Ernest Tubb

Ernest Dale Tubb (February 9, 1914 - September 6, 1984), nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song "Walking the Floor Over You" (19

Ernest Dale Tubb (February 9, 1914 - September 6, 1984), nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song "Walking the Floor Over You" (1941) marked the rise of the honky-tonk style of music. In 1948-49, he also was the first singer to record a hit with "Blue Christmas," a song commonly associated with Elvis Presley and his mid-1950s version. Another well-known Tubb hit includes "Waltz Across Texas" (1965, which became one of his most requested songs and is often used in dance halls throughout Texas during waltz lessons. In the early 1960s, he recorded duets with then-newbie Loretta Lynn, especially the hit "Sweet Thang". One of his sons, the late Justin Tubb, made a minor splash on the country music scene in the 1950s and roomed with a young, up-and-coming songwriter Roger Miller in the late 1950s.

Tubb was born on a cotton farm near Crisp, Texas (now a ghost town). His father was a sharecropper, so Tubb spent his youth working on farms throughout the state. He was inspired by Jimmie Rodgers and spent his spare time learning to sing, yodel, and play the guitar. At the age of nineteen, he took a job as a singer on a San Antonio radio station. The pay was low, so Tubb also dug ditches for the Works Progress Administration and then clerked at a drug store.