Ernie Ashworth
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ernie Ashworth is an American county music singer and longtime star of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.
Born Ernest Bert Ashworth in Huntsville, Alabama, on December 15, 1928, and began his career singing on a Huntsville radio station. In 1949, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he worked for several radio stations and was signed by Wesley Rose as a writer for Acuff-Rose Publishing Company. Among the artists who recorded his songs between 1949 and 1955 were Jimmy Dickens, Carl Smith, Johnny Horton and Paul Anka.
However, success as a recording artist eluded him and in 1957, he returned to Huntsville and began working at the Redstone Arsenal doing guided missile work. Three years later, Rose arranged a recording contract for him with Decca Records. Billed as “Ernest Ashworth” his first single, “Each Moment (Spent With You)” became a Top 5 Hit. Later that year, “You Can’t Pick A Rose In December” went Top 10 and in 1961, “Forever Gone” went Top 20.
In 1962, he moved to Hickory Records, the label owned by Acuff-Rose, and scored at Top 5 Hit with “Everybody But Me” and a Top 10 with “I Take The Chance”. But it was his third release for Hickory that would become his signature song and the Number 1 smash “Talk Back Trembling Lips”, which stayed on the national charts for 42 weeks and even did quite well on the pop charts.
Voted “Most Promising Male Artist” by Cashbox, Billboard and Record World in 1963 and 1964, he was invited to join the cast of the Grand Ole Opry on March 7, 1964. More chart records followed including “The D.J. Cried”, “At Ease Heart” and “I Love To Dance With Annie” and continued to be a regular performer at the Opry but he never had a record to match the success of “Talk Back Trembling Lips”.
In 1989, he turned businessman by purchasing radio station WSLV in Ardmore, Tennessee and in 1992 was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. Always a popular performer overseas, he had a Number 1 song on the Independent National Charts, “Lonely Only Bar” in 1999 and was also named the “Number 1 Most Programmed Independent Artist in Europe” that same year. He is still active as a recording artist and makes appearances at the Grand Ole Opry and spends much of his time tending to the affairs of his radio stations in Ardmore and Gallatin, Tennessee.
