Let's Go To The Opry...!

I don't know about you, but growing up, the radio played a lot around my house. The Grand Ole Opry was one show my folks really liked!

Many stars got their beginning on the Opry. This is one of those few shows that made the transition from radio to television without much trouble at all! That didn't happen very often!

Nov 28, 1925:

The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting

The Grand Ole Opry, one of the longest-lived and most popular showcases for western music, begins broadcasting live from Nashville, Tennessee. The showcase was originally named the Barn Dance, after a Chicago radio program called the National Barn Dance that had begun broadcasting the previous year.

Impressed by the popularity of the Chicago-based National Barn Dance, producers at WSM radio in Nashville decided to create their own version of the show to cater to southern audiences who could not receive the Chicago signal. Both the Grand Ole Opry and the National Barn Dance aired on Saturday nights and featured folk music, fiddling, and the relatively new genre of country-western music. Both shows created a growing audience for a uniquely American style of music and were launching grounds for many of America's most-loved musicians--the singing cowboy Gene Autry got his first big break on the National Barn Dance. The WSM producers recognized that Americans were growing nostalgic for the rural past, so all live performers at the Grand Ole Opry were required to dress in hillbilly costumes and adopt old-time names.

The four-and-a-half-hour Grand Ole Opry program became one of the most popular broadcasts in the South, and like its Chicago cousin, helped make country-western an enduring part of the popular American musical landscape.

This show, and the others like it, set the standard for good family entertainment. That's one thing we are not seeing too much of in this day and age!

So many performers became household names after appearing on the Opry. It was a great place to make a start and gather all the advice available from people well known in the business.

I'm thinking that coffee in the kitchen is the way to go this morning, OK?