NRR Project: Premiere network broadcast of the Grand Ole Opry – Oct. 14, 1939

 

First of all, this explanatory essay on the Grand Ole Opry (the name is a backwoods, humorous corruption of “grand opera”) by Paul Kingsbury is a delight to read – clear and comprehensive. You should read it -- right now! Here’s the link. It celebrates a century of the revered program’s life. The “Grand Ole Opry” hit the air from Nashville, Tennessee, a powerhouse source of country and Western talent, on WSM on Nov. 28, 1925, and continues to this day.

Kingsbury’s iteration of the live half-hour opening network transmission is completely on target. I can only testify as to the musical influence the show wielded.

I was very young when I left the Midwest, but I remember people sitting down for it on a Saturday night, women wiping their hands on their aprons, eager to hear the music that ran through the show.

Its approach in this first network broadcast is pragmatic. It presents a slew of country, folk, and blues music in quick-marching order. There’s virtually no changeover time, it’s number after number, rapid-fire demonstrations of showmanship. The performers are remarkable, the best that could be found at that time, celebrating this heretofore little-known music, some destined to hit the big time due to their appearances here.

We heard country, folk, bluegrass, gospel. We knew this was the music real people listened to. We thought we were the real people.

We knew who Roy Acuff was, a voice if not of God then of soulfulness. We sang along to his “Great Speckled Bird,” a song he made good on. A melancholy Christian hymn, plaintive and solemn. (There were still parody lyrics of it banging around the place in my day, a sure sign of cultural currency.) We knew of Uncle Dave Macon. In this recording, we get a multiple dose of the then-elusive Fruit Jar Drinkers, led by Macon.

In many ways, it introduced a remarkable number of shades of country music, that sometimes-despised genre, to the nation. These were sharply distinct talents, the real thing at the speed of sound. There were the Dixie Clodhoppers, the Gully Jumpers, and the Hilltop Harmonizers. There were Bob Wills and Bill Monroe. It taught us the ins and outs of this indigenous music and all its permutations. Many musics sprang from this influential source. Many of the songs they sang were engraved on our memories.

Country music is memorable. It is melancholy. It’s catchy. It’s heartfelt. It is compelling. It’s Hank Williams on a Saturday at 8 p.m.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: one of Arch Oboler’s Plays.