The Grand Ole Opry

by Colin Escott

  In its earliest years, WSM was a single-advertiser station, and that advertiser was its owner, National Life and Accident Insurance Company. Edwin Craig’s enthusiasm for the Opry stemmed in part from his realization that the show enabled him to write more business in rural areas. Already, it touched people in rural America in a way that no other radio program ever had or would.

  Paul Warmack (right) with the Gully Jumpers made the first record by a Nashville artist to be released. Jack DeWitt: “No one remembers him today, but Paul Warmack was very popular. He had a big belly. I touched him on his belly, and said, ‘You’ve done pretty well by yourself, haven’t you?’ He said, ‘It’s a mighty poor man won’t build a shed over his best tool.’ ”

  National Life’s Our Shield ran testimonials from WSM’s listeners. Atmospheric conditions permitting, the station could be picked up across the eastern United States.

  Letter from WILL PRENTIS, Lincoln Avenue, Detroit, 1928:

  Mrs. Prentis and I, together with our two good friends and neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Parker, all true and loyal Southerners, wish to p1end to you our hearty appreciation of your splendid barn-dance program, which came in perfectly last night on our set. The music has the true ring and swing of the Old South, than which no higher compliment can be paid.

  TUNING IN

  When radio became popular in the 3333s, almost anyone could afford a primitive “crystal” receiver. The tuner inductor coil would be wound onto a cylindrical oatmeal box or drinking glass, and a detector to pick up the stations was attached to a makeshift antenna (steel bedsprings were popular), but without an amplifier only one person at a time could listen in. Electronic amplifiers and oscillators made crystal sets obsolete, but required more power, and that was often a problem in rural areas.

  WSM reception verification stamp. Early radio buffs collected stamps from the various stations they were able to pick up with their receivers. “Distance hounds,” as they were known, sent letters requesting proof of their “DXing” (long-distance receiving) prowess, and the stations could then determine the reach of their signal.

  FIDDLIN’ SID HARKREADER, early Opry performer:

  The old crystal radio set was attached to a window sill and had earphones. Only one person could listen to the broadcast. The crystal set was replaced by upright cabinet battery radio, which could be heard all over a room. It had volume control and people thought it was the grandest thing in the whole world, but the batteries didn’t last long. Country people would gather at the country store or at a neighbor’s house to listen. Large crowds would gather on night to hear the Grand Ole Opry.

  Our Shield was the internal company magazine for National Life and Accident Insurance Company, “for the education and inspiration of its home office and field force.” The fact that the magazine printed a WSM lineup and letters from listeners was a testament to the importance of the station as a sales tool for the company.

  Letter from W. A. TEASLEY, Bowman, Georgia, 1928

  I was talking to a fellow six miles out in the country who some two or three weeks ago installed a set, and he told me that his house would not hold the crowd last Saturday night. They wanted to hear nothing but [the Grand Ole Opry], and some had walked as much as five miles in the cold so that they might hear the Gully Jumpers, the Possum Hunters, the Clod Hoppers, the Fruit Jar Drinkers, and other stars who are unmatched. Long live these saints to scatter sunshine and fetch the memories of old back

  GRANDOLEOPRY

  MEMBERS: 1920s

  DEFORD BAILEY

  HENRY BANDY

  THE BINKLEY BROTHERS AND THEIR DIXIECLODHOPPERS

  THE CROOK BROTHERS

  KITTY CORA CLINE

  THE FRUIT JAR DRINKERS

  THE GULLY JUMPERS

  THERON HALE ANDHIS DAUGHTERS

  FIDDLIN’ SID HARKREADER

  UNCLE DAVE MACON

  UNCLE JOE MANGRUM AND FRED SHRIVER

  THE PICKARD FAMILY

  W. ED POPLIN ANDHISBARNDANCEORCHESTRA

  DR. HUMPHREY BATE AND HIS POSSUM HUNTERS

  ARTHUR SMITH

  UNCLE JIMMY THOMPSON

  MAZY TODD

  2

  EARLY DAYS... EARLY STARS

  The grand Ole Opry’s first major star, Uncle Dave Macon,was a sprightly fiftyfive at the time of his first appearance, and celebrated his eightieth birthday on the Opry stage. When Uncle Dave joined the Opry, he was already a star on the southern vaudeville circuit, and was the first Opry performer to make his livelihood from music. Although he lived into the atomic age, his roots were in the rural South of the Reconstruction era. Some of his songs were from minstrel shows, some were folk ballads and hymns, but many were drawn from his long, colorful life.

  GRANT TURNER, Opry announcer:

  Uncle Dave grew up on the streets of Nashville. Later, during the Second World War, he’d go out and sing for the troops lined up to eat at Gus & George’s restaurant. That’s the kind of fella he was. When he was onstage, he’d lean back on an old cane-bottom chair. God know show he balanced himself. He played the banjo. He had a gates-ajar collar, gold teeth, and his shirt pockets were a different color from the shirt. I asked him where he got those shirts, and he said he had a “worman,” that’s how he pronounced it, a “worman” who made them for him.

  Interviewed in this record company newsletter, Uncle Dave served up an anecdote that harked back to minstrel-era routines. “I have received number after number of letters from singing and playing over the radio. I received one from an old lady down in Arkansas, which read, ‘Uncle Dave Makins: We certainly did enjoy you over our radiator last night. From the way you talk, laugh, and sing, you must be one of the most wonderful old negroes of the South.’ ”

  RUFUS JARMAN, journalist, in Nation’s Business:

  He used to play for quarters in a hat at a country school in Lascassas, Tennessee. He did wonderful things on a variety of banjos and he sang in a voice you could hear a mile up the road on a clear night. Mules used to stir in their stalls halfway up the valley when they heard Uncle Dave sing. “As long as bacon stays at thutty cents a pound, I’m a-gonna eat a rabbit if I hafta run him down.” I remember the first Saturday night in 1926 when Uncle Dave made his debut on WSM. We had read about it in the paper but we didn’t mention it around Lascassas. We had one of the two radio sets in the community, and we were afraid everybody in that end of the county would swarm into our house and trample us. Nevertheless, word got around and just about everybody did swarm into our house.

  Recording of “Uncle Dave’s Travels, Part 4”: “People, when Columbus discovered this country, it was plum full of nuts and berries, but I’m right here to tell you, the berries is just about all gone.”

  Before Uncle Dave became a professional musician, he’d owned a mule freight company southwest of Nashville. He blamed cars and trucks for the failure of his business and for most modern vices, but that didn’t prevent him from hiring support acts who’d drive him to shows. As workon the vaudeville circuits diminished, he played schoolhouse dates. During the Depression, school principals would often book shows for the community to raise money for their schools. They’d split the proceeds with the performer, who in turn, would split it with the supporting act.

  ALTON DELMORE of the Delmore Brothers, 1930s Opry stars:

  Now Uncle Dave Macon had people all over the country that knew him personally before there ever was a radio station in Tennessee or, for that matter, anywhere. He had been playing for tobacco auctioneers, political rallies, and various other events for years and years. He knew how to operate and he was as honest as the day is long. He didn’t want a penny that wasn’t his, and he didn’t want you to have a penny that belonged to him. Very often when we counted out the money at the end of a show, there would be an odd penny. Now you can’t divide a penny, and Uncle Dave would put it down in his little book, and remember every time who the odd penny belonged to.

  MINNIE PEARL, Opry star:

  He used to carry a black s
atchel with him when he went out on tour. It had a pillow, a nightcap, his bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and a checkered bib. He’d often talk of religion. He complained about preachers departing from the Bible. He could quote at length from scripture and use it to solve all the problems of the world.

  Judge Hay visits with Uncle Dave at home. Uncle Dave told friends that he preferred singing at home because he could spit into his fireplace.

  Like most performers with roots in the nineteenth century, Uncle Dave was a visual act, but his personality shone through so forcefully in his banter and songs thatseveral generations of Opry listeners came to regard him as an endearinglyeccentric family member. His ability to hold a crowd was the envy of every Opry performer, and his refusal to change meant that, in later years, his songs and patter became a window onto a lost world.

  DAVID STONE, WSM announcer:

  If I remember right, he had seven sons, and he didn’t call any one of them by name. He’d say, “the one-eyed boy that lives over the hill” or “the one that has the basement full of home-cured hams” or “the preacher they didn’t see anytime on Sunday.” He knew who he was talking about, I guess. People accused him of coming on the air drunk, but he did not. It was his way of entertaining, playing the banjo as he did it. Swinging it over his head and spinning it around. But a lot of people didn’t understand, and we had critical letters about it.

  Uncle Dave’s recording of “Comin’ Round the Mountain”: “I’m gonna play with more heterogeneous constapolicy, double flavor ’n’ unknown quality than usual.”

  BASHFUL BROTHER OSWALD, Roy Acuff’s Dobro player:

  Uncle Dave would come out onstage, look into the audience and say, “I may be old and ugly, but I don’t feel a damn bit lonesome here tonight.” When he was staying at a hotel, he would still rise about five a.m. He enjoyed going down and talking to the night clerk, who’d be tired and wasn’t really interested in hearing Uncle Dave’s jokes, but Uncle Dave went ahead and laughed enough at his jokes for both of’em.

  WSM press release, August 1937:

  To show how close the Grand Ole Opry comes to the hearts of its listeners, it’sinteresting to know that Fred Ritchie, who died in the electric chair at the state prison this summer for slaying his wife had warden Joe Pope call up on his last Saturday night and request Uncle Dave Macon to play “When I Take My Vacation in Heaven.”

  Uncle Dave’s last recording, January 26, 1938:With laughter and good humor just to pass the time awaySo while I’m here I’ll do my best to please you while I saySo come along and join my song and raise a merry shoutFor in fact, I am, and always was, the gayest dude that’s out

  Uncle Dave Macon helped Judge Hay define the Opry’s image. In pursuit of his vision, Hay famously named or renamed many of his regular groups. Dr. Bate & His Augmented Orchestra became the Possum Hunters, while the Binkley Brothers Barn Dance Orchestra became the Dixie Clodhoppers. Hay also named the Fruit Jar Drinkers and the Gully Jumpers, and insisted that his acts dress the part, despite the fact that many of them were city dwellers.

  Very quickly, Judge Hay came to see the Grand Ole Opry more as a calling than a job. His early life had been rootless, but the show helped him arrive at a sense of who he was and where he should be. He believed that he was preserving something of importance, and was entertaining people otherwise ignored by the entertainment media. His sign-on and sign-off, his catchphrases and heavily stylized delivery became familiar throughout the Opry’s increasingly large listening area.

  Before and after the Judge Hay makeover. Left: Ed Poplin’s band.

  Right: The Poplin Woods Tennessee String Band.

  GRANT TURNER:

  I can see Judge Hay now, walking into the studio with his script in one hand, and a glass of water in the other, going “mi-mi-mi,” testing out his voice to see if it was clear. Before each performance, he would turn to the entertainers and say, “Let’s keep’er close to the ground, boys.” [He] would take that old steamboat whistle out of a black storage box. He tucked it under his arm, neatly under one elbow. When he got to the center of the stage, he’d take out that old whistle and blow two long mournful notes, adding a little postscript. Toot-toot. The station break would follow. “WSM. The National Life and Accident Company in Nashville, Tennessee, pre-sent-ing the Grand Ole Opry.”

  This 1930s postcard from Opry sponsor O’Bryan Brothers shows Judge Hay surrounded by the cast of the show he created.

  CHET ATKINS, producer and guitarist:

  Yeah, the Judge would say, “Keep it close to the ground, boys,” which meant don’t get too fancy. Play the melody. Other barn dances tried to appeal to Madison Avenue and the big-city audiences, but they lost the country audience.

  GRANT TURNER:

  After the fiddlers fiddled their last tune, and the comedians had started rubbing off the greasepaint and wiping down with cold cream, Judge Hay was standing at the microphone, and he’d intone these words in a singsong voice. “That’s all for now, folks, because the tall pines pine, the pawpaws pause, and the bumblebee bumbles all day; the grasshoppers hop and the eavesdroppers drop, while gently the old cow slips away. George D. Hay—the Solemn Ol’ Judge—saying so long for now.”

  Grand Ole Opry cast, 1934. The image that Judge Hay envisioned for the show is fully realized. David Stone, announcer and later manager of the WSM Artists Service Bureau, is third row from the bottom, far left.

  Although he’d been hired as WSM’s station manager, Judge Hay began concentrating solely upon the Opry. As WSM’s listenership grew, Edwin Craig realized that Hay didn’t have the skills to manage the entire station, and, in 1928, he hired Harry Stone away from a rival Nashville station, WBAW. In 1932, Stone became WSM station manager, leaving Judge Hay in charge of the Opry. Harry Stone brought in his brother, David, as an announcer.

  JACK DEWITT:

  George Hay had an illness. It was mental. I don’t know what you’d call it medically. Barmy is not a good word, but that’s it. He was flaky. Really a very nice man, and it was a shame that it turned out the way it did. Harry Stone was very cantankerous. Very rude. He’d refer to Edwin Craig as “that son of a bitch.” Stone and I didn’t get along very well, either. He hated me.

  IRVING WAUGH, WSM executive:

  Harry Stone and Mr. Craig really fought. Mr. Craig felt very close to the Opry, and his position was that it was being endangered. He wanted to keep it the way that it had been in 1935 with a cast made up primarily of instrumental string bands. He believed the Elizabethan folk songs would survive, and he disagreed with the star system as it evolved. Harry was very near the same age as Mr. Craig, and would sometimes raise his voice in disagreement with Mr. Craig, which none of the rest of us would do.

  DAVID STONE, WSM announcer:

  George Hay was a lot of fun, but he never wanted to settle down to the details of running a big enterprise. He just walked around all day with his hat on. He had a habit of visiting some relatives up in Indiana, and would disappear suddenly without telling anybody where he was going. We’d just come to find out he wasn’t available.

  One of the problems bedeviling Judge Hay and Harry Stone was find-ing a permanent home for the Grand Ole Opry. Initially, the show was broadcast from WSM’s studio on Seventh Avenue North in Nashville, but the studio was in National Life’s office building.

  As soon as Harry Stone (left) took over from Judge Hay, he signaled his intention by hiring a smooth vocal trio, the Vagabonds

  (right). Trying to appeal to the Opry’s audience, the Vagabonds wrote a song that became a sentimental standard, “When It’s Lamplighting Time in the Valley.”

  AARON SHELTON, WSM engineer:

  The Opry started in WSM’s Studio “A,” which was not really made for that sort of thing. The heavy velour drapes ensured that it was very dead technically. By “dead,” I mean that there was no reverberation. Then, around 1926 or’27, they built Studio B, which had a large plate-glass window all the way across one side of it. Studio B didn’t have all
those drapes. It had normal walls, and the resonance and reverberation time was much longer so that it held music pretty well for a small studio. We set up chairs in front of this big window, and people could look in and see the artists performing. Two or three hundred chairs would be set up each Saturday night. People would start lining up outside the building at six o’clock, and the show didn’t start until eight. [WSM] tried to discourage the people coming because it wasn’t long before they were overflowing and interfering with National Life’s normal thing. We’d have the Anglo-Saxon type of descendants from around the area coming in, and they wouldn’t applaud or cheer or anything. Then the artists changed to a younger group, and the younger group had a younger following. Np1 thing you know they were throwing The Grand Ole Opry cigarettes everywhere, and it got to be a problem.

  left: WSM’s Studio B. The instruments show that WSM was programming pop music in addition to country.

  right: WSM’s Studio C. The attractively decorated studio prompted Armstrong Flooring to feature this colorized photograph in an ad campaign. Jack DeWitt: “[Studio C] was a big conference room. They put chairs in it for the Opry, but the National Life officials didn’t like that at all.”

  An even larger, auditorium-style space, Studio C was completed in Feb- ruary 1934, and could seat about five hundred audience members. Buteven that larger capacity wasn’t enough to accommodate the Opry crowds.

  JUDGE HAY:

  The crowds stormed the wrought-iron doors of the home office building to such an p1ent that our own officials could not get into their offices when they felt it necessary to do so on Saturday nights. The payoff came one Saturday night when our two top officials were refused admission to their own offices. Ouraudience was very politely invited to leave the building, and for some time we did not know if the Grand Ole Opry would be taken off the air. We broadcast for some time without any audience, but something was lacking. It seemed that a visible audience was part of our shindig.