Ernest Bert Ashworth (December 15, 1928 – March 2, 2009) was an American country music singer, broadcaster, and longtime Grand Ole Opry star. Signed to the Hickory label, he recorded two studio albums in his career and charted several singles on Billboard Hot Country Songs, including the number one "Talk Back Trembling Lips" and seven other top ten hits.
Born Ernest Bert Ashworth in Huntsville, Alabama, he listened to the Grand Ole Opry as a youth and he began writing songs even before taking up the guitar. By 1948 he was playing in a band called the Tunetwisters and appearing on Huntsville radio station WBHP. Making the move to Nashville the following year, Ashworth earned a living as an early member of that city's fabled community of songwriters and performed on radio stations WLAC and WSIX.
Meanwhile, Rose remained determined to further Ashworth's music career and managed to get him signed to Decca in 1960. Now billed as Ernest Ashworth, he hit the Top Five with his first Decca single, "Each Moment (Spent With You)." That same year he scored a Top Ten hit with "You Can't Pick a Rose in December" and in 1961, "Forever Gone" reached the Top 20. In 1962, Ashworth moved to Hickory Records, owned by Acuff-Rose, and he scored a Top Five hit with "Everybody But Me" and a Top Ten with "I Take the Chance". But it was his third release for Hickory that became a smash hit and his signature song. "Talk Back Trembling Lips" hit number one and stayed on the national country chart for 42 weeks, and peaked at No. 101 on the pop charts.
That song was tailor-made for Ashworth's vulnerable tenor voice, influenced by Anka and by Buddy Holly but with a more distinctively country reediness; it propelled him to being voted "Most Promising Male Artist" by Cashbox, Billboard, and Record World magazines in 1963 and 1964, he was invited to join the cast of the Grand Ole Opry in 1964.
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| Opry Manager Ott Devine and Ernie |
More chart records followed including "The D.J. Cried", "At Ease Heart", and "I Love To Dance With Annie". In 1965, he gave the movie business a try, appearing in The Farmer’s Other Daughter. In 1968, he told one magazine what he hoped his future would be. "I just hope I can always record songs that people will like and accept."
During the 1970's Ernie worked regularly performing for tourists in the theatre shows in Pigeon Forge, where Dolly Parton has her theme park Dollywood and was a consistent hit maker up to the release of 1970's "The Look of Goodbye." After four singles on the independent O'Brien label flopped, he retired to his farm in Lewisburg, TN, continuing to appear regularly on the Opry and occasionally touring the country.
Ernie also owned a radio station in Flomaton, Alabama. In 1989, he purchased radio station WSLV in Ardmore, Tennessee , and his occasional recording releases in the 1990s found favour among tradition-minded European country listeners.
Always a popular performer overseas, he had a number one song on the UK Independent Chart, "Lonely Only Bar", in 1999 and was also named the "Number One Most Programmed Independent Artist in Europe" that year. Ashworth remained active as a recording artist, making appearances at the Grand Ole Opry and spending much of his time tending to the affairs of his radio stations in Ardmore and Gallatin, Tennessee. In 2008, Ernie was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. Throughout his career he achieved many awards and inductions into Halls of Fame across the United States.
Ernie Ashworth died on March 2, 2009 in Nashville, Tennessee at age 80. He had undergone bypass surgery prior to his death.