in Hollywood, California and New York City as part of Capitol Music Group....
, brought him to the attention of the label. In 1949, while still doing his morning show, he signed a contract with Capitol. He also became a local TV star as the star of Stone's popular Southern California Hometown Jamboree

Hometown Jamboree

Hometown Jamboree was an American country music radio and television show broadcast each Saturday night by KXLA radio, Pasadena, California and KTLA-TV, Los Angeles, California....
TV show. He released almost 50 country singles

Single (music)

In the record industry, a single is a song usually used from a current or upcoming album to promote the album. Singles are distributed through a number of ways; originally, they were packaged as "single" records with one or two other songs and sold before the release of the album....
through the early 1950s, several of which made the charts. Many of his early records, including "Shotgun Boogie," "Blackberry Boogie," and so on were exciting, driving boogie-woogie records featuring accompaniment by the Hometown Jamboree band which included Jimmy Bryant

Jimmy Bryant

Jimmy Bryant was a prominent United States session guitarist. He was billed as "The Fastest Guitar in the Country"....
on lead guitar and pioneer pedal steel guitarist Speedy West

Speedy West

Wesley Webb "Speedy" West was an United States pedal steel guitarist and record producer. He frequently played with Jimmy Bryant, both in their own duo and as part of the regular Capitol Records backing band for Tennessee Ernie Ford and many others....
. "I'll Never Be Free," a duet pairing Ford with Capitol Records pop singer Kay Starr

Kay Starr

Kay Starr is an United States jazz singer who enjoyed considerable success in the 1950s....
, became a huge country and pop crossover hit in 1950.

Ford eventually ended his KXLA morning show and in the early 1950's, moved on from Hometown Jamboree

Hometown Jamboree

Kay Kyser

James Kern Kyser was a popular bandleader and radio personality of the 1930s and 1940s....
as host of the TV version of NBC quiz show

Quiz Show

Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film which tells the true story of the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s. It stars John Turturro, Rob Morrow, Ralph Fiennes, Paul Scofield, David Paymer, Hank Azaria, and Christopher McDonald....
Kollege of Musical Knowledge when it returned briefly in 1954 after a four-year hiatus. He became a household name in the U.S. largely as a result of his portrayal of the 'country bumpkin,' "Cousin Ernie" on I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy

I Love Lucy is an United States situation comedy, starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15 1951 to April 1 1960 on CBS....
.

"Sixteen Tons"

Ford scored an unexpected hit on the pop charts in 1955 with his rendition of Merle Travis

Merle Travis

Merle Robert Travis was an United States country and western singer, songwriter, and musician born in Rosewood, Kentucky. His lyrics often discussed the exploitation of coal miners....
' "Sixteen Tons

Sixteen Tons

"Sixteen Tons" is a song about the misery of coal mining, first recorded in 1946 by United States country music singer Merle Travis and released on his box set album Folk Songs of the Hills the following year....
," a sparsely arranged coal-miner's lament that Travis wrote in 1946, based on his own family's experience in the mines of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky

Muhlenberg County, Kentucky

Muhlenberg County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of 2000, the population was 31,839. The county is named for Peter Muhlenberg....
. Its fatalistic tone contrasted vividly with the sugary pop ballads and the rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a form of music that evolved in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its roots lay mainly in rhythm and blues, Country music, folk music, gospel music, and jazz....
just starting to dominate the charts at the time:

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt.

Saint Peter
Saint Peter

Saint Peter was a leader of the early Christianity church, who features prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles....
, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;

I owe my soul to the company store...

With a unique clarinet-driven pop arrangement by Ford's musical director, Jack Fascinato, "Sixteen Tons" spent ten weeks at number one on the country charts and eight weeks at number one on the pop charts, and made Ford a crossover star. It became Ford's 'signature song.'

Later years

Ford subsequently helmed his own primetime variety program, The Ford Show, which ran on NBC from 1956 to 1961. In an ironic play of words, the show was named not after Ernie, but rather, the sponsor - Ford automobiles. Ford's program was notable for the inclusion of a religious song at the end of every show; Ford insisted on this despite objections from network officials who feared it might provoke controversy. He earned the nickname "The Ol' Pea-Picker" due to his catch-phrase, "Bless your pea-pickin' heart!" He began using the term during his disc jockey days on KXLA.

A photo of Ford with country singer Hank Thompson and Dallas nightclubs owner Jack Ruby

Jack Ruby

Jacob Rubenstein , who legally changed his name to Jack Leon Ruby in 1947, was an United States nightclub operator in Dallas, Texas, Texas....
appeared in the 1988 book, "The Ruby-Oswald Affair" by Alan Adelson.

In 1956 he released "Hymns", his first gospel album, which remained on Billboard's "Top Album" charts for a remarkable 277 consecutive weeks; his album "Great Gospel Songs" won a Grammy Award

Grammy Award

The Grammy Awards ?or Grammys?are presented annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States for outstanding achievements in the music industry....
in 1964. After the NBC show ended, Ford moved his family to Woodside

Woodside, California

Woodside is a small List of cities in California in San Mateo County, California, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. It uses a council-manager government....
in Northern California. He also owned a cabin near Grandjean, Idaho

Idaho

The State of Idaho is a U.S. state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America. The state's largest city and Capital is Boise, Idaho....
on the upper South Fork of the Payette River

Payette River

The Payette River is a river in southwestern Idaho, and is a major tributary of the Snake River.Its headwaters originate in the Sawtooth Range and Salmon River mountains at elevations over 10,000 feet ....
where he would regularly retreat.

From 1962-65, Ford hosted a daytime talk show The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show from KGO-TV

KGO-TV

KGO-TV, channel 7, based in San Francisco, California, is an owned-and-operated station of The Walt Disney Company subsidiary American Broadcasting Company....
in San Francisco, broadcast over the ABC television network.

Ford was the spokesman for the Pontiac Furniture Company in Pontiac, Illinois

Pontiac, Illinois

Pontiac is a city in Livingston County, Illinois, Illinois, United States. The population was 11,864 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Livingston County, Illinois....
in the 1970s.

Over the years, Ford was awarded three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Hollywood Walk of Fame

The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a sidewalk along Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA, that serves as an entertainment hall of fame....
, for radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals, by modulation of electromagnetic radiation with frequency below those of visible light.Electromagnetic radiation radio propagation by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space....
, records, and television

Television

Television is a widely used telecommunication mass-media for transmitting and receiving moving , either monochrome or color, usually accompanied by sound....
. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Presidential Medal of Freedom

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is a decoration bestowed by the President of the United States and is, along with theequivalent Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of United States Congress, the highest Civilian decorations of the United States in the United States....
in 1984, and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1990.

Offstage, both Ford and wife Betty contended with serious alcohol problems. He was able to work for years, seemingly unaffected by his intake of Cutty Sark whiskey

Whisky

Whisky or whiskey refers to a broad category of Distilled beverages that are distilled from Fermentation grain Mashing and aged in wooden casks ....
, but by the 1970s it had begun to take an increasing toll on his health and ability to sing. After Betty's substance abuse-related death in 1989, Ernie's worsening liver problems became more apparent. In 1990, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. His last interview was taped in September 1991 by his old friend Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore

Dinah Shore was an United States singer, actress, and Celebrity. She was most popular during the Big Band era of the 1940s and 1950s.After failing singing auditions for the bands of Benny Goodman and both Jimmy Dorsey and his brother Tommy Dorsey, Shore struck out on her own to become the first singer of her era to achieve huge solo succe...
for her TV show. His physical deterioration by then was quite obvious.

Ford received posthumous recognition for his gospel music contributions by adding him to the Gospel Music Association

Gospel Music Association

The Gospel Music Association was founded in 1964 for the purpose of supporting and promoting the development of all forms of Gospel music. There are currently more than 4,200 members worldwide....
's Gospel Music Hall of Fame

Gospel Music Hall of Fame

The Gospel Music Hall of Fame, created in 1971 by the Gospel Music Association, is a Hall of Fame dedicated exclusively to recognizing meaningful contributions by individuals in all forms of gospel music....
in 1994.

Personal life

Ford was married to Betty Heminger from September 18, 1942, until her death on February 26, 1989. They had two children. Less than four months after Betty's death, Ford married again. In October 1991, he fell into severe liver failure

Liver failure

Acute liver failure is the appearance of severe complications rapidly after the first signs of liver disease , and indicates that the liver has sustained severe damage ....
at Dulles Airport, shortly after leaving a state dinner

State dinner

State dinners in different countries follow different rules and are governed by different Protocol ....
at the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., it was built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the late Georgian architecture and has been the executive residence of every U.S....
hosted by then President George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush

George Herbert Walker Bush served as the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States from 1989 to 1993. Bush held a variety of political positions prior to his presidency, including Vice President of the United States in the administration of Ronald Reagan and Director of Central Intelligence under Gerald R....
. Ford died in H. C. A. Reston Hospital Center, in Reston, Virginia

Reston, Virginia

Reston is an internationally known planned community whose goal was to revolutionize Post-war concepts of land use and residential/corporate development in American suburbia....
, on October 17 - exactly thirty-six years after "Sixteen Tons" was released, and one day shy of the first anniversary of his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Ford was interred at Alta Mesa Memorial Park, Palo Alto, California. Plot: Lot 242 Sub 1, Urn Garden. His second wife, Beverly (Wood) Ford (1921-2001), died ten years after Ernie and her body was interred with her husband's.

Discography

1948 Keep Lookin' Up - Word
1955 This Lusty Land! - Capitol
1956 Hymns
Hymns (Tennessee Ernie Ford album)

Hymns is an album recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford that was released in 1956. This was the second best selling record in the US in 1957. The album is one of the best selling of all time and spent 277 weeks on the Billboard 200....
- Capitol
1957 Ol' Rockin' Ern' - Capitol
1957 Spirituals - Capitol
1958 Nearer the Cross - Capitol
1958 The Star Carol - Capitol
1959 Gather 'Round - Capitol
1960 Come to the Fair - Capitol
1960 Sixteen Tons - Capitol
1960 What a Friend We Have - Capitol
1961 Civil War Songs of the North - Capitol
1961 Civil War Songs of the South - Capitol
1961 Hymns at Home - Capitol
1962 Book of Favorite Hymns - Capitol
1962 Here Comes the Mississippi Showboat - Capitol
1962 I Love to Tell the Story - Capitol
1963 Long, Long Ago - Capitol
1963 The Story of Christmas - Capitol
1965 Sing We Now of Christmas - Capitol
1966 Bless Your Pea Pickin' Heart! - Pickwick
1966 My Favorite Things - Capitol
1967 Civil War Songs of the South - Capitol
1967 Aloha from Tennessee Ernie Ford - Capitol
1968 Tennessee Ernie Ford Deluxe Set - Capitol
196? I Love You So Much It Hurts Me - Pickwick
1970 America the Beautiful - Capitol
1970 Sweet Hour of Prayer - CEMA
1971 Mr. Words and Music - Capitol
1973 Country Morning - Capitol
1975 Ernie Sings & Glen Picks
Ernie Sings & Glen Picks

Ernie Sings & Glen Picks is an album by singer Tennessee Ernie Ford and singer/guitarist Glen Campbell, released in 1975 ....
- Capitol
1975 Make a Joyful Noise - Capitol
1975 Precious Memories - Capitol
1976 For The 83rd Time - Capitol
1977 He Touched Me - Word
1978 Swing Wide Your Golden Gate - Word
1981 Tell Me the Old, Old Story - Word
1991 Sings Songs of the Civil War - Capitol
1991 Red, White & Blue - Capitol
1991 The Heart of Christmas - Capitol
1992 Favorite Hymns - Vanguard
1992 My Christmas Favorites - CEMA
1994 Showtime A Touch Of Magic
1995 What a Friend We Have in Jesus - Arrival
1995 Christmas with Tennessee Ernie Ford & Wayne Newton - Cema Special Markets
1995 Christmas - Cema Special Markets
1995 Favorite Songs of Christmas - Cema Special Markets
2004 For the New Crop - Heartcore
2006 The HoneyMoon's Over - Pegasus

Tennessee Ernie Ford

Biography

Early years

"Sixteen Tons"

Later years

Personal life

Discography

External links