Jimmy Work
Musician · 1924–2018 · Dukedom, Tennessee
Best known for
Songwriter
Jimmy Work was an Ohio-born, Tennessee-raised country singer and songwriter whose 1954 song “Making Believe” became a country standard through Kitty Wells’s 1955 Top-Five recording and was later carried into the bluegrass canon by Emmylou Harris and Mac Wiseman. His 1948 “Tennessee Border” was an early hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Red Foley, and Hank Williams.
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- Born March 29, 1924, in Akron, Ohio; moved with his family to Dukedom, Tennessee, on the Kentucky line, at age two.
- Picked up guitar at seven and fiddle in his early teens.
- Wrote “Tennessee Border” in 1948; the song quickly became a hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Red Foley, and others (Hank Williams also recorded it, but his version did not chart).
- Wrote “Making Believe,” first cut by his own band on Dot in 1954; Kitty Wells’s 1955 Decca cover reached No. 2 country and made the song a standard.
- Wrote “That’s What Makes the Jukebox Play,” a 1955 hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford.
- Left full-time music in the late 1950s and worked as a millwright at the Goodyear plant in Union City, Tennessee.
- Retired to Dukedom in the 1980s.
- Died December 22, 2018, at age 94.
