Louis Marshall "Grandpa" Jones *

Louis Marshall Jones was born on October 20, 1913, in Niagara, Henderson County , Kentucky . He was the youngest of 10 children of a tobacco farmer. He learned to play guitar and first appeared on radio in 1929, soon after securing his own program on WJW Akron, where he became known as "The Young Singer of Old Songs". He worked on the Lum and Abner radio show, but in 1935, joined Bradley Kincaid’s touring company. Kincaid maintained that he sounded like a grumpy old man on their early morning WBZ Boston show and nicknamed him "Grandpa". Jones, adopting the name, and became a permanent "Grandpa" at the tender age of 22.

 He left Kincaid in 1937, readily finding work on many stations including WWVA Wheeling, WCHS Charleston and WMMN Fairmont, before, in 1942, joining the Boone County Jamboree on WLW Cincinnati, where he first worked with Merle Travis, the Delmore Brothers and Ramona Riggins (his future wife).

 He first recorded for the newly-formed King label in 1943, recording two sides with Merle Travis that were released as the Shepherd Brothers. Further recordings were made in 1944 before he joined the army, finally serving in the military police in Germany , where he broadcast daily on AFN radio with his band the Munich Mountaineers.

 After his discharge in 1946, he returned to Cincinnati , but later that year moved to Nashville and became a Grand Ole Opry regular. Between 1947 and 1951, he recorded extensively for King and after changing his style of music from ballads to up-tempo songs and comedy numbers, produced his well-known recordings of "Eight More Miles To Louisville", "Mountain Dew" and "Old Rattler", using the banjo for the first time on record on the latter. He also made some fine recordings with Merle Travis and the Delmores as the gospel group the Brown's Ferry Four. He recorded for RCA from 1952-55 and later for several other labels. He entered the US country charts in 1959 with "The All-American Boy", a pop hit for Bill Parsons, and reached number 5 in 1963 with his recording of the old Jimmie Rodgers song, "T for Texas ".

 The popularity of his recordings and his Opry performances led to him joining the cast of the CBS network television show Hee-Haw in 1969, where his comedy routines with Minnie Pearl became very popular. Grandpa Jones was also elected to the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1978. He died on February 19 of 1998 at the age of 84.