Riddle was born in
Dyersburg, Tennessee and got into show business in
Memphis, Tennessee at age 16 by passing the hat in a local beer joint. He moved to Texas in 1939 where he later met
Roy Acuff. He joined Acuff's Smokey Mountain Boys group in 1943 and left to serve in WWII in 1944 and came back and became a regular member of the band. playing harmonica, piano, and accordion, until his death. Riddle was a featured performer on
Hee Haw in the late 1960s and early 1970s. One day in 1970 he and guitarist Jackie Phelps were fooling around backstage, Phelps doing the rhythmic knee-slapping known as
hambone while Riddle eefing|. Co-star
Junior Samples was so impressed he encouraged the two to perform the routine for the producers. "The Hambone Brothers" became a semi-regular feature of the show. In the early 1980s Riddle joined
Boxcar Willie's touring band, playing the harmonica solos, but remained in Acuff's band on the Opry. Riddle is commemorated in
Cockney rhyming slang: to go for a Jimmy Riddle is to urinate or piddle. Riddle died of cancer in
Nashville in 1982, aged 64. ==References==