Eddie Hill
Musician · 1921–1994 · Delano, Tennessee
Best known for
Guitar
Lead Vocals
“Smilin’” Eddie Hill was one of country music’s most versatile mid-century figures—a hot-picking guitarist, singer, and, above all, a pioneering broadcaster whose all-night radio shows and long-running Nashville television program made him a familiar voice to a generation of Southern listeners. Best remembered for his 1951 novelty hit “The Hot Guitar” and for giving early exposure to the Louvin Brothers and a teenage Dolly Parton, he was, in 1975, among the first class of inductees into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame.
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- Born James Edward Hill on July 21, 1921, in Delano, Tennessee, he broke into radio as a teenager after winning a contest earned him an early-morning slot on WROL in Knoxville.
- In the early 1940s he joined the influential Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round on WNOX in Knoxville, sharing the roster with Chet Atkins, Roy Acuff, and the Carter Sisters, and cutting his teeth in one of the era’s great country-music proving grounds.
- By the mid-1940s he had become a mentor and bandleader to rising talent, employing the Louvin Brothers and working alongside Johnnie & Jack; his Memphis radio show on WMPS, which he took over in 1947, gave the Louvins early exposure.
- His first recordings came in 1947 for the Apollo label, cut at Nashville’s Castle Studio, and over the following decade he moved through a run of labels—Decca, Mercury, RCA Victor, and Columbia—across his 1947–1957 recording peak.
- His signature record, the rompin’, stompin’ “The Hot Guitar,” was cut for Mercury on July 2, 1951, blending country, country-jazz, and proto-rock ’n’ roll; it proved popular enough to spawn a sequel, “Cold, Cold Woman (The Hot Guitar).”
- His sessions drew Nashville’s finest sidemen, including guitarists Chet Atkins and Hank Garland and multi-instrumentalist Paul Buskirk, reflecting the sophistication of his hybrid style.
- In the early 1950s he hosted a network radio show on WMPS in Memphis and starred in the television program Eddie Hill’s Ranch on WMC-TV before moving to Nashville in 1952.
- At WSM in Nashville he became a fixture with “The Eddie Hill All-Night Show,” and in 1955 served as emcee for the first Grand Ole Opry telecast on WSM-TV.
- Beginning in 1956 he hosted Country Junction on WLAC-TV, a Nashville show that ran for roughly eleven years; it gave a young Dolly Parton early Nashville television exposure.
- A brain hemorrhage in 1968 left him partially paralyzed and abruptly ended his performing and broadcasting career.
- In 1975 he was among the first class inducted into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame, honored alongside fellow announcers Grant Turner and Nelson King—recognition of his standing as a broadcasting pioneer.
- He died on January 18, 1994. His recordings were later gathered by Bear Family Records on the retrospective The Hot Guitar: Gonna Shake This Shack Tonight, preserving his wild mix of country, jazz, and early rock for new listeners.
