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More blah blah blah than you ever wanted to know about Ernie Couch
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XXXXThis assemblage of creative eccentricities, perpetual curiosity, and bodacious personality, that finds interest in everything from geology to theology, and most points in between, and answers to the name of, Ernie Couch, was born in the north-central Arkansas town of Batesville. At the time of his birth his parents were living some thirty-five miles north of Batesville between the small towns of Ash Flat and Evening Shade. Yes Virginia there really is a Evening Shade, and yes it was the namesake, and supposed setting of the early 1990s televison sitcom series that starred Burt Reynolds. Ernie was named for a cartoonist. That’s right folks, a cartoonist, and if you guessed, Walter Ernie Disney you would be wrong. Walt Disney’s middle initial was “E” but it stood for “Elias,” his father’s name. When Ernie made his debut a moniker for him had not been settled on by his parents. Ernie was hatched early on a cold, snowy Sunday morning in late January. While recuperating from the stress of the morning, his mother was perusing the the local Sunday newspaper and came to the comics page. Among the “funnies” was the long-running, Nancy, comic strip created by Ernie Bushmiller. Seeing the name of the strip’s creator, a light came on, and the name decision was made. Based on the family's traditional tale of the event it would seem that Ernie may have narrowly missed being named “Bushmiller,” or even, “Nancy!”
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Ernie doing what he does • "The P.T. Barnam of gospel music" introducing his favorite son • Beware of the keyboard maniac
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XXXXAs to early musical influences, Ernie’s father, though always a faithful supporter and encourager of Ernie’s music, claimed to possess no musical ability, and his claim was not incorrect. However, Ernie’s mother did play some guitar and sing. Having not been in a position to pursue a career in music herself, she became the driving force behind Ernie’s music, insuring that he would have the musical opportunities, education, and encouragement that she had not received in her youth. Other musicians in the family included an uncle who played guitar, sang, and served as music director in his church for thirty-odd years. Then there was Ernie's stepgrandfather , a rather colorful individual , who, prior to World War I, had spent his youth working out of Memphis, TN as a comic with a traveling minstrel show. In his home he had an ancient tredel pump organ on which he would, with assistance from a harmonica afixed by a coat hanger about his neck, accompany himself as he sang selections from Stamps-Baxter music books. He was somewhat a one-man-band.
XXXXWhen Ernie was three years and three days old, he and his parents rolled into Wichita, KS in a yellow and black Oldsmobile, with a small travel trailer in tow. His father had served in the Army Air Corp, in the South Pacific during World War II, working as a crew chief on ground crews maintaining B-24 bombers. He had heard that the Boeing Aircraft Company was hiring in Wichita. Knowing that he possed both skills, and experience as a airplane mechanic, plus the fact that the economy was not all that exciting in northern Arkansas, the decision was made to relocate to Kansas. Ernie’s father was im- mediately hired at Boeing, and went to work on the flight line, working on B-47s and later on B-52s. |
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Yes, photography was invented shortly before Ernie was born • c. Nine months • Age three or four • Four or five, with Pa
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Ernie's mom in the late 1930s • Pa and six-year-old Ernie with his first piano • Eight-year-old complete with cowboy boots
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XXXXOver the next three years, with housing at a premium due to the great influx of workers into local industries, Ernie’s family moved from the tiny trailer into a renovated one-room chicken house, to one of four apartments carved out of an old farm house, to barracks built for defense workers, and eventually purchased a duplex and occupied one end of the house. With the family’s lodging stabilized, Ernie’s mother decided it was time for him to start piano lessons. A trip was made downtown to the Salvation Army store where a hulking, well-used, zillion-pound, upright piano was purchased for the sum of $24. A piano teacher was located in the neighborhood and the lessons began. After it was determined that the lessons were going to “take,” the upright was replaced with a Wurlitzer spinet that served faithfully for several years.
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On the tube weekly • Thirteen-year-old with the Col. Sanders look • In the old KTVH studio with Hiram Higsby.
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Ernie's first record, an EP of four songs, was recorded in 1964 • Making the singing convention rounds
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The Chapelaires (l to r) Bill Hamonds, Bill Davis, Jack Ellis, Ernie • Working with the Ozark Gospel Trio (r to l) Dick Owens, Jack Griffin, Cliff Lawson, Ernie (mid-to late 1960s) • Generic poster for the Ozark Gospel Trio and Ernie
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XXXXAt age ten, Ernie started singing at church and other local events. He found that often it was hard to find someone to accompany him, so after a year of wrestling with the problem he decided to cut out the middleman and just accompany himself. By age twelve he was keeping up a busy schedule with his music, and was soon on a weekly kiddies television show. The program was hosted by Hiram Higsby, who had been a regular on such long-running “hillbilly” radio programs as Chicago’s “National Barn Dance,” the "Brush Creek Follies,” from Kansas City, and Oklahoma City’s "Bluff Creek Roundup," during the 1930s,40s,and 50s. Between Mr. Magoo cartoons, Ernie would play the piano and sing.
XXXXAt thirteen, Ernie took off on this first solo trip, when he rode a bus, unaccompanied, to Ft. Smith, AR, to be the special music each night for a week-long church revival. When the series of meetings were finished, Ernie flew back to Wichita. The price of the airline ticket, with tax, was eleven dollars and a few cents. He must have been flying with the Wright Brothers. Today the same ticket would run five hundred to over eight hundred dollars, depending on the carrier. |
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Anyone can make a regular snowman, Ernie, Rabbit and Miss Jill (winter 1968-69) • Who could resist a Kansas gal who could shoot straight and catch fish? • Friday the Thirteenth wedding (June 13, 1969)
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Miss Jill at three • Miss Jill through the years
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XXXXAround the same time, Ernie was awarded a scholiarship to attend art classes at the Wichita Art Association. At an early age, Ernie had shown interest and aptitude in art. By his late teens some of his work had been displayed in New York City.
XXXX The arrival in Wichita of a musician by the name of Easmon Napier would have a profound affect on Ernie’s piano style. Easmon had been the piano player for the Plainsmen, a popular gospel quartet of the time. (Note: click on "Plainsmen" to learn more about Easmon Napier, Plainsmen, and Ernie’s activities during this time). Easmon opened a music store and teaching studio where Ernie became a student. Up until this time much of Ernie’s studies had been in classical music, and working through general piano instruction books. Easmon taught him the nuances and improvisions of hard-driving gospel music. Soon Ernie made his first record, an extended play consisting of four songs, took his first singing tour to the West Coast, and started playing for his first gospel quartet, a local group called the Chapelaires. |
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Ernie's first LP album, recorded at the Benson Sound in Oklahoma City, OK (early-summer, 1969) • Ernie and Miss Jill's music store and teaching studio in Wichita, KS
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An ad for the Singing Convention of the Air • Sheet music of Ernie's first song to be recorded by a national group
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Working with the Travelers Quartet of Tulsa, OK • Bus break-down in Oklahoma, while with the Travelers Quartet
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XXXXEasmon began a Sunday afternoon, live, gospel music radio program called the Singing Convention of the Air, that was broadcast over the local KSIR radio station and later KFRM station. The program featured both local artists and occasionally nationally-traveled groups. Ernie became a regular on the program. He also began broadening his piano techniques by emulating the rocking rhythm licks of Jerry Lee Lewis, and the unique “slip-note” style of Floyd Cramer.
XXXXEventually Ernie began teaching at Easmon’s music studio, where his bride-to-be, Jill (Miss Jill) Seiler, was already a piano instructor. Also, he began playing piano for a group that was headquartered in Hutchison, KS, about fifty miles northwest of Wichita, called the Cliff Lawson Ozark Gospel Trio.The trio worked mostly in the four-state area of Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Ernie recorded one album with the trio. Later Ernie worked with the Travelers Quartet out of Tulsa, OK. |
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Sidewalk gig in Orlando, FL area with the Telestials (fall 1972) • Mega-proud dad (March, 1973) • Jason at three weeks
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A happy two-and-a-half year-old • Jason in the center of the pre-school world • Just chillin'
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Gotta love Ernie's "big-hair" phase of the 1970s • Ernie and his "main squeeze" re-living the 1950s in the late-1980s
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XXXXIn June of 1969, Ernie and Miss Jill were married, and Ernie recorded his first full-length solo album entitled, Ernie Couch Sings... He’ll Be There, at Benson Sound in Oklahoma City. Within a year, Easmon Napier went back on the road with the Plainsmen and Ernie and Jill took over the music store. In addition to selling pianos and organs they had instructors in guitar, organ, and voice. Ernie and Jill had some eighty-five piano students they instucted weekly. Ernie had began writing songs a couple of year earlier, and the Plainsmen recorded one of his first works. Soon, Ann Downing, of the Downings, a popular gospel group of the time, recorded one of Ernie’s songs, and Lou Hildreth signed several of his compositions to her Nashville-based publishing company, leading to more artists recording his songs.
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The Plainsmen: (top, l to r) Jason Couch, Howard Welborn, Nic Val, Ernie Couch, Mike Loprenzi (bottom, r to l) Jack Mainord, Steve Adams (early-1990) • Ernie and Jason washing their favorite cars
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XXXXIn the midst of his musical pursuits of performing, writing songs, teaching piano, and running a music store, Ernie continued his interest in art, and graduated from Wichita State University with a degree in Graphic Design. He also studied broadcasting at WSU, and did some on-air work at the university’s KMUW FM station. During this time there were calls from various gospel groups around the country wanting to enlist Ernie, and he did fill-in briefly with the Telestials working out of south Georgia. In 1973 Ernie and Miss Jill were blessed with the arrival of “most favorite son,” Jason. The music store was eventually merged with a competitor, and in November, 1974, Ernie, Miss Jill, and Jason loaded-up in a U-haul truck and headed for Nashville.
XXXXTwo weeks after arriving in Nashville, Ernie was approched by a record company to create for them a gospel album to be used in a multi-genre, national marketing project. The project of all original Ernie compositions was recorded at a studio located in the Fender Building in Nashville. However, the marketing scheme did not come to furition, and it would be some twenty years before the project would finially be released. |
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Ernie loves playing historic pianos • Aimee Semple McPherson's personal piano in Los Angeles, CA • The piano Jerry Lee Lewis learned to play on at his childhood home in Ferriday, LA
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At Boots Randolph's home in Whites Creek, TN. Boots was a guest on EC&R's first insrtumental project, Elevator Music • Ernie with the iconic, George Beverly Shea, who was EC&R's special guest on the group's, Pioneer Hymns, CD
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Ernie and Jason in the studio with country legend, George Jones, working on the EC&R project, Ridin' Fast
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XXXXDuring the early years in Nashville, Ernie worked on staff at a local church, serving as both music director and youth leader, and also worked for a graphics firm that provided services for the area advertising agencies. In 1980, Ernie started his own graphic design company called, Consultx, that focused on work for book publishers, music publishers, and record companies. In addition,Ernie did considerable work for religious publishers designing packaging and promotional materials, and in 1983 ventured into cartography, creating maps for Holman Bible Publishing Company, along with flip chart and wall maps for classroom use. Also in 1980 Ernie penned and recorded a novelity song entitled, Talkin' bout J.R. in response to the national craze over the TV series, Dallas. The single got a mention in Billboard.
XXXX In the mid-1980s, Ernie received a call from the manager of the Plainsmen, the group having relocated to Nashville a few year earlier, asking if he would consider joining the group. Over the next year and a half, he worked with the Plainsmen before the group took a sabbatical. |
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Miss Jill and Papaw welcoming Memphis Ryder Couch to the planet (May 19th, 2008) • Piggyback ride • Happy shoppers
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Picking out a Match Box car • Enjoying being three (summer, 2011) • Starting T-ball at four (summer, 2012)
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XXXXIn 1985, Ernie and Miss Jill’s first trivia book was published in Nashville by Rutledge Hill Press. Over the next several years they would have twenty books published. (Note: clicking on the word "books” will take you to a complete bibliography of works). Ernie and Jill’s schedule became filled with book tours, signings, interviews, and radio and television talk shows.
XXXXErnie was again called on by the Plainsmen when the group returned to the road in the late-1980s. By this time, Jason was old enough to join the group providing strings and bass guitar lines on keyboard. After leaving the group in the summer of 1990, Ernie and Jason started mulling over the idea of starting their own group. Over the next two years, ground work was laid, and potential group members contacted. After much planning and hard work the newly-formed, Ernie Couch & Revival took the stage for its inaugural concert March 28th, 1993. |
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In the studio • Suiting-up • Waiting on the bus
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XXXXThe ensuing years have been a whirlwind for Ernie as he continues touring coast-to-coast, preforming, composing and writing, and occasionally scratching his art itch. In 2008, Jason and his wife, Lisa, presented Ernie and Miss Jill with their first grandchild, Memphis Ryder Couch. Ernie refers to this “favorite grandson” as being, “the golden calf we dance around!” Let’s face it, grandparents are a funny breed, designed to dote over grandchildren. Keep-up with the adventures of Ernie on the Ernie Couch & Revival Facebook page.
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E-mail: revival@erniecouchandrevival.com
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© Copyright 2015 by Ernie Couch & Jason Couch, Nashville, TN
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