Tennessee Ernie Ford was a UC man. The baritone-voiced country legend attended the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, which later became a part of UC, in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Ford's classical vocal training made him an anomaly on the country charts of the 1950s and 1960s, endowing him with the ability to evoke a weighty, distinctively dramatic gravitas in his songs. The Bristol, Tennessee native's unique sound and eclectic musical tastes enabled him to cross-over from country stardom onto the pop and gospel charts. Ford could sing tears-in-yer-beer country ballads, Pentecostal hymns, and Civil War camp songs all with great effect.