Ernest Tubb - Biography
By Jonny Whiteside
Singer-guitarist Ernest Tubb was one of country music's most essential and groundbreaking forces. Widely known as the Texas Troubadour, Tubb was a straight up honky-tonk pioneer whose realistic, modern approach was comparable in impact and influence to Hank Williams. Significantly, Tubb preceded Williams by several years and with the 1941 classic, "Walking the Floor Over You," which sold an at the time staggering 400,000 plus copies within months (and was quickly covered by no less a pop icon than Bing Crosby), Tubb established himself as a country music mainstay. An innovative musician whose stinging electric guitar's interplay with a series of first rate steel guitar soloists (most notably Billy Byrd) codified the honky tonk sound, Tubb also wrote or introduced songs which became standards, and more than a few of them also scored hits for subsequent generations of performers when they were recorded years later. Tubb's sheer longevity, tireless creativity, selfless devotion to his fans and unusual generosity (he helped establish a host of future stars--Hank Snow, Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn all benefited tremendously from the singer's aide) reflected a remarkable nobility and stand as qualities unrivaled in country music. Tubb was a towering Lone Star State icon, on par with vaunted Texans Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell and Waylon Jennings, and it is almost impossible to imagine the evolution of country music without him.
Born Ernest Dale Tubb on February 9, 1914 in the countryside near remote Crisp, Texas, his hardscrabble childhood was anything but picture perfect. The son of a sharecropper whose parents divorced when he was quite young, Tubb grew up shuttling between the homes of several of his older, married siblings. As a young teenager, he fell under the influence of Jimmie Rodgers, the revered 'Singing Brakeman' widely acknowledged as the father of country music, and in short order Tubb obtained a guitar and labored tirelessly to perfect the evocative, bluesy style Rodgers had introduced before his untimely death in 1933. Tubb began his career, just as Gene Autry had, as a stone Jimmie Rodgers imitator and demonstrated enough skill that he landed an early morning at San Antonio radio station KONO shortly after Rodgers' passing. As time passed, many thought Tubb's devotion to the Blue Yodeler's style guaranteed failure, however, in 1936, Tubb made a point to visit with Rodgers' widow, Carrie, who was so pleased that the twenty-two year old seemed bent on extending Rodger's music that she not only presented Tubb with Rodgers' own Martin guitar, she also arranged tour dates, publicity photos and even a contract with Bluebird Records. Bolstered by Carrie's benediction and strumming on a certifiable treasure, Tubb pressed on, making his first studio date in October 1936, followed by another the following year; none of the records had any impact. Tubb kept on the Rodgers track for the next few years, going from job to job at a string of tiny Texas radio stations, but always keeping a day job on the line (these included ditch digger, retail clerk and mattress salesman).
By 1940, Tubb was based in Ft. Worth and after undergoing a tonsillectomy, found that he could no longer yodel and would instead have to start singing like Ernest Tubb, not Jimmie Rodgers. The new style clicked almost from the get go; his voice sounded like Texas: broad and stoic, yet warm of tone, with a very straight-ahead, unassuming manner of phrasing that allowed him to infuse a lyric with a great deal of emotion through the simplest shift of inflection, usually either dropping a note or two or by a slow steady ascent. After his third Decca session in Dallas produced "Walking the Floor Over You," Tubb was an established star. A national tour climaxed with his debut as a guest performer on the Grand Ole Opry in December 1942, and within weeks, Tubb was made a regular cast member--a position he proudly held for the next four decades.
A trip to record another Decca session in Los Angeles proved quite fruitful--when he left Hollywood, he had the classic “You Nearly Lose Your Mind” and was in line for several motion picture projects (appearing alongside popular B-Western star Charles Starret); when he returned in 1944 for another spectacular session that resulted, courtesy of LA based singer-songwriter Johnny Bond, in his gorgeous "Tomorrow Never Comes." The song became a Tubb staple and was later covered by Loretta Lynn and George Jones; although Tubb had co-writer credit, it was only because, he joked, "I held the paper while Johnny wrote it." In fact, Tubb had yet to record anything in Nashville (war-time facilities in Music City were primitive and most of his early sessions were either in Dallas, Hollywood or Chicago). Whatever the location, Tubb’s output was impressive; the evocative “Rainbow at Midnight” hit number one in 1946, and songs like “Don’t Rob Another Man’s Castle,” “Slipping’ Around,” and “Letters Have No Arms” cemented his role as honky-tonk’s premier architect (and Tubb‘s drinking songs, from “Warm Red Wine” to “Leave the Bottle on the Bar” to “Pass the Booze“ were some of the finest ever). Tubb soon made another significant move, calling (in conjunction with LA-based Capitol A&R man, Cliffie Stone) for a change in Billboard’s chart designation of “Hillbilly & Folk” to the more appropriate (and dignified) “Country & Western,” which the magazine instituted in 1949--the same year that Tubb headlined the first-ever country show at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
He churned out one superb record after another, and more than a few also crossed over to the pop audience: 1948’s “Forever is Ending Today” and, with the Andrew Sisters, his “I’m Biting My Nails and Thinking of You” were both Top 5 country hits that also made #30 on the pop chart. Tubb maintained this level of quality and commercial success right up through the rise of rock & roll, charting dozens of respectable country hits into the mid-1960s. After Decca paired him with newcomer Loretta Lynn in 1964, the duo’s three albums and four hit singles went a long way to establishing the soon-to-be-superstar West Coast based newcomer (and years later, Tubb portrayed himself in Lynn bio-pic Coal Miner’s Daughter). During this period, he also recorded two numbers that became Tubb signatures, “Waltz Across Texas” and “Thanks a Lot,” songs that demonstrated how, despite virtually no change in his long-established presentation and style, Tubb’s appeal remained completely undiminished--a fact underscored by the Country Music Association‘s 1965 induction of Tubb into the Country Music Hall of Fame (the CMA‘s only formal recognition of him; he was also given the Academy of Country Music’s Pioneer Award in 1980). One of country’s hardest working road warriors, averaging over 200 shows a year despite a 1966 diagnosis of emphysema. Tubb kept rolling from town to town for as long as he could, playing show after show, until the condition compelled him to give up touring in 1982. He had pushed his health as far and as hard as he could; Tubb died on September 6 1984.
