December 5, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in the early 1920s, WSM filled its schedule with whatever talent it could gather, and one night a fiddler stepped into the studio with a tune that settled easily across the airwaves. The reaction from listeners changed the station’s direction. The music felt local in the best sense of the word, and the signal carried it into homes that had never heard anything like it. Those moments revealed how quickly a simple performance could influence the American music history taking shape around the radio.
The Grand Ole Opry emerged within that momentum, and Nashville followed along with the shift. The influence created a bridge between regional tradition and the broader landscape of country-western music, giving the early threads of country-music origins a steady place to land. Craig Havighurst, author of Musicality for Modern Humans, joins us with a look into how WSM and the Opry reshaped Nashville’s music history and left a mark that continues to guide the way the city sounds today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories.
Nashville is known as music city for good reason. Eight
out of every one thousand residents are involved in the
music industry, which pumps five point five billion dollars into
the local economy each year. But beyond the raw statistics,
(00:30):
it's the birthplace of country music, and a big reason
for that is WSM and the Grand ole Opry. Here
to share the story of country music's most famous stage,
the radio station that created it, and the men and
women who put Nashville on the map is Craig Havoghurst.
Take it away, Craig.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Music City was named on the air, but it would
not have been in a position to be named music city.
US era have the name stick without WSM and the
Grand ol Opstarting in nineteen twenty five.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Nashville, Tennessee, here's your junior friend, all are.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
The origin of the station has to precede the origin
of the show, because there's no show about the station.
WSM was a flight of imagination by a guy named
Edwin Craig.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Edwin Craig was a Tennessee native.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
His dad was one of the founding managers and owners
of a company called the National Life and Accident Insurance Company.
The company was still kind of getting on its feet,
but they were building a fancy new headquarters building in
downtown Nashville. Edwin Craig was working for the company at
the time, coming up through the ranks as a walking
(01:45):
the beat insurance salesman to a regional sales manager. His
father's like, you got to come up through the ladder
like anybody else. And by the time he's in his
late twenties, he has a senior position in the office
in Nashville, and he is now a radio enthusiast, so
thinking something on the order of, we need a website.
(02:07):
In nineteen twenty five, Edwin had to sell this idea
to his dad and to the board of directors, which
were all old guys who didn't understand where radio is going.
They would say, well, why do we need this, And
he would say, to spread our brand, to spread goodwill,
to give back to the community, and then that will
(02:28):
come back to us as business and political alliances and
all kinds of things. Long story short, he makes the sale,
and they said, if we're going to do this, National
Life does everything the best. They put a radio tower
up on a big Hill where Belmont University is today.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
They get a Steinway piano.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
They have the best microphones, they have the best broadcast equipment.
They throw the equivalent, as I recall, the equivalent was
about a million bucks. They didn't give him a few bucks.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Closet is WSM and Nashville and this is the big.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
ZU And they go on the air in the evening
of October fifth, nineteen twenty five, with a full scale,
multi part show. They have live bands in two different hotels.
They had bands on the roof of the new building
on the.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Sixth floor roof.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
The station is on the fifth floor, above four floors
of insurance teletypers and you know secretaries and claims guys.
I mean, it's just the operations of the insurance business
are going on right below them. And they invite the
mayor and the governor of Tennessee, and they have a
shriner's band and they have all this festivities. So they
had this big festive opening and got the station off
(03:44):
on the right foot, high profile. So once some USM
goes on the air, they have this responsibility to have
content all day. They were not twenty four hours at
the beginning, but there were no records to play. So
imagine the challenge of having live acts stepping to a
microphone constantly from like six in the morning until eleven.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Pm, and they have to do this every day.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Edwin Craig's in charge of this, and he has several
people he works with initially, but the big one that
he has his eye on from the day that they
go on the air is a fellow from Chicago named
George D.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Hay.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
He was a newspaper columnist, so a good writer. But
he got into radio in Chicago with Sears and Roebucks,
big powerful radio station, and he created a show, a
variety show called the National Barn Dance.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Hello, Hello, Hello, everybody everywhere, and a special hello to
our boys in the service wherever they may be. Well well,
welcome to your old Alca Salsa National Barn Dance's tenth anniversary, folks. Yes,
Tonight's party March the tenth full year since these old
cow bells first rang out on the network to welcome
all our good friends and neighbors to the the old
(05:00):
WLS Haylofts.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Here in Chicago that had a sort of rural rustic
country music or hillbilly theme as they would call it
in the day, what we would have you know came
to be country music, but also comedians or lighthearted banter,
and Hey, as the MC of the show, grew to
the point where he had national magazine reader's poll saying
(05:22):
that he was the most popular broadcaster in America.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Hey accepts just a few weeks after they go on
the air.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
But it was not an easy fit, not a natural
fit for the WSM as it started because the community
heard a radio station playing popular music, classical music, string quartets,
formal solo recital piano, but also like lectures from Vanderbilt
professors and politicians would come in and give addresses. They
were trying to be a full service radio station, and
(05:52):
by no means a country radio station. There wasn't even
such a thing until way later in the fifties and
sixties to were there anything called quote unquote country news
at radio stations. This was an all purpose public interest
radio station. But that happens because on a Saturday night,
he needs time to fill and he had heard about
this elderly fiddle player who was the uncle of a
(06:13):
woman who was already on the air doing.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Some pop vocals.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So they sort of almost on the fly invite Uncle
Jimmy Thompson, seventy some years old. Absolute classic old man
Middle Tennessee fiddler, the tradition going back to the nineteenth
century roots. This guy would learned his craft around the
Civil War, right, he's that.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
Old Hello, folks, there's a whole other Jimmy Thompson. I'm
gonna play your fan quadrille land Porte day of August
in eighteen and sixty. See, that's a long time.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I hold you, uncle Jimmy.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
Ate it too.
Speaker 6 (06:49):
And I've got young grand Killing and great big great
grand Killing running cards and tops yit and them playing
the fiddle. Yeah, and I left to look at a
pretty woman. Yes, but.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I bet you do. Let's hear that quadrille.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
All right, yeah, hit come.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
He comes on. He starts playing fidel music, one after
the other, sawing away.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
And while some people in Nashville probably like what is
that turning off the radio station, a lot of people
heard their music, their sort of hometown music, their personal
what they grew up on, for the first time, and
so they start sending those cards and letters and telegrams
to WSM and hey, and Edwin Craig realizes this is
the thing let's get him back.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
So they have him back, and then.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
They began to flesh out their lineup and they bring
in musicians from the region who were noted for their
prowess in traditional old time music. One of them is
Uncle Dave Macon, who at the time was pushing sixty
years old. But he's a band player and a songster
whose day job was driving a moving wagon. He was
a mule driver. But he's a known musician. So he's
(08:08):
on the air, and the public starts to go into
the studio and watch it play out live on Saturday nights.
They start to crowd around the studio, they start to
fill the stairwells, and then they bring in some other guys,
a guy named Humphrey Bit, who was actually a physician
by David.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
He was a traditional musician, a picker. You know, Oh,
how many biscuits nuin?
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Oh, how many biscuits nuine?
Speaker 5 (08:35):
How many biscuits?
Speaker 4 (08:39):
And Hey's like, well, let's play the part.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Let's have Humphrey Bay, who's a surgeon, dress up in
overalls and a and a floppy hat and look like
a hillbilly, and his guys should be like that too,
And he starts giving the bands names like the fruit
Jar Drinkers, and they play up the artifice of it
a little bit, even though the music was authentic.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
But uh, they got this thing going as the Grand
Ole Opry. And the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
And you've been listening to Craig Haghurst and he's a
musician but also a professional writer, covering the music business,
the art, the commerce, the tech, all of it in
Nashville for over twenty five years. When we come back
more of Craig Havinghurst's storytelling more about the origins of
the Grand Ole Opry here on our American Stories, and
(09:39):
we returned to our American stories and the story of
the Grand Ole Opry. When we last left off, Craig
Havoghurst was telling the tale of WSM's early days radio
station that launched country music's most famous stage, explaining how
a station built to serve the general public, airing everything
from Vanderbilt lectures to hybrid classical music, somehow became the
(10:02):
beating heart of foot stomping folk. That unexpected shift didn't
thrill everyone. After all, Nashville wasn't yet music city. It
was the Athens of the South, proud of its universities,
its culture and its refinement. How did the transformation take root?
Let's return to the story. Here again is Craig having
hurst from.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
The Raman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, the country music capital
of the world at Randell Opry starring the Texas Troubadour
Ernest Tubb.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
As Yellow Rolls in Texas, and I'm gone.
Speaker 5 (10:44):
I see.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Nashville's upper crust and society, the establishment, if you will,
that sort of thought of Nashville as the Athens of
the South, the nickname that the city had given itself
as a place of culture higher education with Vanderbilt and
many other colleges and universities. I was told that there
had been sort of a rebellion against the early Grand
Old Opry on their radio station. And because when Craig
(11:12):
and the Craig family are part of the establishment in Nashville,
the family had clearly heard from some of their peers,
some of their other rich folk friends at the country
club that it was kind of awkward to hear this
hillbilly music on the otherwise wonderful and marvelous studs. But
(11:33):
it turned out that this revolution was much smaller than
it had been made out to be. It was a
few letters to the editor, a few sly remarks, but indeed,
at one point one of the two newspapers, I think
the Banner did a kind of informal poll and said,
you know, it is the opry something that you all
that people want to hear, and should WSM keep it?
(11:54):
And the overwhelming like ninety nine percent of the letters
that came in and the responses were yes, we love
this show. So there was never a threat to the
grand old opry for real. But that dynamic played out
over the years, even into the fifties and sixties and seventies,
as the country music business grew, as the first seeds
(12:17):
were planted on music row, the studios, the beginnings of
the record industry, the publishing industry, and it becomes something
that Nashville is doing and doing well and getting a
national reputation for there was still the element of uppercross
Nashville that thought, well, this is very awkward and strange
for us. This is not part of our culture. This
is sort of an interloper kind of a thing. To
(12:37):
the point where songwriters couldn't get bank loans in the sixties,
you know, well, that's not a real job.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Kind of attitude.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
And interestingly enough, Mini Pearl, the great and famous Mini Pearl,
the greatest comedian of the Grand Old Opry's history, was
a blue blood herself were kind of She'd come up
in some money and then as the family lost some
money and the depression, but she new culture and so
she's a big famous star.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
So she lives in Belle Meade. She knows these people,
and she.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Became like a go between for whenever the hillbilly roughneck
musician crowd needed a kind of a translator for the establishment.
She was there, whether it was fundraisers or parties or
country club events with a country band. She was there
to mollify and to make it all feel like part
of Tennessee culture, part of real America. She had a
(13:28):
great role in that, but there was always that tension
and went back to the origins. Right around the same
time that the Grand Ole oper got its name, which
I recall being nineteen twenty seven, I twenty seven ish.
The story there is well told, it's well known. But
they would get a feed from the network from New
York and a music appreciation hour. The guy named Walter
Damrosch who would give lectures about symphonic music called the.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Cut time in my life.
Speaker 6 (13:54):
I have my office crup playing less and all what
you are done? My moza and.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
From They had a series of show on one night
that featured operatic singing and George Hay maybe had started
to germinate an idea about this little play on words,
but or maybe just totally spontaneously said, you've been listening, folks,
(14:24):
as we come back to the Nashville studio and they're live.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
With DeFord Bailey waiting to play his opening theme song.
He says, folks who've been listening to themes from grand opera,
where now are to keep it down to earth and
listen to the grand old Opry.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Just a little hillbilly twist on the word, and it stuck.
People like it.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
But the Opry could not stay in WSM's studio forever.
The fans began to show up. Before they even had
a way up crowd control. They were coming into the
studio and oh sure, sit there and crowding in. And
they just adapted over the weeks and months and years,
but eventually it became too much and they did go
looking for a home, a theater home, a proper home
(15:06):
to broadcast from They first came to the Hillsborough Theater
which is now the Belcourt Theater and Art Movie House
in Nashville, but it was there at the time, and
they moved to the Hillsborough Theater for a few years.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
They moved into a.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Timber tabernacle building that was quite big in East Nashville.
That is where they began to actually sell tickets for
the first time and started to charge for admission and
have some souvenirs and make more of a proper show
out of it. Then they went from there to all
the way to the top to the War Memorial Auditorium,
which you could still go see concerts in today. It
(15:37):
was a Tennessee built, state owned theater, a very beautiful place.
They were there into the beginnings of World War Two,
and the moment that they went on the air of
the NBC network and the Opry got its segment nationwide
on NBC in the late thirties with Roy Acuff was
a huge move for them. They'd been on the NBC
(15:58):
network since the late twenties, but putting the Opry on
nationwide was a big deal, and that happened to War Memorial,
but also the first couple of years of World War Two,
the soldiers came through and were kind of like overdoing it.
They were too rowdy, they were putting their feet on
the back of the thing, they were leaving their gum
on the seats, and it was punishing. So the state
actually said, guys, we've loved having you, but it's time
(16:20):
to move on and find something else. And they were
in a little bit of a desperate situation, and luckily
down the block almost was the Ryman Auditorium, which had
had its own history by then, you know, started in
the eighteen nineties and had an incredible run as one
of the great theaters of the South with all kinds
of variety entertainment, but it had kind of crested and
(16:41):
it was looking for it needed something to shake up
the business model there. They went to the promoter there,
the great famous Lulah Naff, a woman who made music
business history in Nashville before most other women were able to,
and they came up with a deal to be there
on Saturday nights and eventually Friday and Saturday nights, and
then they expanded the calendar.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
But it became the home of the Grand Opry.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
In nineteen forty three Middle World War two, and it
would last there until nineteen seventy four, when the ryman
simply got out of date, no air conditioning, kind of
falling apart.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
But those were what has been called the Golden Era of.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
The Grand Old Opry, an extraordinary stretch of time, the
late forties, the fifties, the sixties. Imagine what happened in
country music. I mean, I'm getting literally got chills just thinking.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
About Tennessee cock.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Come in listen to my story if you will.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
I'm going to tell about a game of failures from
down at Nashville.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
First, all start with old Red forty doing the chad.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
And Nuga shues.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
We can't farga and hang Wiiams with them, good old.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
A sick glue.
Speaker 6 (17:56):
It's time for Roy go the Golden.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Melpos on his train with Lenny.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Perle and Ron Priceville and Lazy Gym.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
Pay turn on all your radios.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
I know that you will wait, you little Jimmy.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Dick In saying, take an old cultator any way.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
This is the era of Hank Williams, of the birth
of bluegrass music with Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, Lester Flat
It's Patsy Klein, It's it's George Jones, it's Johnny Cash,
and even the Johnny Cash television show tape there in
the early seventies. And just the reason we call it
the mother Church of country music, the reason it was
(18:34):
renovated and rehabbed into a theater that every artist in
the world wants to play.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
It is just an extraordinary place.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
They almost tore it down in the seventies, but they
moved to the Rhymand until it simply was not suitable
for the place anymore, and they moved it to a
new grand old Opry House where it is their main
headquarters today. But in the winter months the Opry for
years has continued to come back to the Ryman and
do the Ryman on Saturday night shows, on Thursday night
shows and be part of the Ryman so people can
(19:03):
still see the Opry at the Rhymann.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Tourium ernest number draws at the Grand.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by Monty Montgomery and Reagan Habib and a special thanks
to Craig Havinghurst. He's authored a book that everyone should get.
It's called Musicality from Modern Humans. Buy it wherever you
buy your books. And let's face it, there was a
business interest that helped start WSM, a business interest that
(19:44):
well wanted to monetize this new music. And from that
we get the Ryman, and from that we get those
three decades that created the stars that forged country music.
None of it could have been done without Edwin Craig
and so many other innovators and artists along the way.
The story of the Grand Ole Opry here on our
(20:08):
American stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories.
Nashville is known as music city for good reason. Eight
out of every one thousand residents are involved in the
music industry, which pumps five point five billion dollars into
the local economy each year. But beyond the raw statistics,
(00:30):
it's the birthplace of country music, and a big reason
for that is WSM and the Grand ole Opry. Here
to share the story of country music's most famous stage,
the radio station that created it, and the men and
women who put Nashville on the map is Craig Havoghurst.
Take it away, Craig.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Music City was named on the air, but it would
not have been in a position to be named music city.
US era have the name stick without WSM and the
Grand ol Opstarting in nineteen twenty five.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Nashville, Tennessee, here's your junior friend, all are.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
The origin of the station has to precede the origin
of the show, because there's no show about the station.
WSM was a flight of imagination by a guy named
Edwin Craig.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Edwin Craig was a Tennessee native.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
His dad was one of the founding managers and owners
of a company called the National Life and Accident Insurance Company.
The company was still kind of getting on its feet,
but they were building a fancy new headquarters building in
downtown Nashville. Edwin Craig was working for the company at
the time, coming up through the ranks as a walking
(01:45):
the beat insurance salesman to a regional sales manager. His
father's like, you got to come up through the ladder
like anybody else. And by the time he's in his
late twenties, he has a senior position in the office
in Nashville, and he is now a radio enthusiast, so
thinking something on the order of, we need a website.
(02:07):
In nineteen twenty five, Edwin had to sell this idea
to his dad and to the board of directors, which
were all old guys who didn't understand where radio is going.
They would say, well, why do we need this, And
he would say, to spread our brand, to spread goodwill,
to give back to the community, and then that will
(02:28):
come back to us as business and political alliances and
all kinds of things. Long story short, he makes the sale,
and they said, if we're going to do this, National
Life does everything the best. They put a radio tower
up on a big Hill where Belmont University is today.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
They get a Steinway piano.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
They have the best microphones, they have the best broadcast equipment.
They throw the equivalent, as I recall, the equivalent was
about a million bucks. They didn't give him a few bucks.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
Closet is WSM and Nashville and this is the big.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
ZU And they go on the air in the evening
of October fifth, nineteen twenty five, with a full scale,
multi part show. They have live bands in two different hotels.
They had bands on the roof of the new building
on the.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Sixth floor roof.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
The station is on the fifth floor, above four floors
of insurance teletypers and you know secretaries and claims guys.
I mean, it's just the operations of the insurance business
are going on right below them. And they invite the
mayor and the governor of Tennessee, and they have a
shriner's band and they have all this festivities. So they
had this big festive opening and got the station off
(03:44):
on the right foot, high profile. So once some USM
goes on the air, they have this responsibility to have
content all day. They were not twenty four hours at
the beginning, but there were no records to play. So
imagine the challenge of having live acts stepping to a
microphone constantly from like six in the morning until eleven.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Pm, and they have to do this every day.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Edwin Craig's in charge of this, and he has several
people he works with initially, but the big one that
he has his eye on from the day that they
go on the air is a fellow from Chicago named
George D.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Hay.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
He was a newspaper columnist, so a good writer. But
he got into radio in Chicago with Sears and Roebucks,
big powerful radio station, and he created a show, a
variety show called the National Barn Dance.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Hello, Hello, Hello, everybody everywhere, and a special hello to
our boys in the service wherever they may be. Well well,
welcome to your old Alca Salsa National Barn Dance's tenth anniversary, folks. Yes,
Tonight's party March the tenth full year since these old
cow bells first rang out on the network to welcome
all our good friends and neighbors to the the old
(05:00):
WLS Haylofts.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Here in Chicago that had a sort of rural rustic
country music or hillbilly theme as they would call it
in the day, what we would have you know came
to be country music, but also comedians or lighthearted banter,
and Hey, as the MC of the show, grew to
the point where he had national magazine reader's poll saying
(05:22):
that he was the most popular broadcaster in America.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Hey accepts just a few weeks after they go on
the air.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
But it was not an easy fit, not a natural
fit for the WSM as it started because the community
heard a radio station playing popular music, classical music, string quartets,
formal solo recital piano, but also like lectures from Vanderbilt
professors and politicians would come in and give addresses. They
were trying to be a full service radio station, and
(05:52):
by no means a country radio station. There wasn't even
such a thing until way later in the fifties and
sixties to were there anything called quote unquote country news
at radio stations. This was an all purpose public interest
radio station. But that happens because on a Saturday night,
he needs time to fill and he had heard about
this elderly fiddle player who was the uncle of a
(06:13):
woman who was already on the air doing.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Some pop vocals.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So they sort of almost on the fly invite Uncle
Jimmy Thompson, seventy some years old. Absolute classic old man
Middle Tennessee fiddler, the tradition going back to the nineteenth
century roots. This guy would learned his craft around the
Civil War, right, he's that.
Speaker 6 (06:32):
Old Hello, folks, there's a whole other Jimmy Thompson. I'm
gonna play your fan quadrille land Porte day of August
in eighteen and sixty. See, that's a long time.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
I hold you, uncle Jimmy.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
Ate it too.
Speaker 6 (06:49):
And I've got young grand Killing and great big great
grand Killing running cards and tops yit and them playing
the fiddle. Yeah, and I left to look at a
pretty woman. Yes, but.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I bet you do. Let's hear that quadrille.
Speaker 6 (07:05):
All right, yeah, hit come.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
He comes on. He starts playing fidel music, one after
the other, sawing away.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
And while some people in Nashville probably like what is
that turning off the radio station, a lot of people
heard their music, their sort of hometown music, their personal
what they grew up on, for the first time, and
so they start sending those cards and letters and telegrams
to WSM and hey, and Edwin Craig realizes this is
the thing let's get him back.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
So they have him back, and then.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
They began to flesh out their lineup and they bring
in musicians from the region who were noted for their
prowess in traditional old time music. One of them is
Uncle Dave Macon, who at the time was pushing sixty
years old. But he's a band player and a songster
whose day job was driving a moving wagon. He was
a mule driver. But he's a known musician. So he's
(08:08):
on the air, and the public starts to go into
the studio and watch it play out live on Saturday nights.
They start to crowd around the studio, they start to
fill the stairwells, and then they bring in some other guys,
a guy named Humphrey Bit, who was actually a physician
by David.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
He was a traditional musician, a picker. You know, Oh,
how many biscuits nuin?
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Oh, how many biscuits nuine?
Speaker 5 (08:35):
How many biscuits?
Speaker 4 (08:39):
And Hey's like, well, let's play the part.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Let's have Humphrey Bay, who's a surgeon, dress up in
overalls and a and a floppy hat and look like
a hillbilly, and his guys should be like that too,
And he starts giving the bands names like the fruit
Jar Drinkers, and they play up the artifice of it
a little bit, even though the music was authentic.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
But uh, they got this thing going as the Grand
Ole Opry. And the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
And you've been listening to Craig Haghurst and he's a
musician but also a professional writer, covering the music business,
the art, the commerce, the tech, all of it in
Nashville for over twenty five years. When we come back
more of Craig Havinghurst's storytelling more about the origins of
the Grand Ole Opry here on our American Stories, and
(09:39):
we returned to our American stories and the story of
the Grand Ole Opry. When we last left off, Craig
Havoghurst was telling the tale of WSM's early days radio
station that launched country music's most famous stage, explaining how
a station built to serve the general public, airing everything
from Vanderbilt lectures to hybrid classical music, somehow became the
(10:02):
beating heart of foot stomping folk. That unexpected shift didn't
thrill everyone. After all, Nashville wasn't yet music city. It
was the Athens of the South, proud of its universities,
its culture and its refinement. How did the transformation take root?
Let's return to the story. Here again is Craig having
hurst from.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
The Raman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, the country music capital
of the world at Randell Opry starring the Texas Troubadour
Ernest Tubb.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
As Yellow Rolls in Texas, and I'm gone.
Speaker 5 (10:44):
I see.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Nashville's upper crust and society, the establishment, if you will,
that sort of thought of Nashville as the Athens of
the South, the nickname that the city had given itself
as a place of culture higher education with Vanderbilt and
many other colleges and universities. I was told that there
had been sort of a rebellion against the early Grand
Old Opry on their radio station. And because when Craig
(11:12):
and the Craig family are part of the establishment in Nashville,
the family had clearly heard from some of their peers,
some of their other rich folk friends at the country
club that it was kind of awkward to hear this
hillbilly music on the otherwise wonderful and marvelous studs. But
(11:33):
it turned out that this revolution was much smaller than
it had been made out to be. It was a
few letters to the editor, a few sly remarks, but indeed,
at one point one of the two newspapers, I think
the Banner did a kind of informal poll and said,
you know, it is the opry something that you all
that people want to hear, and should WSM keep it?
(11:54):
And the overwhelming like ninety nine percent of the letters
that came in and the responses were yes, we love
this show. So there was never a threat to the
grand old opry for real. But that dynamic played out
over the years, even into the fifties and sixties and seventies,
as the country music business grew, as the first seeds
(12:17):
were planted on music row, the studios, the beginnings of
the record industry, the publishing industry, and it becomes something
that Nashville is doing and doing well and getting a
national reputation for there was still the element of uppercross
Nashville that thought, well, this is very awkward and strange
for us. This is not part of our culture. This
is sort of an interloper kind of a thing. To
(12:37):
the point where songwriters couldn't get bank loans in the sixties,
you know, well, that's not a real job.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Kind of attitude.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
And interestingly enough, Mini Pearl, the great and famous Mini Pearl,
the greatest comedian of the Grand Old Opry's history, was
a blue blood herself were kind of She'd come up
in some money and then as the family lost some
money and the depression, but she new culture and so
she's a big famous star.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
So she lives in Belle Meade. She knows these people,
and she.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Became like a go between for whenever the hillbilly roughneck
musician crowd needed a kind of a translator for the establishment.
She was there, whether it was fundraisers or parties or
country club events with a country band. She was there
to mollify and to make it all feel like part
of Tennessee culture, part of real America. She had a
(13:28):
great role in that, but there was always that tension
and went back to the origins. Right around the same
time that the Grand Ole oper got its name, which
I recall being nineteen twenty seven, I twenty seven ish.
The story there is well told, it's well known. But
they would get a feed from the network from New
York and a music appreciation hour. The guy named Walter
Damrosch who would give lectures about symphonic music called the.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Cut time in my life.
Speaker 6 (13:54):
I have my office crup playing less and all what
you are done? My moza and.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
From They had a series of show on one night
that featured operatic singing and George Hay maybe had started
to germinate an idea about this little play on words,
but or maybe just totally spontaneously said, you've been listening, folks,
(14:24):
as we come back to the Nashville studio and they're live.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
With DeFord Bailey waiting to play his opening theme song.
He says, folks who've been listening to themes from grand opera,
where now are to keep it down to earth and
listen to the grand old Opry.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Just a little hillbilly twist on the word, and it stuck.
People like it.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
But the Opry could not stay in WSM's studio forever.
The fans began to show up. Before they even had
a way up crowd control. They were coming into the
studio and oh sure, sit there and crowding in. And
they just adapted over the weeks and months and years,
but eventually it became too much and they did go
looking for a home, a theater home, a proper home
(15:06):
to broadcast from They first came to the Hillsborough Theater
which is now the Belcourt Theater and Art Movie House
in Nashville, but it was there at the time, and
they moved to the Hillsborough Theater for a few years.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
They moved into a.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Timber tabernacle building that was quite big in East Nashville.
That is where they began to actually sell tickets for
the first time and started to charge for admission and
have some souvenirs and make more of a proper show
out of it. Then they went from there to all
the way to the top to the War Memorial Auditorium,
which you could still go see concerts in today. It
(15:37):
was a Tennessee built, state owned theater, a very beautiful place.
They were there into the beginnings of World War Two,
and the moment that they went on the air of
the NBC network and the Opry got its segment nationwide
on NBC in the late thirties with Roy Acuff was
a huge move for them. They'd been on the NBC
(15:58):
network since the late twenties, but putting the Opry on
nationwide was a big deal, and that happened to War Memorial,
but also the first couple of years of World War Two,
the soldiers came through and were kind of like overdoing it.
They were too rowdy, they were putting their feet on
the back of the thing, they were leaving their gum
on the seats, and it was punishing. So the state
actually said, guys, we've loved having you, but it's time
(16:20):
to move on and find something else. And they were
in a little bit of a desperate situation, and luckily
down the block almost was the Ryman Auditorium, which had
had its own history by then, you know, started in
the eighteen nineties and had an incredible run as one
of the great theaters of the South with all kinds
of variety entertainment, but it had kind of crested and
(16:41):
it was looking for it needed something to shake up
the business model there. They went to the promoter there,
the great famous Lulah Naff, a woman who made music
business history in Nashville before most other women were able to,
and they came up with a deal to be there
on Saturday nights and eventually Friday and Saturday nights, and
then they expanded the calendar.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
But it became the home of the Grand Opry.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
In nineteen forty three Middle World War two, and it
would last there until nineteen seventy four, when the ryman
simply got out of date, no air conditioning, kind of
falling apart.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
But those were what has been called the Golden Era of.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
The Grand Old Opry, an extraordinary stretch of time, the
late forties, the fifties, the sixties. Imagine what happened in
country music. I mean, I'm getting literally got chills just thinking.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
About Tennessee cock.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Come in listen to my story if you will.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
I'm going to tell about a game of failures from
down at Nashville.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
First, all start with old Red forty doing the chad.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
And Nuga shues.
Speaker 6 (17:50):
We can't farga and hang Wiiams with them, good old.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
A sick glue.
Speaker 6 (17:56):
It's time for Roy go the Golden.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Melpos on his train with Lenny.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Perle and Ron Priceville and Lazy Gym.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
Pay turn on all your radios.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
I know that you will wait, you little Jimmy.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Dick In saying, take an old cultator any way.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
This is the era of Hank Williams, of the birth
of bluegrass music with Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, Lester Flat
It's Patsy Klein, It's it's George Jones, it's Johnny Cash,
and even the Johnny Cash television show tape there in
the early seventies. And just the reason we call it
the mother Church of country music, the reason it was
(18:34):
renovated and rehabbed into a theater that every artist in
the world wants to play.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
It is just an extraordinary place.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
They almost tore it down in the seventies, but they
moved to the Rhymand until it simply was not suitable
for the place anymore, and they moved it to a
new grand old Opry House where it is their main
headquarters today. But in the winter months the Opry for
years has continued to come back to the Ryman and
do the Ryman on Saturday night shows, on Thursday night
shows and be part of the Ryman so people can
(19:03):
still see the Opry at the Rhymann.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Tourium ernest number draws at the Grand.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by Monty Montgomery and Reagan Habib and a special thanks
to Craig Havinghurst. He's authored a book that everyone should get.
It's called Musicality from Modern Humans. Buy it wherever you
buy your books. And let's face it, there was a
business interest that helped start WSM, a business interest that
(19:44):
well wanted to monetize this new music. And from that
we get the Ryman, and from that we get those
three decades that created the stars that forged country music.
None of it could have been done without Edwin Craig
and so many other innovators and artists along the way.
The story of the Grand Ole Opry here on our
(20:08):
American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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