Tennessee Ernie Ford born 13 February 1919

Ernest Jennings Ford (February 13, 1919 – October 17, 1991), known professionally 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. Noted for
 his rich bass-baritone voice and down-home humor, he is remembered for his hit recordings of "The Shotgun Boogie" and "Sixteen Tons".

As a child, Ford was musically inclined, singing in school choirs and playing trombone in the school band. By 1937, working as an announcer at Bristol’s WOAI, he went on to study at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Following America's entry into World War II with the attack on Pearl Harbour, Ford enlisted in the United States Army in early 1942 and was assigned to the U.S. Army Air Corps, which kept him stateside, serving in Alabama and later in California, where he was posted to a bombardier school. His talent wasn't dormant during this period, and he was able to participate in various special services entertainment programs.

After the war, Ford -- who had married while serving in the military -- moved his family to San Bernardino, CA, and took a DJ job on a local radio station. Pasadena’s KXLA. His comical Tennessee Ernie character (“bless your pea-pickin’ little heart...”) caught the ear of disc jockey-TV host Cliffie Stone, who made Ford a regular cast member of Los Angeles’s Hometown Jamboree country music television and radio shows.

Cliffie Stone, Tennessee Ernie, Nudie Cohn, and Merle Travis

In 1947 he also made the acquaintance of Cliffie Stone, a musician, announcer, and producer who was rapidly becoming one of the most influential figures in country music on the West Coast. Initially, Ford appeared on Stone's Hometown Jamboree, which started on radio and moved to television later in the 1940s, and in 1948 Stone brought him to Capitol Records, the beginning of a relationship that would last for 40 years, covering the rest of the singer's life.

Ford began cutting typically hot California country-boogie and novelty records that were driven as much by his big, warm voice as by the guitar stylings of Merle Travis and the idiosyncratic steel guitar wizardry of Speedy West. Five singles had been released by late 1949, including "Tennessee Border" and "Smokey Mountain Boogie" (both Top Ten) and his first number one single, "Mule Train." He first guested on the Grand Ole Opry in 1950, and in 1953 he became the first country singer to appear at London’s prestigious Palladium. Soon NBC hired him to MC the television game show the Kollege of Musical Knowledge, and also to host his own weekday program.

                             

Ford had two Top Ten country hits in 1955 with "The Ballad of Davy Crockett ,” but it was “Sixteen Tons,” with sales topping four million copies that cemented Ford’s place as one of America’s top

entertainers. Due partly to this hit, Ford Motor Company recruited Ford to host a prime-time NBC variety program, The Ford Show 

(1956–1961). He also made numerous guest appearances on I Love Lucy and other TV shows and became a fixture on television for the next decade (moving to daytime television by 1961).

For all of his occasionally risqué lyrics and humor, Ford also had a seriously religious side to his work and persona, and his voice was ideally suited to big arrangements of traditional hymns. His first gospel album, Hymns (1956), became the first religious album to go gold, while his second gospel album, Great Gospel 
Songs, earned him a Grammy. He was immensely popular as the 1960s commenced and remained a popular fixture on television for most of that decade, and his recordings were as ambitious as they were successful.

Ford remained active through the 1970s with numerous television specials and guest appearances. He participated in a 1973 Hometown Jamboree reunion at Los Angeles’s Palladium and recorded for Capitol until 1977.  

While it never affected his professional work, nor was it ever publicized (for fear of how it would impact his career), Ford battled all his life with a drinking problem, something which ultimately undermined his health. In October, 1991, he collapsed after leaving a White House dinner and died at an area hospital a few days later, exactly one year to the day after being elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

At the time of his death he remained a much-loved figure far beyond the boundaries of the country music audience.  (Edited from Country Music hall of Fame, AllMusic, Wikipedia & IMDb)