Meanwhile, Rose remained determined to further Ashworth's music career and managed to get him signed to Decca in 1960. Now billed as Ernest Ashworth, he hit the Top Five with his first Decca single, Each Moment (Spent With You). That same year he scored a Top Ten hit with You Can't Pick a Rose in December. In 1962, he signed with the Acuff-Rose-owned Hickory label and again hit the Top Five with Everybody but Me. A year later, he had his only number one hit with the John D. Loudermilk-penned Talk Back Trembling Lips. That song was tailor-made for Ashworth's vulnerable tenor voice, influenced by Anka and by Buddy Holly but with a more distinctively country reediness; it propelled him to Most Promising Male Artist awards from Billboard and Cashbox magazines and to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry in 1964. With further successes, such as the self-penned I Love to Dance With Annie, Ashworth was a consistent hitmaker up to the release of 1970's The Look of Goodbye. After four singles on the independent O'Brien label flopped, he retired to his farm in Lewisburg, TN, continuing to appear regularly on the Opry and occasionally touring the country. In 1989 he became the owner of Ardmore, TN, radio station WSLV, and his occasional recording releases in the 1990s found favor among tradition-minded European country listeners. ~ James Manheim, Rovi