Many may not remember, but Florence Kentucky was the home to a country music legend, Kenny Price. James Kenneth "Kenny" Price was born in Florence in 1931 and raised on a farm in Boone County. Kenny's residence was right here in Florence Kentucky.
Kenny Price was a musician on the Midwestern Hayride on WLWT in Cincinnati, and eventually took over as the show's host until it went off the air in the early 1970s.
His first recordings were made for Boone Records, then Kenny moved on to RCA
in 1969, where he remained until 1976. Kenny Price had
34 singles chart in his career, including "Walking on the New Grass" in 1966, "Happy Tracks", "Northeast Arkansas Mississippi
County Bootlegger", and "The Sheriff of Boone
County". His novelty number
"(This Is) The Shortest Song in the World", written with record
producer Ronny Light, enjoyed some airplay after its release on album
in 1970.
Kenny was a big man who stood six feet tall and weighed nearly 300 pounds for most of
his professional career, and he was nicknamed "The Round Mound of Sound".
Many of his comedic songs made reference to his size, "The Heavyweight" being an obvious example. In his later years Kenny became significantly
thinner and lampooned himself in the song "The Boone County Weight
Watchers of America".
In 1976 Kenny Price relocated to Nashville and became a regular on the classic television show Hee Haw. He served as the bass
vocalist for the Hee Haw Gospel Quartet, which included Grandpa Jones, Buck Owens, and Roy Clark. Kenny could also be seen in the classic sketch "gloom, despair and agony on me".
Kenny and fellow Hee Haw cast member Lulu Roman
got their own short-lived spin-off series called "Hee Haw Honeys",
which ran from 1978-1979. Kenny and Lulu also guest starred on two episodes
of The Love Boat. Kenny later had a small role in the film Cold Justice, which was released after his death.
Kenny's wife Donna 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 to show places of interest.
Kenny Price died of heart failure in 1987, and is buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Erlanger.
