Today would have been country legend and pioneer Ernest Tubb's 98th birthday. Born in 1914 in Crisp, Texas near Dallas, his hometown is now designated as ghost town. For forty years, Tubb was a mainstay on the country circuit and the charts, with songs like "Walking the Floor Over You", "Waltz Across Texas", and "Thanks A Lot", in addition to versions of "Goodnight, Irene" and "The Yellow Rose Of Texas".
My first introduction to Tubb, dubbed "The Texas Troubadour" was in around 1989, sitting next to my grandfather in his swank, black Chevy Silverado on the way to elementary school in Alvin. We were listening to a cassette of what must have been a later period live show, because I remember hearing cheering and a man drawling "Hello everybody" here and there.
It was this day or maybe another that my grandfather let me know that he once met Tubb at some beer hall back "before you were even around" and that he signed his cowboy boots for him. Grandpa never pulled the boots out for me to gander at Mr. Tubb's scrawl -- and I think the boots got accidentally sold at a garage sale -- but in the back of my mind, I knew that the man was to be a big part of my relationship with Grandpa. Tubb was important to him, along with Hank Sr., Bob Wills, and Georges Strait and Jones. Being a fanboy is my DNA I guess.
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