Grady Nutt's comedy returns via Web, CDs

NASHVILLE (BP) -- The comedy of Grady Nutt, a Southern Baptist seminary graduate known as the "Prime Minister of Humor" and a regular on television's long-running "Hee Haw" show, is being rejuvenated 30 years after his death via a website and commemorative two-CD collection of previously unreleased tracks.

A native of Amarillo, Texas, Nutt began his career in childhood, singing gospel music on the radio with his mother accompanying on the piano, according to gradynutt.com. At age 12, he became an ordained Baptist minister and joked that he could perform legal weddings of his classmates.

Nutt graduated from Baylor University in 1957 and was a youth pastor at First Baptist Church in Waco, Texas. In 1960, he moved to Louisville, Ky., where he enrolled at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and also became pastor of Graefenburg Baptist Church in Waddy, Ky. Friendships he made there later became part of his performances, the website says.

Upon graduation from Southern in 1964, Nutt became a recruiter for the seminary, speaking on college campuses across the South. His popularity grew and led to several television appearances including as a guest host of "The Mike Douglas Show," which was the nation's top-rated daytime talk show at the time.

His big break came in 1979, the website says, when he was added to the cast of Hee Haw and was given a couple of minutes each episode to do a routine. He wrote several bestselling books and released multiple comedy albums and a Southern Gospel record.

In 1981, NBC launched "The Grady Nutt Show" starring Nutt as the pastor of a local church in which members would get into a humorous crisis and he would attempt to solve it, the website says.

Grady Nutt's comedy returns via Web, CDs

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