COVER STORY
80 Unforgettable Moments
at the Grand Ole Opry
uring the past 80 years, the Grand Ole Opry has broadcast more than 4,000 shows, no two of them exactly the same. And while every Grand Ole Opry performance is memorable, some are particularly notable, even downright historic. The first performances. The final curtain calls. The grandest moments of the Grand Ole Opry. No one who heard them – or saw them – could ever forget.
1
November 28, 1925 – The WSM Barn Dance - forerunner of the Grand Ole Opry - broadcasts for the first time from a 15'- by-20' fifth-floor studio in National Life and Accident Insurance Company Building. A white-bearded, 77-year-old fiddler named Uncle Jimmy Thompson, who claimed he knew a thousand songs and could "fiddle the taters off the vine," played a set that began with "Tennessee Waggoner."
2
April 17, 1926 – Uncle Dave Macon becomes a Barn Dance regular. the 55-year-old former vaudevillian was the show's first performer with a national reputation, and he entertained Opry audiences with his old-time banjo picking and comedy until three weeks before his death on March 1, 1952, at age 81.
3
June 19, 1926 – DeFord Bailey, the Opry's first African American member, makes his Opry debut. Bailey, billed as “The Harmonica Wizard,” would be a regular on the show until 1941, and his signature tune, “Pan American Blues,” often would open the broadcasts.
4
December 1927 – Following an NBC network broadcast of conductor Walter Damrosch's Music Appreciation Hour, WSM program director George D. Hay, nicknamed the “Solemn Old Judge,” proclaims, “For the past hour we have been listening to the music taken largely from the Grand Opera, but from now on we will present the Grand Ole Opry.” The new name sticks.
5
February 1934 – In order to accommodate growing Saturday night crowds at the National Life Building, the Opry moves into the recently constructed Studio C, which seats 500.
6
October 1934 – The Opry rents the 800-seat Hillsboro Theater, a former silent-film house in the Vanderbilt University area. The show's platooning system begins here, as the performers play two 15-minute segments in front of separate audiences. Known today as the Belcourt Theatre, the venue continues to house film and music events.
7
June 13, 1936 – The Opry relocates to the Dixie Tabernacle—a 3,500-seat religious revival house with wooden benches, sawdust floors, and no dressing rooms— at 410 Fatherland Street in East Nashville.
8
February 5, 1938 – Roy Acuff makes his second Opry appearance with his band, the Crazy Tennesseans, after a lackluster debut four months earlier. Acuff's rendition of “The Great Speckled Bird” generates an avalanche of mail, prompting WSM to add him to the cast officially two weeks later. Acuff's addition to the Opry begins shifting the show's emphasis from instrumental music to vocal performers.
9
July 1939 – The Opry moves to the War Memorial Auditorium in downtown Nashville. Because the auditorium's seating capacity—2,200—is a third less than the Dixie Tabernacle, the show begins charging admission—25 cents.
10
October 14, 1939 – The NBC radio network begins carrying a half-hour Opry segment, hosted by Roy Acuff and sponsored by Prince Albert Tobacco. the show attracts mostly regional affiliates.
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