Sorry, am away at present, so have no record collection to look up or any books and given the state of my memory, I am going to be of little help.

That won't stop me going on and on though!

Although I liked Tennessee Ernie Ford, I never really saw hin as a country singer, even though I think he was actually born in Tennessee.

I remember being told once that his real interest was in classical music, and that he only got into pop or country or whatever style you'd like to put him into, when he was about 30.

Before that, he was a very successful DJ - one of the biggest in the US actually - and he had even trained a an classical singer, and had a huge private collection of classical albums.

I think he only ended up singing pop/country while acting as a compere for live country shows coming out to California.

As far as I can recall - he recorded for just two labels in his life - the first being Capitol from around 1949 or so to around 1976 or 1977 (I bought what I think was his final Capitol album, and if I remember rightly, it was called "For The 83rd Time" which I think stood for the number of LPs he had made for them).

I never heard that he owned the recording - "16 Tons" would have been perhaps his 40th or so hit for Capitol, and they did not allow their acts in those days (not even Sinatra or the Beachboys or anybody) to own the masters - and so I doubt very much if he owned his.

After about 30 years with Capitol, he moved to Word for some Christian material. I think he was still at Word until he died sometime around 1990 (coming away from a dinner in the White House if I remember rightly).

I do not recall seeing "16 Tons" on any Word album.

He may very well have re-recorded "16 Tons" for Caitol - although I am not sure why he would have done that because even though he drank havily, he was never short of money as he made a fortune from real estate - but of course, there may also be alternate takes, mixes etc from the original Capitol session.

Capitol leased his material to a lot of labels - for a while they gout out of country in the 60's and 70's - and I recall seeing "16 Tons" on Curb and EMI and Bear Family. Those were the original versions as far as I can recall.

His later Word stuff has been on Ranwood and Spring House and lots of other labels as well.

One of our DJs was a great fan, and he said that there were albums by him on 25 or so different labels, which he said meant that only Hank Williams had been on more imprints than Ford, so his Capitol stuff is all over the place.

Sorry I cannot be of more help - I have a number of his singles on Capitol including "16 Tons" and ""I Been To Georgia On A Fast Train" and a few albums.

My favourite one is "Songs Of The Civil War", which I think was on Bear Family. I also think it is his best one, although I am told, his Gospel stuff is outstanding, if you like Gospel.

In the pre-crossover days, lots of country stations did not see him as country enough - sort of like Tex Ritter or Wanda Jackson (who come to think of it were on Capitol too) - but lots of pure country fans thought he was pretty authentic.

I did a country radio show for some years and I never recall playing him at all apart from "I Been to Georgia On a Fast Train" but we playlisted "16 Tons" on our oldies pop shows and it was heavily rotated.

He is very popular in Europe still and you see lots of his stuff in mainstream shops and Bear Family put out a lot of his Capitol stuff again in recent times.

One thing I do remember is that the song turned songwriter Merle Travis quite literally into a multi-millionaire overnight - but there are still those who claim that the song was actually written by George Davis about twenty years before Merle recorded it himself.

As they say, where there's a hit - there's a writ!

• RE: The Latest - John 06/30/2009 08:16:16 EDT (1)