Ernest Tubb

Ernest Dale Tubb was born near Crisp, Texas, on February 9, 1914, into a sharecropper family and spent much of his youth farming. He became devoted to Jimmie Rodgers, taught himself guitar and yodeling, and worked unpaid radio in San Antonio while supporting himself with day jobs. Carrie Rodgers, Jimmie's widow, encouraged him and helped secure early recording opportunities, but his first recordings remained too close to his idol to establish a distinctive career.

A 1939 tonsillectomy lowered Tubb's voice and effectively ended the yodel that had defined his Rodgers imitation. Forced toward a new style, he became a stronger songwriter and recorded in Houston for Decca in 1940. Fort Worth radio and the Gold Chain Troubadour sponsorship expanded his Texas audience, and Walking the Floor Over You helped establish the spare electric-guitar honky-tonk sound associated with his career. Later in Nashville, his record shop and Midnite Jamboree became important platforms for younger performers. He entered the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1965 and died in 1984.

Tubb's influence is partly musical and partly institutional. His plainspoken vocal delivery and electric lead guitar helped define honky-tonk, while his tours, store and radio show provided younger singers with unusually direct access to audiences and industry attention.

The Texas chapter is not confined to his birth: Crisp, San Antonio, Midland, San Angelo, Corpus Christi, Houston and Fort Worth trace the practical radio-and-road apprenticeship that created the performer who later became a Nashville institution.