Biography
Singer/songwriter and guitarist Ernie Ashworth grew up in Huntsville, AL, absorbing broadcasts from the Grand Ole Opry while composing songs ahead of his first guitar lessons. By 1948 he had joined the Tunetwisters and was performing on local station WBHP. He relocated to Nashville the next year, supporting himself within the city’s established songwriting circles and appearing on WLAC and WSIX. Acuff-Rose hired him as a staff writer, supplying material to Little Jimmy Dickens and Carl Smith; he also crossed into pop by giving “I Wish” to Paul Anka. In 1955 Wesley Rose arranged a contract with MGM under the name Billy Worth, yet none of the six singles charted. Ashworth returned to Alabama in 1957 and worked at Huntsville’s Redstone Arsenal missile plant.
Rose continued pressing for a breakthrough and secured a 1960 Decca agreement that billed the artist as Ernest Ashworth. His first Decca release, “Each Moment (Spent With You),” reached the Top Five, and later that year “You Can’t Pick a Rose in December” climbed to the Top Ten. Signing with Acuff-Rose’s Hickory label in 1962 produced another Top Five single, “Everybody but Me.” The following year he scored his lone number-one hit with John D. Loudermilk’s “Talk Back Trembling Lips,” a song that matched his vulnerable tenor—colored by Paul Anka and Buddy Holly yet defined by a distinctly country reediness. The success brought Most Promising Male Artist awards from Billboard and Cashbox and a 1964 debut on the Grand Ole Opry stage. Continued releases, including the self-penned “I Love to Dance With Annie,” kept him charting regularly until “The Look of Goodbye” in 1970. After four unsuccessful singles on the independent O’Brien label, he retired to his farm in Lewisburg, TN, while still appearing regularly on the Opry and touring occasionally. In 1989 he purchased Ardmore, TN, station WSLV, and scattered 1990s recordings found an audience among tradition-minded listeners in Europe.
Rose continued pressing for a breakthrough and secured a 1960 Decca agreement that billed the artist as Ernest Ashworth. His first Decca release, “Each Moment (Spent With You),” reached the Top Five, and later that year “You Can’t Pick a Rose in December” climbed to the Top Ten. Signing with Acuff-Rose’s Hickory label in 1962 produced another Top Five single, “Everybody but Me.” The following year he scored his lone number-one hit with John D. Loudermilk’s “Talk Back Trembling Lips,” a song that matched his vulnerable tenor—colored by Paul Anka and Buddy Holly yet defined by a distinctly country reediness. The success brought Most Promising Male Artist awards from Billboard and Cashbox and a 1964 debut on the Grand Ole Opry stage. Continued releases, including the self-penned “I Love to Dance With Annie,” kept him charting regularly until “The Look of Goodbye” in 1970. After four unsuccessful singles on the independent O’Brien label, he retired to his farm in Lewisburg, TN, while still appearing regularly on the Opry and touring occasionally. In 1989 he purchased Ardmore, TN, station WSLV, and scattered 1990s recordings found an audience among tradition-minded listeners in Europe.