by Colin Escott
From the Grinder’s Switch Gazette, September 1945:
Word has just now reached us that last winter for almost six months the Roy Acuff recording of “Great Speckled Bird” was among the top ten numbers on the Mediterranean Hit Parade chosen from requests sent in by G.I.s in that section of the world.
From Radio Daily, October 1945:
A tally of 3,700 votes cast by G.I. listeners in the European areas during a two-week popularity contest over AFN’s Munich Morning Report between Frank
MINNIE PEARL:
That was the first time I realized how far-flung country music had become. The boys had come home from the service and many who’d never been exposed to country music before they left were now fans. It’s hard for some of the new country artists to realize how limited we were in the early days. Through the mid-1940s, country music performers didn’t play the big halls or the class houses. We showed in high school auditoriums, one-room schoolhouses, beer joints, and fairs.
ERNEST TUBB:
People couldn’t believe country music was being played at Carnegie Hall. The radio and newspaper people ignored us the first night we were there, but we turned away six thousand people and the next night every reporter was there. We played two nights and even then didn’t play to everyone.
Sinatra and Roy Acuff showed a 600 vote lead for Acuff. As a result, a new show called Hillbilly Jamboree will be launched by AFN Munich soon.
From the Grinder’s Switch Gazette, November 1945:
While Roy Acuff is in Hollywood, Saturday night Opry fans will still be able to hear him and the Smoky Mountain Boys on the Prince Albert program. Arrangements have been made to “pipe” his part of the program from Hollywood through to WSM, where it will go out as part of the network show.
Despite characterizing Hollywood as seventy-five percent phony, Acuff made five movies between 1942 and 1946, and toured nationwide, making it hard to meet his Opry commitment.
Before satellites, radio shows were transmitted across the network by phone lines, and Roy Acuff used the same technology to appear on the Opry in voice if not in person.
From the Grinder’s Switch Gazette, January 1946:
A lady arrived at the Opry House back in November and was walking down the aisle to her seat just as Roy Acuff by wire from Hollywood was introducing Gene Autry, also in Hollywood. Autry sang a song. The lady, being familiar with the voices of both Roy and Gene was somewhat confused hearing them and not being able to see them. She walked up to the doorman and said, “How much extra does it cost to see ’em?”
Roy Acuff was beginning to test his popularity in ways that sometimes dismayed his costars. In 1943, Acuff’s Prince Albert Opry show had gone from partial networking to the full NBC network. There was a celebration at the Ryman, but Tennessee governor Prentice Cooper wouldn’t attend. Saying he’d be no party to a circus, he added that Acuff was bringing disgrace to Tennessee by making Nashville the hillbilly capital of the United States. He would be the last Tennessee governor to take that stand, but Acuff was determined to make him pay for it. With a governor’s race looming in 1944, Acuff secured the Republican nomination.
PEE WEE KING:
Roy called me before he announced his candidacy. He said, “Pee Wee, you’re a Republican, and I want you to help me. I’ll throw in fifty thousand dollars of my own money, and we’ll draw crowds like you’ve never seen. We’ll play all the little foothill towns and courthouse squares all over Tennessee, and I’m confident we’ll win.” He was right about drawing the big crowds. Everybody came to hear ol’ Roy sing, but they didn’t vote for him. He got whipped by the Democrats.
Roy was the first Opry star to sign a deal for product endorsement. Cherokee Mills reached an agreement with him to use his name on their flour. Later in the 1940s, J.C. Penney would license his name for a line of clothing.
Undeterred, Acuff decided to try for the Republican nomination again in 1948, but was defeated yet again.
In 1946, between runs for governor, Roy Acuff left the Opry in a dispute over salary. Rather than give in to his demands, the Opry hired Red Foley away from WLS’s National Barn Dance to replace him on the Prince Albert segment.
Roy Acuff: “It isn’t easy for a country boy like me to stand up here and try to make a political speech. I intend on staying up here, being one of you, and I promise not to bring politics again to the Grand Ole Opry.”
RED FOLEY:
I guess I never was more scared than I was the night I replaced Roy Acuff on the network part of the Opry. The people adored Roy and a lot of them didn’t believe he’d quit. They thought I was a Chicago slicker who had come down to pass himself off as a country boy and bump Roy out of his job. It took me about a year to get adjusted. But, boy, that first night on the Opry stage was a nervous time. While I was wishing Roy luck and saying goodbye, there were old women crying in the front row. I’d been warned people might throw tomatoes at me—without taking them out of the can.
HILLOUS BUTRUM, Opry bass player:
Foley wasn’t a real showman, but I’ve never seen anybody else able to hold an audience the way Red did, except maybe Hank Williams. We were playing the Showboat in Las Vegas once, and everybody was drinking and gambling and living it up. Red came out and did “Peace in the Valley,” and it was like someone had turned off a switch. We asked him how he had the nerve to sing a hymn in a place like that and how he could make it go over so strongly, and he said, “I pick out two people and just sing to them. I begin to reach them, and then it spreads.”
Early in 1947, Roy Acuff returned from an extensive West Coast trip, and was hospitalized. Two of his first visitors were Harry Stone and Ernest Tubb. According to Acuff, the conversation went like this:
Harry said, “Roy, the Opry is losing many of its people, and it looks like maybe we’re going under if you don’t come back and be with us. Come and help us out. We wish you would change your mind, and come back.” [I replied], “Harry, if I mean that much to WSM and the Grand Ole Opry, I will come back and do everything I can to help the Opry at all times.”
Roy Acuff in a promotional shot for RC Cola.
Roy Acuff returned April 26, 1947, as host of the Opry’s Royal Crown segment, but Red Foley remained at the helm of the Prince Albert show. Always an astute businessman, Acuff might have sensed that his career had peaked. He returned just as another Opry star, Eddy Arnold, was wondering if he really needed the Opry. Arnold’s answer would be different than Acuff’s. A pioneer country crooner, Eddy Arnold’s star had risen meteorically in very few years. It had been just five years since he’d left Pee Wee King and gone to see Harry Stone.
Roy Acuff was a showman extraordinaire. In addition to singing and playing the fiddle, he was a champion with a yo-yo and could balance a fiddle on its bow on his chin.
EDDY ARNOLD:
I said, “Mister Stone, I love Pee Wee, but I’m going to leave him. I’m not making any money and I’m not getting anywhere. I have a wife and mother to support, and I’m quitting whether you hire me on my own or not. What I’d like to do is work for you on this station.” How I ever got up the nerve to askHarry Stone to give me my own program, I’ll never know. Mister Stone looked at me a second or two, blinked, and said, “Eddy, you have a job.” I didn’t earn a lot on WSM, but Harry Stone saw to it that I got enough to get by. I’ll never be able to repay Harry Stone for having faith in me. Gradually, he arranged for me to appear on other WSM programs, and finally the Grand Ole Opry.
In 1944, Harry Stone arranged for Eddy Arnold to get a recording contract with RCA, and in the years immediately after the war, Eddy sold millions of records and became the first country artist to consistently cross over into the pop charts. He dominated the country charts to such an extent that just one other artist scored a number-one hit in 1948.
Eddy’s Arnold’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, later managed Elvis Presley, and saw the Opry tying up his star on Saturday night at minimum wage. Repeatedly, the Colonel told Eddy that the Opry n
eeded him more than he needed the Opry, and, in 1948, Eddy came to share that opinion.
EDDY ARNOLD:
Someone said to me, “The Opry made you.” I said, “If it made me, then why hasn’t it made the Fruit Jar Drinkers?”
Even off the Opry, Eddy Arnold was so influential that the Opry had to accommodate him. Colonel Parker arranged for Eddy to host a radio show sponsored by Purina. It was offered to WSM for transmission on Satur-day night, but WSM turned it down because it would interrupt the Opry. Purina then offered it to WSM’s rival, WLAC, for Friday night.
After Eddy left Pee Wee King, Judge Hay dubbed him “The Tennessee Plowboy.” Success came quickly. Little Roy Wiggins, Eddy’s steel guitarist: “We’d leave Nashville on Sunday night. We’d get home during the day on Saturday, play the Opry Saturday night, and leave again Sunday night.”
IRVING WAUGH:
I told Purina that if they ever put the Eddy Arnold show in this market, it had to go on WSM because we were the country station. I told him that if he went to another station on Friday night we would put a live country music show against him, in front of him, and behind him. I said, “I hate to say this because it sounds as though I’m threatening you, but this means so much to our company.” He finally said, “You can have it, but you’ll have to do what you said you’d do if the show went on the other station. You’ll have to build a live show in front of it and behind it.”
And so, in 1948, the Friday Night Frolics was created as a sister show to the Saturday night Opry. With a live audience in the WSM studio, it ful-filled the commitment to Purina, and allowed the station to offer sponsorship opportunities to advertisers waiting for a spot on the Opry itself. The frolics would later become the Friday Night Opry, moving from WSM Studio C to the Ryman on September 11, 1964.
Even with Eddy Arnold gone, the Opry was still drawing top up-and-coming stars: George Morgan, Little Jimmy Dickens, Hank Wil-liams, and Hank Snow.
George Morgan: September 1948
GEORGE MORGAN:
One Saturday night, I was back in Barberton, Ohio. I heard Eddy Arnold say goodbye to the Opry audience. I wondered who would be replacing Eddy, and on Monday morning I got a call from WSM asking me to audition.
George Morgan and band perform at the Friday Night Frolics, broadcast from WSM Studio C. Many Opry members performed not only on the regular Saturday night show, but on daily programs and the Frolics as well.
Unusually, George Morgan was brought to the Opry before he’d made his first record. He was appearing regularly on the WWVA Jamboree, and the Opry had heard enough good reports to entice him to Nashville. Co-lumbia Records signed him as soon as he arrived, and his first record, “Candy Kisses,” became his signature hit. In 1972, he introduced his daughter, Lorrie, a future member, from the Opry stage.
Little Jimmy Dickens: February 1948
Compensating for his small stature (four feet, eleven inches in cowboy boots) with a brassy personality, Little Jimmy Dickens has been an entertainer more than a singer, but for many years he recruited some of the most innovative musicians in Nashville and could perform ballads as adeptly as the novelty songs for which he’s best known.
GRANT TURNER:
Roy Acuff did a radio show from his den on Sunday afternoons. It was the first time anyone had done this on WSM. His wife, Mildred, built a fire during the winter. Roy had met Jimmy in Saginaw, and he told Jimmy that if he came to Nashville, he’d get him on the Grand Ole Opry, but the first time Jimmy was on WSM was on Roy’s program from his den.
LITTLE JIMMY DICKENS:
When Roy Acuff came to Saginaw [Michigan], it was very cold. He asked me, “What are you doing in this cold country?” I said, “Well, it’s a living, you know. I’m working.” He said, “We’ve got to see about getting you out of here. Would you be interested in coming to the Opry?” I said, “If you told me I was going to the Opry, I don’t know if I’d live long enough to make it.” I didn’t sleep for two days and nights. [After the first show], I went back to Saginaw and forgot about it. Then I got a call to do another guest spot. Mr. Acuff said, “You’d better bring enough things with you. I think you’re going to stay.” Sure enough, he said, “I want you to stay around here, do my program, and stay at the house until we can get you straightened out.”
Little Jimmy Dickens in hot pursuit of June Carter on the Jefferson Island Salt portion of the Opry.
I just went from doing Mister Acuff’s programs to my own. I did early-morning programs on WSM for a pretty long period of months, so I figured by doing that they were going to put me on the Opry as a regular member. I more or less just slid into it.
Little Jimmy Dickens songbook, published 1956.
Little Jimmy was also signed to the Opry without any hits or even a recording contract, but he, too, was acquired by Columbia Records and used the exposure afforded by the Opry to make his first records, “Take an Old Cold Tater (and Wait)” and “Country Boy,” into big hits.
There were years between 1957 and 1975 when Little Jimmy Dickens only guested on the Opry, but at the dawn of the new millennium, he was the only performer who’d joined the show in the 1940s still on the bill.
Hank Williams: June 1949
Early in 1949, Hank was in Shreve-port working on the Louisiana Hayride. He’d been recording with intermittent success since 1946, but his record of “Lovesick Blues” had just knocked George Morgan’s “Candy Kisses” from the top of the country charts when he was invited to Nashville. Though they didn’t realize it at the time, Hank had already made his Opry debut.
Hank Williams greets some young fans backstage.
JUDGE HAY:
We were putting on a show at Montgomery City Auditorium. This would have been the late 1930s. A boy about fifteen came rushing up. He said, “Judge, just let me do one number, please.” I said, “You walk around backstage and I’ll listen to you.” The show was going on, and I listened to him, and he did real well. I said, “Get up there and do a couple of songs.” Found out later, that was Hank Williams, and it had to be ten years or more before he joined the Opry.
Hank’s reputation preceded him, but the Opry finally decided that he was a risk they had to take on.
OSCAR DAVIS, Hank’s manager:
I came to Jim Denny, and Jim said, “No we won’t have Hank Williams. We talked about him with Harry Stone and he’s got a bad reputation with drinking and missing shows.” So I plead and plead with him, and finally he agrees to square it away.
In order to get Hank on the Opry, his producer and music publisher, Fred Rose, gave the composer credit on a song that he [Rose] had written to Harry Stone and Jack Stapp. That song, “Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy,” became a big hit for Red Foley, Frank Sinatra, and others in 1949.
GRANT TURNER:
Hank brought that song “Lovesick Blues” to the Opry They brought him in that first night and put him in boss’s office so he could relax, and when it came his time, they brought him down, and Red Foley introduced him. People loved that “Lovesick Blues” song so much, they kicked up the dust in the auditorium. The spotlights looked like they were picking up smoke, there was so much dust kicked up.
Red Foley (partly obscured with fedora hat) introduces Hank Williams on the Prince Albert Opry. Red Foley: “Well, sir, tonight’s big-name guest is making his first appearance on Prince Albert Grand Ole Opry. He’s a Montgomery, Alabama, boy. Been pickin’ and singin’ about twelve years, but it’s been about the last year he’s really come into his own, and we’re proud to give a rousing Prince Albert welcome to the Lovesick Blues Boy, Hank Williams. Well, sir, we hope you’ll be here for a good long time, buddy.”Hank Williams: “Well, Red, it looks like I’ll be doing just that, and I’ll be looking forward to it.”
LITTLE JIMMY DICKENS:
The mystery of Hank Williams I have never been able to figure out: what the magnetism was that he had. Anytime you worked a concert with him, you didn’t have to peep around the curtain to see if you had a full house. You knew
it. He’d tell you, too. “I drew a full house, now go out there and entertain ’em.” When he came onstage people would become unglued. The lyrics that would come out of his mouth. Unbelievable! He wasn’t that well educated. Where did all this come from? It would scare you.
Whistlin’ Dixie. From left: Hank Williams, Jerry Rivers, Sammy Pruett, Cedric Rainwater, and Don Helms; seated, Minnie Pearl.
CHET ATKINS, Opry staff guitarist:
Hank would come up to you at the Opry and say, “I got a new one for you, hoss.” He’d get right up in your face and sing it, and the smell of bourbon would be pretty strong. Then he’d play something like “Mansion on the Hill,” or one of those unbelievably great songs. Someone like Ernest Tubb or Hank Snow would be standing around, and they’d say, “I’d like to record that, Hank.” Hank would narrow his eyes and say, “Naw, it’s too damn good for you. I’m gonna record it myself.” I think those were his test runs. If Ernest Tubb and Hank Snow wanted the song, Hank knew it was a hit.