Grandpa Jones
Best known for
Songwriter
Banjo
Lead Vocals
Grandpa Jones was a Kentucky-born banjoist, singer, and comedian whose Country Music Hall of Fame career stretched from 1930s radio to the Grand Ole Opry and Hee Haw — the entertainer who, more than any other, kept old-time clawhammer banjo a national presence through the bluegrass and country eras.
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- Born Louis Marshall Jones on October 20, 1913 in Niagara, Henderson County, Kentucky; the family later moved to Akron, Ohio.
- Adopted the "Grandpa" persona and costume in his early twenties while working morning radio with Bradley Kincaid, who joked that he sounded like an old man.
- Played frailing (clawhammer) old-time banjo rather than three-finger Scruggs style, helping carry the older mountain-banjo tradition through the bluegrass and country eras; a founding member of the Brown's Ferry Four gospel quartet with the Delmore Brothers and Merle Travis.
- Cut his best-known sides for King Records, among them his own "Eight More Miles to Louisville," plus "Mountain Dew," "Old Rattler," and "T for Texas."
- Joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1946 and remained a member for the rest of his life; revisited his catalog on late-career bluegrass albums for CMH, with his wife, fiddler Ramona Jones, as a frequent musical partner.
- A charter cast member of Hee Haw from its 1969 launch, remembered for the "Hey Grandpa, what's for supper?" segment, which brought old-time music to a national television audience.
- In 1973, he discovered the bodies of their friends David "Stringbean" Akeman and his wife after the couple were murdered; Jones later testified at the trial.
- Inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1978 and the IBMA Hall of Honor in 2000; died February 19, 1998 in Nashville at age 84.
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Grandpa JonesPlayed on recordings with Grandpa Jones
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Merle Travis and Grandpa JonesPlayed on recording with Merle Travis and Grandpa Jones
