James Kenneth Price was a singer, songwriter, and actor. Nicknamed the "Round Mound of Sound," Price recorded for the Boone and RCA Victor, MRC and Dimension record labels, charting thirty-four singles on the Hot Country Songs charts between 1966 and 1980. His highest-peaking singles, "Walking on New Grass" and "Happy Tracks," both reached No. 7 on that chart.
Life and career
Price was born in Florence, Kentucky, and was raised on a farm in Boone County, Kentucky. He learned to play guitar when he was five years old. At age 14, he started playing live music for WZIP in Covington, Kentucky. From 1952 until 1954, Price served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, reaching the rank of corporal. While stationed in Korea, he auditioned for a USO show, and before being discharged, he had decided to become a professional musician. He studied for a brief time at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and became a musician on Midwestern Hayride on WLWT, eventually taking over as the show's host until it went off the air in the early 1970s. He first recorded for Boone Records, then moved on to RCA in 1969, where he stayed until 1976. For most of his career, Price worked with Ray Pennington, whose style complemented his own. Price had 34 singles chart in his career, including "Walking on the New Grass", "Happy Tracks", "Northeast Arkansas Mississippi County Bootlegger", and "The Sheriff of Boone County". His novelty number " The Shortest Song in the World", written with record producerRonny Light, enjoyed some airplay after its release on an album in 1970. Standing 6'-6" tall and weighing nearly 300 pounds for most of his professional career, he was nicknamed "The Round Mound of Sound". Many of his comedic songs made reference to his size—"The Heavyweight" is an obvious example. In later years, Price became significantly thinner and lampooned himself in the song "The Boone CountyWeight Watchers of America". In 1976, Price relocated to Nashville and became a regular on the televisionvariety showHee Haw.. He served as the bass vocalist for the Hee Haw Gospel Quartet, which included Grandpa Jones, Buck Owens, and Roy Clark. Price and fellow Hee Haw cast memberLulu Roman got their own short-lived spin-off series called Hee Haw Honeys, which ran from 1978 to 1979. Price and Roman guest starred on two episodes of The Love Boat. He later had a small role in the film Cold Justice, which was released after his death. His wife, Donna Price, wrote a few memorable tunes for him, including the hit "Let's Truck Together". In the mid-1980s, Kenny and Donna starred in The Nashville Network travelogue series called Wish You Were Here, where they traveled across the United States in a RV and visited places of interest. Price died of a heart attack in Florence, Kentucky, at the age of 56.
