The Grand Ole Opry Read online

  Even the mainstream press was beguiled by Hank’s enigma, especially after his songs, like “Cold, Cold Heart,” “Jambalaya,” and “I Can’t Help It,” became pop hits for Tony Bennett, Frankie Laine, Jo Stafford, and others.

  RUFUS JARMAN, journalist, in Nation’s Business:

  He is a lanky, erratic country man who learned to play guitar from an old Negro named Teetot in his home village of Georgiana, Alabama. “You ask what makes our kind of music successful,” he says. “I’ll tell you. Just one word: sincerity. When a hillbilly sings a crazy song, he feels crazy. When he sings, ‘I laid my mother away,’ he sees her a-laying right there in the coffin. He sings more sincere than most because he was raised rougher than most. You got to know a lot about hard work. You got to have smelled a lot of mule manure before you can sing like a hillbilly. There ain’t nuthin’ queer at all about them Europeans liking our kind of singing. It’s liable to teach them more about what everyday Americans are really like than anything else.”

  For a couple of years, Hank raced back to Nashville almost every Satur-day night. He knew that the Opry was the most exclusive club in country music, and knew that he’d worked hard to get there. But that would eventually change as he grew more successful.

  Hank Snow: January 1950

  Hank Snow had recorded in Canada since 1936, but encountered only disappointment in trying to broaden his career into the United States. The Opry was still signing artists like Jimmy Dickens and George Morgan, who didn’t have hits, but the show’s management was as resistant to Hank Snow as they’d been to Hank Williams. Snow, though, had a champion on the Opry in Ernest Tubb. The two shared a fanatical passion for Jimmie Rodgers, and Tubb promised to do his best to get Snow onto the show.

  HANK SNOW:

  I could hear the Opry in eastern Canada pretty well. I wrote to Ernest [Tubb] in care of the Grand Ole Opry and got a nice letter back, and we corresponded. Ernest said, “Hank it’s all happening in Nashville. Nashville is the home of country music. If you want to advance your career you should be there. I’ll do my best to get you on the Opry, but there’s one problem: they won’t sign anyone unless they have a hit record.”

  Tubb tried to interest Harry Stone in hiring Snow as a replacement for him while he was on the West Coast. According to Tubb, the conversation between Stone and himself went like this:

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “He sounds too much like you.”

  “Ah, don’t gimme that stuff. I’m talking long distance and I’m spending my money. I’ll argue with you when I get home. He sings like he’s a Jimmie Rodgers fan, but with that Canadian brogue, he can’t sound like me.”

  Hank Snow was working at the Big “D” Jamboree in Dallas when Tubb finally persuaded Jim Denny to take a chance on his friend.

  HANK SNOW:

  I got a phone call from Ernest. “Hank, I had a talk with Mister Denny. He thinks he’ll be able to place you on the Opry.” I was wondering how Ernest had convinced Mister Denny. After all, I still didn’t have a hit record in the USA. Mister Denny didn’t say anything about a tryout. He said he wanted me to start on January 7, 1950, at seventy-five dollars a week. I said many prayers during the few weeks before my Opry debut that I would be a success. God has his plan for all of us, even a little weakling from Nova Scotia, Canada.

  From left, Jack Stapp, Hank Snow, and Jim Denny, backstage.

  On March 28, 1950, Hank Snow recorded his first Amer ican hit, “I’m Movin’ On,” and the Opry stage provided ready-made audience of around ten million.

  HANK SNOW:

  All the years of frustration came together with just one song. Mister Denny confirmed my fears. He said, “A few weeks ago, Harry Stone heard you sing for the first time. He said, ‘Who the hell is that out there trying to sing?’ I can tell you now, ‘I’m Movin’ On’ is a miracle if ever there was one. They were about to drop you.” The Opry audiences changed overnight. They were completely indifferent one week, and the next week they were wildly enthusiastic.

  The new stars not only ensured that no other radio barn dance would eclipse the Grand Ole Opry, but the concentration of so many country stars in one place meant that the business would soon follow them to Nashville.

  Hank Snow greets fans backstage at the Opry.

  GRANDOLEOPRY

  NEW MEMBERS: 1950s

  CHET ATKINS

  MARGIE BOWES

  CARL AND PEARL BUTLER

  ARCHIE CAMPBELL

  THE CARLISLES

  MARTHA CARSON

  MOTHER MAYBELLE CARTER AND THE CARTER SISTERS

  JOHNNY CASH

  CEDAR HILL SQUARE DANCERS

  COUSIN JODY

  WILMA LEE AND STONEY COOPER

  SKEETER DAVIS

  ROY DRUSKY

  THE EVERLY BROTHERS

  LESTER FLATT AND EARL SCRUGGS

  CHET ATKINS

  MARGIE BOWES

  CARL AND PEARL BUTLER

  ARCHIE CAMPBELL

  THE CARLISLES

  MARTHA CARSON

  MOTHER MAYBELLE CARTER AND THE CARTER SISTERS

  JOHNNY CASH

  CEDAR HILL SQUARE DANCERS

  COUSIN JODY

  WILMA LEE AND STONEY COOPER

  SKEETER DAVIS

  ROY DRUSKY

  THE EVERLY BROTHERS

  LESTER FLATT AND EARL SCRUGGS

  JIM REEVES

  MARTY ROBBINS

  JEAN SHEPARD

  CARL SMITH

  HANK SNOW

  RED SOVINE

  STONEY MOUNTAIN CLOGGERS

  TENNESSEE TRAVELERS

  JUSTIN TUBB

  PORTER WAGONER

  KITTY WELLS

  THE WILBURN BROTHERS

  DEL WOOD

  FARON YOUNG

  7

  DEPARTURES AND ARRIVALS

  The Grand Ole Opry had begun as just another show on WSM, but by 1950 it was bigger than the station itself. It was still heard on WSM, but more than 160 other NBC stations picked up part of the show, and it went out over Armed Forces Radio as well. People were beginning to say “Grand Ole Opry” when they meant “country music.” Management of the show became a prize worth fighting for, and, in the early 1950s, a power struggle unfolded between Harry Stone and Jim Denny.

  Harry Stone at the helm. In 1950, Judge Hay wrote, “Harry’s hobby is his cruiser on the Cumberland River, in which he gains relaxation after a tough day at the office. He named his boat the Grand Ole Opry. Let us assure our audience that the job of managing one of America’s largest broadcast stations is a big one, fraught with many diverse problems.”

  JACK DEWITT:

  Harry Stone was a good radio man. When we, WSM, had contracts with the companies that advertised on the Opry, Harry was very good at dealing with them. Unfortunately, it got to the point where he was taking money from them, and that’s when we fired him. Up to then, he completely refused to cooperate with me, and wouldn’t have anything to do with reporting to me. The interesting thing is that both Jim Denny and Harry Stone were very stricken with a girl named Dollie Dearman. Harry had this boat that he kept down on the river, and one of our announcers, Louie Buck, came to me one time with a picture of [Dollie Dearman] on that boat. She was all spread out with nothing on. I didn’t know that Louie knew Greek mythology, but he said, “This is the one that launched a thousand ships.” Anyway, Stone went out to Arizona, and Denny finally married her. His wife divorced him and he married her.

  Dollie Dearman. Early in her career, Dollie had been a dancer with Roy Acuff and Minnie Pearl, and she entertained the troops on USO tours. After the war, she worked for the Grand Ole Opry selling songbooks.

  Harry Stone left WSM in August 1950 and, in January the following year, moved to KPHO in Phoenix, Arizona. Jim Denny and Jack Stapp now ran the Opry, but Jack DeWitt was determined to keep Denny on a short leash.

  Charlie and Ira Louvin, the Louvin Brothers: February 1955

  In the late 1930s, when Ira and Cha
rlie Louvin saw Roy Acuff near their hometown in northern Alabama, they were already perfecting the unerring sibling harmony that later influenced Emmylou Harris, the Everly Brothers, and many others. Working at various radio stations throughout the mid-South, their goal was always to join Acuff on the Grand Ole Opry.

  CHARLIE LOUVIN:

  We had a neighbor a mile away that had a radio. He owned a grocery store, and there were pretty good crowds in his living room on Saturday night, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five people, just to listen to the Opry. We’d stay until he’d say it’s goin’ home time, and someone ran us off. Mr. Acuff came to our neighborhood. It was the first year he came to the Opry. He was drivin’ that car. Block and a half long. It was an air-cooled Franklin. Three doors on each side. There was places he had trouble going ’cause the car almost needed hinges to make the curve. It was ten cents for kids and twenty cents or a quarter for adults. We didn’t have no money to get in, but it was warm weather and they had the windows up so we heard and seen the show as good as anybody. It looked like a good life. I was twelve years old, and from that point we earnestly prepared ourselves to be on the Opry.

  Ten years later, Ira and Charlie decided it was time for them, too, to be Opry stars. Charlie Louvin’s story of how hard it was to get on the Opry proves how crucial Opry membership had become.

  The Louvin Brothers treat the audience to some of their close harmony singing on the Prince Albert Opry.

  CHARLIE LOUVIN:

  We were working Memphis, and every time we’d have a day off on the weekend we’d come to the Opry. We’d corral Jim Denny in what was known as the tool shed at the Ryman. We’d take him in there and sing him a song. We got that “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” for years. It got rough after I got back from Korea, so we called Ken Nelson at Capitol Records and said, “Do you know anybody at the Opry?” He said, “Well, I’m pretty good friends with Jack Stapp.” I said, “Well, Ira and I, we decided that we’re gonna quit the business if we can’t get on the Opry.” ’Cause we just weren’t makin’ a living, you see. I was on the street at a payphone. Ken Nelson called Mister Stapp and told him he had a duet that was on his label, and he’d like to have ’em on the Opry. Evidently, Mister Stapp give him a discouraging message, and Mister Nelson said, “Well, if you don’t want ’em, the Ozark Jubilee does.” And Mister Stapp said, “Now, wait a minute, we don’t want no more people going up to the Ozark Jubilee. Tell ’em to show up this Friday.” So we went up and we were introduced to Vito Pellettieri and Jack Stapp, and we were taken to Mister Denny’s office. He totally ignored us for ten minutes. He talked to everybody in town that his secretary could find. Finally, my brother, who had a much shorter fuse than me, said, “Well, Mister Denny, we’ll see you tonight on the Grand Ole Opry.” Mister Denny pulled his half-glasses down to the end of his nose and looked up over what he wasn’t busy at, and said, “Boys, you’re in tall timber. You’d better shit and git it.” My brother looked him in the eye and said, “We got the saws. Jus’ show us where the woods are.”

  The Grand Ole Opry was not only drawing the top country stars to Nashville; it was drawing the music business in their wake. Record producers knew that their artists would be there on the weekend; song plug-gers knew that the record producers would be in town; and bookers knew that they could pitch show dates to artists’ managers. Many of the deals were done backstage at the Opry, or in the alley beside the Opry, or at what is now Tootsies Orchid Lounge across the alley. Before the Second World War, the hubs of the business had been Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, and Los Angeles, but within a few years the country music business centered itself in Nashville.

  Roy Acuff and Fred Rose had started Acuff-Rose Publications in 1942, and its success inspired Jack Stapp to follow suit. The fact that Stapp went into partnership with a New Yorker shows the fast-growing impact of country music. Country songs like Pee Wee King’s “Tennessee Waltz” and Hank Williams’s “Cold, Cold Heart” (both published by Acuff-Rose) became hits for pop singers and gave others the idea that there was money in country music.

  The Louvin Brothers with their producer, Ken Nelson.

  JACK STAPP:

  Lou Cowan was my superior during the war in England. We were involved in propaganda broadcasting to Europe. He’d made a reputation in radio with shows like Stop the Music, Break the Bank, and so on. We stayed in touch, and one day he called me from Chicago. “Jack, you’re starting to make some noise down there with that country music.” He had an idea for a country music show and he came down. After the audition we went across the street for a sandwich, and that’s where the idea for Tree Music was born. Lou suggested it, thinking that with my contacts at the Opry and the station I’d be able to get a lot of songs recorded.

  Tree Music started in 1951, and Stapp’s songwriters would eventually include Roger Miller and Willie Nelson. Jim Denny launched Cedar-wood Music in 1953, and his company went on to sign Mel Tillis, John D. Loudermilk, and many others. But Acuff-Rose, which had been established almost ten years earlier, remained the major player in Nashville’s music publishing scene with Hank Williams, Pee Wee King, Don Gibson, Marty Robbins, and later Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers.

  A few recording sessions had been held in Nashville in the 1920s, but Eddy Arnold’s first-ever recording session at the WSM studios in December 1944 is generally reckoned to mark the birth of the recording business in Nashville. Almost three years later, several WSM engineers launched the first professional studio in Nashville. They located it near WSM in the Tulane Hotel, and named it the Castle Recording Laboratory because WSM was known as the Air Castle of the South. When Ernest Tubb and Red Foley recorded at Castle in August 1947, the recording business in Nashville was underway. Tubb and Foley recorded for Decca Records, and Decca’s Paul Cohen relied heavily on WSM’s musicians, especially pianist Owen Bradley, to arrange the sessions. Bradley would later take over from Cohen and sign Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, and many others to Decca.

  The music industry in Nashville grew so quickly in the years after the Second World War that WSM announcer David Cobb coined the phrase “Music City U.S.A.”

  DAVID COBB:

  I wish I could remember the exact date, but I’m sure it was circa 1950 because we celebrated Red Foley’s fortieth birthday that same year. We originated some sustaining (that is, noncommercial) programs for the NBC network. One of them was The Red Foley Show, and I was the announcer. One morning, I felt that my opening words would require something that placed a little more emphasis on Nashville, so one morning it came out. “From Music City U.S.A., Nashville, Tennessee, WSM presents The Red Foley Show.” It fell trippingly from the tongue and felt right, like a good billboard should. Right after the show I got word that Jack Stapp wanted to see me in his office. When I walked in, he was beaming. “Where did you ever get an idea like Music City U.S.A.?” He thought it was the greatest thing since George Hay had named the Grand Ole Opry. From that day, whenever Jack Stapp wanted a catchy phrase, he would come to me for it, but I was never able to equal “Music City U.S.A.”

  The Red Foley Show, where David Cobb (standing at mic) coined the name that stuck, Music City U.S.A.

  In 1951, Harianne Moore in WSM’s advertising department suggested bringing all of the disc jockeys around the country who spun records by Opry stars to Nashville for a celebration. Fewer than fifty came, but the event was enough of a success for it to become the annual Disc Jockey Convention, which itself metamorphosed into Country Music Week. It was a chance for the artists to thank the disc jockeys and for the disc jockeys to tape spots with the artists that could be played on their local stations.

  Although the Grand Ole Opry represented the pinnacle of the country music business, the cast was rarely stable for long. Several artists from the show’s earliest days, including Sam and Kirk McGee and Uncle Dave Macon, were still there; in fact, as Uncle Dave grew older, he worked fewer road dates and became the Opry mainstay he always said he’d been. He celebrated his eightieth birthday a
t the Opry, and passed away eighteen months later on March 22, 1952.

  WSM press release:

  Uncle Dave Macon, known to millions of radio listeners as “Dixie Dewdrop” of WSM’s Grand Ole Opry, died at Rutherford Hospital after an illness of several weeks. He was 81 years old last October 7. He was one of the small group of entertainers who, a quarter of a century ago, joined George Hay in the Grand Ole Opry, creating a new interest in folk and hillbilly music which today has grown nationwide, making Nashville known as the folk music capital of the country. His last appearance on the Grand Ole Opry was on Saturday March 1. He traveled with Opry road troupes until 1950.

  left: The stately Andrew Jackson Hotel turned into party central during the Disc Jockey Conventions.

  right: Disc jockeys could make or break an artist’s career, and the annual conventions gave artists the opportunity to make an impression—in person and with humorous publicity stunts.

  Uncle Dave left mementoes to the entire Opry cast, and gave one of his banjos to Roy Acuff’s Dobro player, Bashful Brother Oswald. The night he died, Hank Williams sang “Farther Along” in his memory. Hank’s tribute to Uncle Dave Macon was only the second time he’d appeared on the show that year.

  Webb Pierce Disc Jockey Convention badge.

  LEFTY FRIZZELL, country star:

  [Hank] and me was on the road. I had “Always Late” and “Mom and Dad’s Waltz” and “I Want to Be with You Always” on the charts. Hank said, “Lefty, what you need is the Grand Ole Opry.” I said, “Hell, I just got a telegram from [music publisher] Hill & Range on having number one and number two, and I got maybe two more in there, and you say I need the Grand Ole Opry?” He said, “You got a hell of an argument.”