Jim Bishop: A Ford in my past drives recollections in the present

OK, gang, let’s sing along with Jim (those of you old enough to remember this heavy hit from – man alive – 1955):

“You loaded sixteen tons, whattaya get?”

Everyone – “Another year older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don’t ya call me ‘cause I can’t go . . ”

And pray thee, why not?

Because “I owe my soul . . . (dramatic pause) . . . to the company store.”

The coal miner’s lament that Merle Travis wrote in 1946, based on his own family’s experience in the mines of Muhlenberg County, Ky., spent 10 weeks on the country charts and eight weeks on the pop charts and made singer Ernest Jennings (“Tennessee Ernie”) Ford a crossover recording artist with what became his “signature song.”

“Sixteen Tons” became Capitol Records’ first number one single of the rock era, according to Fred Bronson in his “Billboard Book of Number One Hits” (Billboard Publications, 1985).

According to Bronson, Ernie was snapping his fingers to set the tempo while rehearsing the song in the recording studio. The producer, Lee Gillette, was in the control booth and told Ford to leave the snapping in when he recorded the song. That “special effect” and the unique, clarinet-driven “hook” pop arrangement by Ford’s musical director, Jack Fascinato, helped capture the distinctive sound that enthralled listeners and propelled record sales.

I played the song frequently on my weekly fifties music radio show, “Friday Night Jukebox,” during its 11-year run on WEMC-FM, struck by the simplicity of the arrangement with minimal instrumentation, but both the words and the melody stick in my head like epoxy, returning from my subconscious while snarled in heavy traffic or daydreaming in church.

My senior year of college, I wrote and performed a ballad about the tedious nature of working in a car wash in my hometown, using the “Sixteen Tons” tune. Unfortunately, word of this creative saga – so I thought – got back to the owner, and I apologized for my social gaffe; I was the one who was all wet.

The Bristol, Tenn., native had numerous songs in the top ten on the country charts in the early to mid-1950s; his only other “crossover” hits were a duet with Kay Starr, “I’ll Never Be Free,” that went to No. 3 in the summer of 1950, and his version of “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” (No. 4 on the country charts and No. 5 on the pop charts in 1955).

Tennessee Ernie Ford went on to even bigger success as a host of his own prime-time variety program, “The Ford Show,” on NBC television from 1956 to 1961. He always ended the show with a hymn, which made producers and the sponsor nervous at first, but it became the most popular segment of the program.

Ernie went on to record numerous albums of hymns and gospel selections. His album “Great Gospel Songs” won a Grammy Award® in 1964.

Over the years, Ernie 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 in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1990.

Publicly, Ernie appeared to have it all together, career-wise and otherwise. But, even at the top of his game, he couldn’t resist tempting the spirits, as it were. Alcohol, and specifically a fondness for a particular brand of whiskey, led to his physical deterioration (Wikipedia) and eventually, liver ailments claimed his life. He died Oct. 17, 1991, in Reston, Va., exactly 36 years after “Sixteen Tons” was released.

Ernie received posthumous recognition for his gospel music contributions when the Gospel Music Association added him to its Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1994.

I’d never endure as a miner; they’re a special breed with an extraordinary calling to a risky business, but I will continue to labor in the musical gold mine, pausing to salute those inimitable, pioneering artists like the late Tennessee Ernie Ford who gave us songs like “Sixteen Tons” that help kindle special memories of yesteryear.

Ernie found that gold mine, but he never gave us the shaft.

Jim Bishop is public information officer at Eastern Mennonite University. He can be contacted at [email protected].