Records and Roots: Tennessee Ernie Ford was a bright Bristol star

Ernest Jennings Ford breathed his last breath on Oct. 17, 1991.One year and one day earlier, Ford, known worldwide as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. For eternity.Then there's Ford's signature song, "Sixteen Tons." It was released on Oct. 17, 1955 — exactly 36 years before his death. A native of Bristol, Tennessee, Ford attained worldwide fame for his uncluttered and pop-leaning recording of Merle Travis' song about the ravaged life of a coal miner."St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go," Ford's baritone in full-throated mode sang, "I owe my soul to the company store."Ford last appeared in Bristol during the reopening of the Paramount on April 26, 1991. Photographs taken that night and firsthand accounts from some who attended reveal that Ford did not look well. Alas, less than six months later, like a song that's faded from one's ears, he was gone.But Ford's legacy remains as intact as the bronze plaque displayed in the rotunda of the Country Music Hall of Fame. After signing to Capitol Records, Ford's first hit arrived in April 1949. He looked homeward with a grin for "Tennessee Border." The song peaked at No. 8 on Billboard's country singles chart, Ford's first of 17 top 10 country singles.A number of so-named boogie songs followed. Revved-up hillbilly precursors to the coming rage of rock 'n' roll, Ford's "Smokey Mountain Boogie" from 1949, 1951's "The Shot Gun Boogie" and 1952's "Blackberry Boogie" delivered three of Ford's top 10 singles.Those songs helped lay groundwork for Ford's comedic country bumpkin side. Just two years after knee-slapping "Blackberry Boogie" and one year before the serious "Sixteen Tons," Ford made his first of three appearances as Cousin Ernie from Bent Fork, Tennessee, on the nation's top television comedy, "I Love Lucy." They remain among the funniest moments in television history.Ford inched closer to "Sixteen Tons" as he gravitated away from boogie songs. His 1954 rendering of "River of No Return," which was from the Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe film of the same name, certainly witnessed Ford amid a drastic stylistic change.Same goes for his 1954 duet with Betty Hutton, "The Honeymoon's Over." Recorded with Billy May's Orchestra, it charted exclusively as a pop single.Then Ford recorded "Sixteen Tons" in Hollywood, California, on Sept. 20, 1955. Between the hours of 3 and 5 p.m., Ford recorded two songs, "Sixteen Tons" and "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry." Each low-key production spotlighted Ford's prodigious and nuanced baritone. Amid smatterings of horns, down-home Ernie exits to welcome uptown Ernie Ford.But "Sixteen Tons" featured an "instrument" no one saw coming. In fact, Ford wanted the sound taken from the recording. That "instrument" was Ford's fingers, which provided the song's pivotally musical finger-snapping hook.A horn intro begins "Sixteen Tons." Five seconds later, Ford enters with the lyrics. He draws out the first word, "some," for about two seconds. Then he follows with "people say a man is made out of mud." By the time he gets to the third word, "say," we hear Ford's fingers snapping, which establishes the song's ever-important beat.After the word "mud," Roy Harte's drum brushstrokes to life. Roland Bundock's upright bass attaches. By then, Ford swings lyrics like a miner swings a hammer, full of "muscle and blood."As the song's chorus enters the mix, we hear hints of the horns' return. Upon completion of the chorus, the music goes silent as Ford sings, "I owe my soul to the company store." Following a subtle punctuation of music, quiet returns. Ford's fingers snap the beat, and then his voice journeys back into the song's timeless lyrics."If you see me coming, better step aside," Ford sings as his voice raises from a whisper to pound, "One fist of iron, the other of steel, if the right don't get you, then the left one will."In the span of a song but two minutes and 34 seconds, Ford's "Sixteen Tons" manages to humanize a coal mining man for whom dignity was endangered. And he's stuck. In the mines, indebted, and seemingly nowhere to go, he clings to hope and dignity much as the coal for which he mines attaches to the darkened earth below.Perhaps oddly enough, Ford had been contemplating a retirement from music. Until "Sixteen Tons" hit. Much like the miner who cannot escape the mines, Ford remained in music until his death.Indeed, Ford's career, already in the course of change, altered forever on Sept. 20, 1955. And then on Oct. 17, 1955. And then again on Nov. 26, 1955, the day the song debuted on Billboard's country singles chart — two weeks after its debut on Billboard's pop singles chart."Sixteen Tons" bolted to No. 1 pop and country. On the day it debuted country, Ford's masterpiece struck No. 1 on pop, where it stayed for eight weeks, through Christmas 1955 and New Year's Day 1956.On the country side, "Sixteen Tons" registered 10 smashing weeks at No. 1. It hit the top spot eight days before Christmas 1955 and reigned there until February 1956.Well, hits are one thing. Timeless creations of seminal art, that's another. Ford's "Sixteen Tons" finger-snapped en route to each. That he died exactly 36 years after its date of release was purely coincidental. Or was it? After all, the song changed the trajectories of the life and career of a man Bristol had long known as Ernest Jennings Ford.