Jimmie Skinner

American country singer, musician and songwriter, born April 29, 1909 on a farm near Berea, Kentucky and died October 28, 1979 in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Moved to Hamilton, Ohio in 1926. The Hamilton-Cincinnati area was to be his home for most of the rest of his life.

In the 1950s, no one was more popular in the Cincinnati area - in 1951 he was voted the fifth most popular artist nationally in Country Song Roundup, behind only Hank Snow, Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, and Eddy Arnold. Part owner of the [l=Jimmie Skinner Music Center] in downtown Cincinnati, where he broadcast live daily for WNOP in Newport, Kentucky. He recorded on three major record labels: Capitol, Decca, and Mercury. He recorded three Billboard top-10 records: “I Found My Girl In the U.S.A.,” “What Makes a Man Wander,” and “Dark Hollow,” in addition to seven other top-30 records. Other labels for which he recorded included Red Barn, Radio Artist, Starday, Rich’R’Tone, Vetco, Country Corner, Stop, Sims, Brite-Star, Prize, Wel-Dun, Jewel, and Blue Grass Special.

Some of the artists he helped in the music business included Rusty York, Connie Hall, the Davis Sisters, Joe “Cannonball” Lewis, and Roy Moss. Mainly a country blues singer, in later years he recorded quite a bit of bluegrass and wrote the enduring bluegrass standard “Doin’ My Time,” as well as “Don’t Give Your Heart To a Rambler,” “You Don’t Know My Mind,” “A Born Ramblin’ Man” and many others. The IBMA honored him with a Distinguished Achievement Award in 2004.