This was written in 1947 by the Country & Western guitarist and songwriter Merle Travis. It is based on the experiences of his coal-mining family. His brother, John Travis, wrote him a letter about the death of Ernie Pyle, a war correspondent who had just been killed covering combat. John likened Pyle’s job to that of a coal miner, writing: “It’s like working in the coal mines. You load 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.” Merle incorporated his brother’s words into the chorus.
Merle also remembered something his father once said about the practice of paying miners in “scrip” credit vouchers that could only be used at the company-owned general store. He told a neighbor, “I can’t afford to die. I owe my soul to the general store,” inspiring the lyrics:
“Saint Peter don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store”
A reference to the truck system and to debt bondage. Under this scrip system, workers were not paid cash; rather they were paid with non-transferable credit vouchers which could be exchanged only for goods sold at the company store. This made it impossible for workers to store up cash savings. Workers also usually lived in company-owned dormitories or houses, the rent for which was automatically deducted from their pay. In the United States the truck system and associated debt bondage persisted until the strikes of the newly formed United Mine Workers and affiliated unions forced an end to such practices.
Released on Capitol’s 1947 LP “Folk Songs From The Hills”, the song almost immediately began to generate controversy, causing Travis himself, problems, in the anti-communist, Cold War hysteria of the late forties. Some in government saw songs dealing with workers’ woes, and folk music “activists” as potentially subversive. It made no difference that Travis was a true American patriot. Veteran Capitol producer, Ken Nelson, who worked at WJJD radio in Chicago in the late forties, recalled in a 1992 interview that FBI agents advised the station not to play Travis’ records, because they considered him a “communist sympathizer,” which was, of course, completely untrue.
Merle Travis – already celebrated as a guitar innovator and songwriter – was immortalized by the song. In later years, when performing the song himself, he altered the final stanza to, “I owe my soul…to Tennessee Ernie Ford.” On July 29, 1956, he returned to his boyhood home of Ebeneezer, Kentucky, to unveil a granite monument the town built to immortalize his accomplishments, including Sixteen Tons. He died in 1983. In 1991, his ashes were buried under that monument, and remain there to this day.
Tennessee Ernie Ford (Ernest Jennings Ford) was born in 1919 in Bristol, Tennessee. Ford began his radio career as an announcer at WOPI-AM in Bristol. In 1939, the young bass-baritone left the station to study classical music and voice at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in Ohio. With the start of WWII, Ford entered in the United States Army Air Corps, became a First Lieutenant, and served as a bombardier on a B-29 Superfortress flying missions over Japan. He was also a bombing instructor at George Air Force Base, in Victorville, California.
The war’s end found Ford in San Bernardino and then Pasadena, California, where he worked as a radio announcer. While working an early morning country music show, he created the character of “Tennessee Ernie,” a cartoonish hillbilly. When a talent scout from Capitol Records heard his shtick, Ford soon found himself with a recording contract. He continued his work in radio and television while his recording career blossomed. “The Ford Show”, hosted by Tennessee Ernie Ford, ran from 1956 until 1961 on NBC. Ford’s program was notable for the inclusion of a religious song at the end of every show; Ford insisted on this despite objections from network officials who feared it might provoke controversy. Network officials stepped back when the hymn became the most popular segment of his show.
He earned the nickname “The Ol’ Pea-Picker” because of his oft-used catch phrase “Bless your pea-pickin’ heart!” and his television show was later known as “Hello, Pea-pickers”.
While his wider fame was from this song, he was also well known for his Country (he released almost 50 country singles through the early 1950’s) and Gospel songs he loved. In 1956 he released “Hymns”, his first gospel music album, which remained on Billboard’s Top Album charts for 277 consecutive weeks; his album “Great Gospel Songs” won a Grammy Award in 1964.
Out of the public eye, Ford and wife Betty contended with serious alcohol problems; Betty had had the problem since the 1950s as well as emotional issues that complicated both their lives and the lives of their sons. Though his drinking began to worsen in the 60’s, he worked continuously, seemingly unaffected by his heavy intake of whiskey. By the 1970’s, however, it had begun to take an increasing toll on his health, appearance and ability to sing, though his problems were not known publicly. After Betty’s substance abuse-related death in 1989, Ernie’s liver problems, diagnosed years earlier, became more apparent, but he refused to reduce his drinking despite repeated doctors’ warnings.
On September 28, 1991, he fell into severe liver failure at Dulles Airport, shortly after leaving a state dinner at the White House hosted by then President George H. W. Bush. Ford died in H. C. A. Reston Hospital Center, in Reston, Virginia, on October 17 – exactly 36 years after “Sixteen Tons” was released, and one day shy of the first anniversary of his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
On March 25, 2015, Ford’s version of the song was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry, and was awarded a gold record. In 11 days following its release, 400,000 singles are sold. Demand for the song was so great, that Capitol geared all its pressing plants nationwide to meet the deluge of orders. In 24 days, over one million records were sold, and “Sixteen Tons” became the fastest-selling single in Capitol’s history. By November, it had captured the top spot on every major record chart in the country, and by December 15 (less than two months after it’s release) more than 2,000,000 copies were sold, making it the most successful single ever recorded. T. E. Ford was awarded three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; one for radio, one for records, and one for television. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984 and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1990. Ford received posthumous recognition for his gospel music contributions by adding him to the Gospel Music Association’s Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1994.
The song has been recorded or performed in concert by a wide variety of musicians. The list is quite long but here’s just a few notable ones:
1955: Sung live by Elvis Presley in his early 1950s concerts, but never recorded.
1955: B.B. King & His Orchestra
1957: The Platters recorded the song
1960: Bo Diddley released a version on his album Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger
1966: Stevie Wonder recorded a version influenced by Motown and soul music
1973: Jerry Reed recorded a version
1987: Johnny Cash released a country version
1990: A rendition of the song by Eric Burdon
2014: ZZ Top performed the song on their tour with Jeff Beck.
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