For many, Pierce, with his flamboyant Nudie suits and twin silver dollar-lined convertibles, became the most recognizable face of country music of the era and its excesses.

[1] As a boy, he was infatuated with Gene Autry films and his mother's hillbilly records, particularly those of Jimmie Rodgers and Western swing and Cajun groups.

[4] Pierce assembled and performed with a band of local Shreveport musicians, including pianist Floyd Cramer, guitarist-vocalist Faron Young, bassist Tillman Franks, and vocalists Teddy and Doyle Wilburn.

[2] In September 1952, the Grand Ole Opry needed to fill the vacancy left by the firing of Hank Williams, and Pierce was invited to join the cast.

[1] After Williams' death, he became the most popular singer in country music; for the next four years, every single he released hit the top 10, with 10 reaching number one, including "There Stands the Glass" (1953), "Slowly" (1954), "More and More" (1954) (a million seller),[5] and "In the Jailhouse Now" (1955).

which became a popular paid tourist attraction – nearly 3,000 people visited it each week – causing his neighbors, led by singer Ray Stevens, to file suit and prevail against Pierce to end the tours.

[1] Though he had occasional minor hits, charting in a 1982 duet with Willie Nelson, a remake of "In the Jailhouse Now",[1] he spent his final years tending to his businesses, and his legend became clouded due to his reputation as a hard drinker.

[3][dubious – discuss] Webb and his daughter Debbie recorded the ballad "On My Way Out" as the Pierces, and she was a member of the country group Chantilly in the early 1980s.

Pierce waged a long battle with pancreatic cancer, dying on February 24, 1991,[1] and was buried in the Woodlawn Memorial Park in Nashville.

Footage of Pierce singing "There Stands the Glass" was featured in the 2005 documentary No Direction Home by Martin Scorsese about early influences on Bob Dylan.