Artist Biography
b. 9 May 1946, Hodgenville, Hardin County, Kentucky, USA. Lewis, who comes from the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, began to play the guitar at the age of nine and made his television debut at 13. He joinedThe Old Kentucky Barn Dance on WHAS Louisville, where he also appeared on the CBS-networkedSaturday Night Country Style, before joining the WHAS-TV weeklyHayloft Hoedown. Being only 5 feet 4 inches tall, he found his Gibson J-200 guitar heavy and cumbersome and took to playing a lute (he had bought the instrument under the initial impression that it was a strange-shaped, but much lighter, guitar when he saw it in a music shop window). After stringing it with steel guitar strings, he began to use it in his act. He is, in all probability, the first and only person in country music to use a lute as his main instrument. Influenced and helped by Ernest Tubb, he moved to Nashville in 1964 and recorded for United Artists Records. In 1966, he gained his first US country chart entry with ‘How Long Has It Been?’, which peaked at number 6. Further Top 20 country hits included ‘Love Me And Make It All Better’, ‘From Heaven To Heartache’ and in 1970, his version of ‘Hello Mary Lou’ (a pop hit for Rick Nelson in 1961). He guested on the Grand Ole Opry, played venues all across the USA and made tours to both Europe and the Far East. After 1973, he recorded for various labels and achieved some minor chart entries, the best being ‘Too Many Memories’, a number 21 country hit in 1973. His last chart entry came in 1985, with a song called ‘Love Is An Overload’, after which he seems to have disappeared from the music scene.
Hometown
Hodgenville, KY, United States of America
Genre
Pop