Tennessee Ernie Ford – Ol’ Rockin’ Ern (1957):  Blessed with a rich baritone but also having the ability to call up a host of other voices, Tennessee Ernie Ford was one of the early country music stars and probably the very first who was regularly seen on TV, as both a television program host and a guest star on variety shows.  He was a wizard at homespun humor starting with his days on radio in the 1930’s, and he began releasing records in 1949 that often placed high on both the country charts and the pop charts.  A series of appearances on the legendary situation comedy I Love Lucy as “Cousin Ernie” cemented his legacy.  Ford was sometimes introduced simply as “Tennessee Ernie” so that his surname didn’t seem to indicate a sponsor’s name.  His best-known recording was “Sixteen Tons” (1955), a grim portrait of a coal miner that sold over one million copies.  The record dealer where I acquired Ol’ Rockin’ Ern told me that this was Tennessee Ernie Ford’s rock and roll album.  Some write-ups that I have seen over the years about this album complain that the songs are not the original versions on the 78’s that Tennessee Ernie Ford had released over the previous 8 years, but re-recordings that feature a backing vocal group.  This is not hard to understand; first of all, many if not most of Ford’s early singles predate rock and roll and could more properly be described as boogie-woogie.  Also, Elvis Presley had often recorded songs with a gospel quartet called the Jordanaires beginning in 1956.  Perhaps I will one day run across a retrospective album featuring the earliest music of Tennessee Ernie Ford, but I am more than satisfied with this album.  Ol’ Rockin’ Ern does not feature “Sixteen Tons” (which is a country song originally recorded by Merle Travis) but does include many of Ford’s other early hits like “The Shotgun Boogie”, “Smokey Mountain Boogie”, “Blackberry Boogie”, “Ain’t Nobody’s Business but My Own”, and “Milk ’em in the Mornin’ Blues”.