Andy Samuel Griffith, born June 1, 1926, in Mount Airy, North Carolina, was an American singer and actor whose music career spanned several decades. He studied music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in 1949 and performed in several student operettas. He released his debut single, the comic monologue "What It Was, Was Football," in 1953, which reached number 9 on the charts in 1954. Over the following decades, his recordings included Just for Laughs (1958), Shouts the Blues and Old Timey Songs (1959), Somebody Bigger Than You and I (1972), and American Originals (1993). He achieved significant commercial success with his Christian hymn albums, such as I Love to Tell the Story: 25 Timeless Hymns (1996), which earned a Grammy Award in 1997, and Just as I Am: 30 Favorite Old Time Hymns (1997). In 2008, he appeared in the music video for Brad Paisley's song "Waitin' on a Woman". He was honored with the opening of a museum dedicated to his legacy in Mount Airy on September 26, 2009. He died of a heart attack in Manteo, North Carolina, on July 3, 2012, at the age of 86.
