Born on Feb. 13, 1919 in Bristol, Tennessee, Ernest Jennings Ford worked as a radio announcer before studying voice at Cincinnati's Conservatory of Music in 1939.

After service in the Army Air Corps during World War II, Ford was both a serious announcer (as Ernest Jennings Ford) and a drawling hillbilly disc jockey (as Tennessee Ernie) on KFXM in San Bernadino, California and later on KXLA in Pasadena. His singing along with records on the air in his Tennessee Ernie persona led to singing on Cliffie Stone’s numerous radio and TV shows in the Los Angeles area.

Through Stone, Ford was signed to Capitol Records in 1949 and on his first day with the label recorded his first Top 10 hit, “Tennessee Border.” “Mule Train” spent a month atop the charts at the end of the year and by early 1951 Ford's long string of hits included “The Shot Gun Boogie” at No. 1 for fourteen weeks.

Ford’s hosting a half hour daytime variety show on ABC-TV from January 1955 exposed his recordings like “Ballad Of Davy Crockett” and songs he would sing on the show, but had not recorded, like “Sixteen Tons,” a 1946 Merle Travis composition. Viewer response to “Sixteen Tons” was so positive that Capitol let Ford record it in September 1955, but released it as the “B” side of “You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry.” “Sixteen Tons” became a #1 country and pop hit, selling 400,000 copies during its first week and over two million by Christmas of that year.

Ford began a prime time television show, The Ford Show, on NBC-TV in 1956 which popularized Ford’s expression, “Bless your little pea-pickin’ hearts.” Ford’s closing each show with a hymn led Capitol to release a 1957 album, Hymns, which remained on the Billboard pop charts for nearly six years and sold over a million copies.

Courtesy of
CMT.com

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