During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps as a bombardier on a B-29. After the war he went back to radio, and soon everybody knew him as Tennessee Ernie Ford.
In 1955, he recorded a song that Merle Travis had written about the coal miners of Kentucky. It was called “Sixteen Tons.”
The famous line “another day older and deeper in debt” came from a letter written by Travis’s brother John. And “I owe my soul to the company store” was about miners who were paid in credit they could only spend at the company’s own store.
The song was supposed to be the B-side. It didn’t stay that way.
Ford’s version came out on October 17, 1955. By November 10, it had sold a million copies. It went to No. 1 on the country chart for ten weeks and No. 1 on the pop chart for eight.
In this video, from October 18, 1956, Ernie sings it on his own NBC program, The Ford Show. It was only the show’s third episode, and the first time he sang his big hit there.
Just listen to that deep, rich voice.
Ernie ended almost every show with a hymn, even when the network worried about it. Viewers loved it.
He was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984, and he passed away in 1991. In 2015, his “Sixteen Tons” was added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry.
Do you remember watching Tennessee Ernie Ford? Tell us in the comments.
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