33 Facts About Ernest Tubb

Ernest Tubb recorded duets with the then up-and-coming Loretta Lynn in the early 1960s, including their hit "Sweet Thang".

Ernest Tubb is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The youngest of five children, Ernest Tubb was born on a cotton farm near Crisp, in Ellis County, Texas, United States.

Ernest Tubb's father was a sharecropper and Tubb spent his youth working on farms throughout the state.

Ernest Tubb was inspired by Jimmie Rodgers and spent his spare time learning to sing, yodel, and play the guitar.

The pay was low and Ernest Tubb dug ditches for the Works Progress Administration.

Ernest Tubb drove a beer delivery truck to support himself during this time, and during World War II he wrote and recorded a song titled "Swell San Angelo".

In 1936, Ernest Tubb contacted Jimmie Rodgers' widow to ask for an autographed photo.

Ernest Tubb joined the Grand Ole Opry in February 1943 and put together his band, the Texas Troubadours.

Ernest Tubb remained a regular on the radio show for four decades, and hosted his own Midnite Jamboree radio show each Saturday night after the Opry.

Ernest Tubb headlined the first Grand Ole Opry show presented in Carnegie Hall in New York City in September 1947.

Ernest Tubb always surrounded himself with several of Nashville's best musicians.

The classically trained Bradley tried, but could not quite match the sound, so Ernest Tubb said Bradley was "half as good" as Moon.

When Ernest Tubb called out Bradley's name at the start of one of the piano interludes, the singer always referred to him as "Half-Moon".

In 1949, Ernest Tubb helped the famed boogie-woogie Andrews Sisters crossover to the country charts when they teamed on Decca Records to record a cover of Eddy Arnold's "Don't Rob Another Man's Castle" and the Western swing-flavored "I'm Bitin' My Fingernails and Thinking of You".

Ernest Tubb was impressed by the enormous success of Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne Andrews, and he remembered that their 1947 recording of "The Blue Tail Fly " with folk legend Burl Ives produced a top-10 Billboard hit, and he was then eager to repeat that success.

Ernest Tubb brought the upbeat "Fingernails" tune to the session, hoping that the trio would like it, and they did.

Ernest Tubb sang the melody of the song, but the timing was different.

Ernest Tubb just sang eight bars, ten bars, eleven bars, and then stopped, whatever it was.

Ernest Tubb was not known to possess the most adept voice: he always sang flat and actually mocked his own singing.

Luckily, Ernest Tubb barely missed before realizing he had shot at the wrong man.

Buddy Emmons, another pedal-steel guitar virtuoso, began with Ernest Tubb in fall of 1957 and lasted through the early 1960s.

That same year, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and in 1970, Ernest Tubb was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Ernest Tubb remained, as did most of his peers, a fixture at the Grand Ole Opry, where he has appeared.

Ernest Tubb continued to host his Midnite Jamboree radio program a few blocks away from the Opry at his record shop.

Ernest Tubb's singing voice remained intact until late in life, when he fell ill with emphysema.

Ernest Tubb died on September 6,1984, at the Baptist Hospital in Nashville from emphysema.

Ernest Tubb was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999, and he ranked number 21 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003.

Ernest Tubb had solo careers under several pseudonyms and played with John Anderson, writing several songs with him.

Jack Greene, who played drums for the Texas Troubadours, went on to become a successful country music star following his departure from Ernest Tubb's band, recording the hits "There Goes My Everything" and "Statue of a Fool".

Ernest Tubb went on to write more than 50 hit songs for more than two dozen country and rock music superstars, including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, BJ Thomas, George Jones, Kentucky Headhunters, Charlie Pride, Ann Murray, and Kitty Wells.

Glenn Ernest Tubb won a Grammy Award for "Skip a Rope", which was made a hit by Henson Cargill.

The Midnite Jamboree Ernest Tubb founded in 1947 continues to air, recorded each weekend from a stage at his record shop and airing after each episode of the Grand Ole Opry.