Thomas Scott was born outside of Toccoa, Georgia, United States, and began playing the guitar at age ten.
After high school he joined Doc Chamberlain's medicine show, and got his first job in radio on WTFL in Athens, Georgia in 1933.
He performed on the WWVA Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia with Monroe and was also a frequent soloist there, and did skits involving ventriloquism and blackface.
Amongst those appearing were "Fuzzy" Al St. John, David "Stringbean" Akeman, Tim McCoy, Clyde Moody, Johnny Mack Brown, Sunset Carson, and Randall Franks.
According to the introduction of his autobiography, Snake Oil, Superstars and Me, published in 2007 and co-authored by Randall Franks and Shirley Noe Swiesz, Scott was then 90 years old.