Origins of the Grand Ole Opry
George D. Hay
A history of the Grand Ole Opry cannot begin without first telling the story of its founder George D. Hay, the man who gave the show its name and flavor. George Dewey Hay began his career in 1921 as a newspaperman at the Memphis Commercial Appeal where he wrote a humor column
about night court under the name the "Solemn Old Judge." When the paper started WMC, Hay was tapped to be the fledgling station's announcer.
After a short stint at WMC, Hay landed at Chicago's WLS in 1924 where he became the announcer for the WLSBarn Dance, a program featuring live mountain music. The show would quickly be imitated by stations throughout the country and make Hay the most popular radio announcer in America, as voted by the readers of Radio Digest magazine.
The principle appeal of the Opry is a homey one. It sends forth the aroma of bacon and eggs frying on the kitchen stove on a bright spring morning. That aroma is welcomed all the way from Maine to California.
- George D. Hay
Hay soon rode that popularity to Nashville where he became WSM's first program director and chief announcer. Initially, he encountered resistance to his old-time programming - Nashville considered itself "The Athens of the South" and certain civic organizations were worried Hay's "hayseed" approach might create the wrong image of the city.
The Solemn Old Judge, however, saw things differently. WSM was owned by the National Life and Accident Insurance Company whose working-class policy holders were rural music's core audience. While civic leaders may not have agreed with Hay's musical taste, they couldn't stand in the way of his logic. And so, after an impromptu live performance broadcast on November 28, 1925, WSM's Barn Dance made its formal debut on December 26, 1925 from a small studio on the fifth floor of The National Life Building in downtown Nashville.
The show was an instant success - listeners soon became curious and crowded the corridors of the fifth floor, straining to get a glimpse of the performers through the window of the small studio. This informal, weekly gathering continued unchecked until one Saturday when a National Life executive had to unexpectedly go into the office. He was shocked to see dozens of "outsiders" roaming his company's halls. A larger studio was promptly built to accommodate the ever-growing throng.
The format of the original shows was as simple and straightforward as the music itself: Hay invited 77-year-old Uncle Jimmy Thompson of Martha, Tennessee to play fiddle tunes for an hour without interruption along with The Possum Hunters and several others. After a few Saturdays of this, Hay remembered, "we were besieged with other fiddle players, banjo pickers, guitar players and a lady who played an old zither."
For his part, Hay went out of his way to play up the informal, folksy tone of his Barn Dance, insisting performers appear in hayseed costumes and adopt whimsical names like "The Fruit Jar Drinkers," "The Gully Jumpers" and "The Dixie Clod Hoppers." Even the eventual name of WSM's show was calculated to emphasize Hay's homespun approach. One evening in early December 1927, Hay came on the air after NBC's classical music show and announced "for the past hour we have been listening to music taken largely from Grand Opera, but from now on we will present 'The Grand Ole Opry.'" The listening audience loved it and the name stuck.