Tennessee Ernie Ford

Name	Tennessee Ernie Ford
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Ernest Jennings Ford
Born	February 13, 1919 Bristol, Tennessee, United States
Died	October 17, 1991 Reston, Virginia, United States
Instrument	Vocals, Guitar
Genre	Country & Western, Pop, Gospel
Occupation	Singer, actor

Ernest Jennings Ford (February 13, 1919 – October 17, 1991), better known as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was an American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres.

Biography

Early years

Born in Bristol, Tennessee, to Clarence Thomas Ford and Maud Long, Ford began his radio career as an announcer at WOPI-AM in Bristol, Tennessee. In 1939, he left the station to pursue classical music and voice at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in Ohio. First Lieutenant Ford served in World War II as the bombardier on a B-29 Superfortress flying missions over Japan. After the war, Ford worked at radio stations in San Bernardino and Pasadena, California. 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, including Smokey Mayfield, Thomas Edd Mayfield, and Herbert Mayfield, were among Ford's warmup bands, having played for him in concerts in Amarillo and Lubbock, Texas, during the late 1940s. At KXLA, Ford continued doing the same show and also joined the cast of Cliffie Stone's popular live KXLA 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, 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 show. RadiOzark produced 260 15-minute episodes of The Tennessee Ernie Show on transcription disks for national radio syndication.

He released almost 50 country singles through the early 1950s, several of which made the charts. Many of his early records, including "The Shotgun Boogie", "Blackberry Boogie," and so on were exciting, driving boogie-woogie records featuring accompaniment by the Hometown Jamboree band which included Jimmy Bryant on lead guitar and pioneer pedal steel guitarist Speedy West. "I'll Never Be Free," a duet pairing Ford with Capitol Records pop singer Kay Starr, became a huge country and pop crossover hit in 1950. A duet with Ella Mae Morse, False Hearted Girl was a top seller for the Capitol Country and Hillbilly division, and has been evaluated as an early tune.

Ford eventually ended his KXLA morning show and in the early1950s, moved on from Hometown Jamboree. He took over from bandleader Kay Kyser as host of the TV version of NBC quiz show 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 hilarious portrayal of the 'country bumpkin,' "Cousin Ernie" on a few episodes of I Love Lucy. He called Ricky Ricardo "Cousin Rickido".

In 1955, Ford recorded "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier" (which reached number 4 on the country chart) with "Farewell to the Mountains" on side B.

"Sixteen Tons"

Ford scored an unexpected hit on the pop charts in 1955 with his rendition of Merle Travis' "Sixteen Tons", 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. Its fatalistic tone contrasted vividly with the sugary pop ballads and the rock and roll 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, 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 prime-time variety program, The Ford Show, which ran on NBC television 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. This became the most popular segment of his show. 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.

In 1956 he released Hymns, his first gospel music album, which remained on Billboard's Top Album charts for 277 consecutive weeks; his album "Great Gospel Songs" won a Grammy Award in 1964. After the NBC show ended, Ford moved his family to Woodside in Northern California. He also owned a cabin near Grandjean, Idaho on the upper South Fork of the Payette River where he would regularly retreat.

A photo of Ford with country singer Hank Thompson and Dallas nightclubs owner Jack Ruby appeared in the 1988 book, The Ruby-Oswald Affair, by Alan Adelson.

From 1962-65, Ford hosted a daytime talk/variety show, The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show (later known as Hello, Peapickers) from KGO-TV in San Francisco, broadcast over the ABC television network.

Ford was the spokesman for the Pontiac Furniture Company in Pontiac, Illinois in the 1970s.

Ford's experiences as a navigator and bombardier in World War II led to his involvement with the Confederate Air Force (now the Commemorative Air Force), a war plane preservation group in Texas. He was a featured announcer and celebrity guest at the annual CAF Airshow in Harlingen, Texas, from 1976 to 1988. He donated a once-top-secret Norden Bombsight to the CAF's B-29 bomber restoration project. In the late 1970s, as a CAF colonel, Ford recorded the organization's theme song "Ballad of the Ghost Squadron."

Over the years, Ford was awarded three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for radio, records, and television. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom 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. Betty had the problem since the 1950s. As his drinking worsened in the 60's, he was able to work for years, seemingly unaffected by his intake of Cutty Sark whiskey, 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 liver problems, diagnosed years earlier, became more apparent. He had refused to reduce his drinking despite repeated doctors' warnings. 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 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's Gospel Music Hall of Fame 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 - Jeffrey Buckner “Buck” Ford (born January 6, 1950) and Brion Leonard Ford (born September 3, 1952 in San Gabriel, California - died Friday, October 24, 2008 in White House, Tennessee, of lung cancer at age 56). Less than four months after Betty's death, Ford married again. On September 28, 1991, he fell into severe liver failure at Dulles Airport, shortly after leaving a state dinner at the White House hosted by then President George H. W. Bush. Ford died in H. C. A. Reston Hospital Center, in Reston, Virginia, on October 17—exactly 36 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

Albums

^A"Sing We Now of Christmas" peaked at #2 on the RPM Top Singles chart in Canada.

^B"Colorado Country Morning" peaked at #85 on the RPM Country Tracks chart in Canada.

Notes

References

External links

Tennessee Ernie Ford Official Website

Sixteen Tons - The Story Behind the Legend

Category:American country singers Category:American male singers Category:American gospel singers Category:American television personalities Category:Capitol Records artists Category:Country Music Hall of Fame inductees Category:Gospel Music Hall of Fame inductees Category:Grammy Award winners Category:People from Palo Alto, California Category:United States Air Force airmen Category:Southern gospel performers Category:American Methodists Category:Tennessee Republicans Category:1919 births Category:1991 deaths Category:People from Sullivan County, Tennessee