 His mother, a church organist, had tried for years to get her son into music as a child, but he was focused more on sports, allegedly declining a contract with the ML baseball Cleveland Indians, then beginning his music career in the early 1950s performing on a Decatur, Georgia radio station.He began singing while in the US Navy during the 1940s, and later attended Emory University and studied veterinary medicine.During this time, he also played country music with a group he founded, the Southern Ranch Boys.