Louis Marshall "Grandpa" Jones (born October 20, 1913 in Niagara, Kentucky – February 19, 1998) was an
American banjo player and "old time" country and gospel music singer. Grandpa Jones, one of country
music's most beloved figures, died Thursday, February 19,1998, at a Nashville area long-term care facility
due to complications resulting from a series of strokes. Jones suffered a massive stroke January 3 shortly
after an appearance on the Grand Ole Opry, where he had been an icon for more than fifty years.

Jones spent his teenage years in Akron, Ohio where he began singing country music tunes on a local radio
show. By 1935 his pursuit of a musical career took him to WBZ (AM) radio in Boston, Massachusetts where he
met musician/songwriter Bradley Kincaid who gave him the nickname "Grandpa" due to his off-stage
grumpiness at early-morning radio shows. Jones liked the name and decided to create a stage persona based
around it.

Performing as "Grandpa Jones," he played the banjo, yodeled, and sang mostly old-time ballads. The
vaudevillian humor was a bridge to television entertainment. Jones played a style of banjo called frailing,
which gave it the rough back woods flavor of his performances. Some of his more famous songs include,
"T is for Texas" and "Mountain Dew." He also wrote the song "Eight More Miles to Louisville". Moving to
Nashville, Tennessee, he became part of the Grand Ole Opry and was a regular cast member on the popular TV
show, Hee Haw. In 1978 Grandpa Jones was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. An autobiography of
him, Everybody's Grandpa: Fifty Years Behind The Mike was published in 1984 (with assistance from Charles
K.Wolfe).

In January of 1998, he suffered a stroke after his second show performance at the Grand Ole Opry and died
a few weeks later. He is interred in the Luton Memorial Methodist Church cemetery in Nashville