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Soon he was good enough to play with local outfits. At 15 he took four lessons at 75 cents apiece from an itinerant musician—the only music lessons he ever had.
PAY DIRT: By the time he was 18, he signed up with Pee Wee King and His Golden West Cowboys, and from there he struck out on his own. On a six-day-a-week stint over WSM at Nashville, the 6-foot, drawling baritone sang, played the guitar, and called himself "The Tennessee Plow-boy"—a sobriquet he still uses. There RCA heard him and signed him up in 1944.
In 1946 along came "That's How Much I Love You," and the ball started rolling. It picked up momentum with "I'll Hold You in My Heart" and last year's "Bouquet of Roses," which sold a million and a half records and is still going strong. Ever since Arnold made the big time, no record of his has sold less than 400,000 copies. His current number, "One Kiss Too Many," hit the 250,000 mark last week—with only six weeks' sales.
Arnold is tied up with RCA Victor until 1956. He also has a radio show on Mutual and a two-picture deal with Columbia. He is now star-gazing in Hollywood while making "Hoedown," but somehow, "I'm real downright homesick for my wife and kids an' my mom back home."
Today this barefoot boy has an annual gross income of $250,000, a great cure for homesickness. |
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