Introduction
Originally called hillbilly music, country music began to come of age in 1927 as a result of a set of recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company (or Victor Company) in Bristol, Tennessee. The Victor Company later became RCA Records. Known as the “Bristol Sessions,” 19 musical acts were recorded. Most notable were Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. Of great significance was the fact that a new generation of recording equipment was used, resulting in higher-quality records. This substantially contributed to the successful commercialization of country music.
Later in 1927, the Victor Company conducted a Jimmie Rodgers recording session that included the song “T For Texas.” This was to become his signature song and launched Rodgers to national stardom. These events in 1927 were so momentous to the history of the genre that Jimmie Rodgers is recognized as the “Father of Country Music.”
The Country Music Hall of Fame was established by the Country Music Association (CMA) in Nashville in 1961. The initial set of inductees consisted of three people: Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, and Fred Rose. With its beginning in 1961, the Country Music Hall of Fame had 34 years of catching up to do. This series of three articles discusses the 24 performing artists who were inducted into that institution during its initial 20 years. First will be Jimmie Rodgers. Hank Williams, arguably the greatest of all country music stars, will be last. The other Hall of Famers will be presented in alphabetical order. One “honorable mention” who was inducted many years later will also be discussed.
Fred Rose, the third 1961 inductee, was known primarily as a music publisher, producer, and songwriter. He will head a list of 10 non-performing Country Music Hall of Fame members from those first 20 years who will be briefly profiled.
Note that the Grand Ole Opry (or simply the Opry) is mentioned on numerous occasions in these articles. The Grand Ole Opry is a live Nashville radio show featuring top country artists. It has been broadcast since 1925. Successful artists can be granted prestigious Opry “membership.” The Opry is a little different from most radio shows because it takes place in a 4,400 seat venue.
Jimmie Rodgers
Jimmie Rodgers. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.
Jimmie Rodgers was born in Mississippi in 1897. His father was a railroad foreman and Rodgers followed in his footsteps working for the railroad. For a dozen years his job took him to various places where he was simultaneously honing his musical skills. When he developed tuberculosis at age 27, he left the railroad to pursue the life of a musician.
The introduction to this article mentions the Bristol Sessions and subsequent 1927 recordings that launched Rodgers to stardom. His signature song, “T For Texas,” has the alternative title “Blue Yodel No. 1.” In all, Rodgers recorded 13 Blue Yodels and created a yodeling craze in the music industry. His influence on country music is profound. The myriad of artists who credit him with contributing to their music include Gene Autry, Johnny Cash, Bill Monroe, Merle Haggard, and Dolly Parton.
It is noteworthy that Rodgers’ impact went far beyond country music. In 1997 (on the 100th anniversary of Rodgers’ birth), Bob Dylan produced a tribute album to him. In addition to Dylan, artists performing Rodgers’ songs included Bono, Willie Nelson, Jerry Garcia, Van Morrison, and Aaron Neville. Not surprisingly, Jimmie Rodgers is also a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If that isn’t enough, he has also been inducted into the Blues, and Songwriters Halls of Fame. As a songwriter he wrote many songs that have become country standards. These include “Muleskinner Blues,” “In the Jailhouse Now,” and “Waiting for a Train.”
Rodgers’ tuberculosis finally got the best of him and he passed away at the age of 35. In the last six years of his life, he recorded 110 songs.
Roy Acuff
Roy Acuff. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.
While Jimmie Rodgers was the “Father of Country Music,” Roy Acuff achieved the title “King of Country Music.” Born in Tennessee in 1903, Acuff was a singer, songwriter, and fiddle player. After high school, where he was a star athlete, he worked odd jobs while pursuing boxing and semi-professional baseball. He ultimately gave that up to play fiddle in a traveling medicine show.
Acuff moved on to form a band called the Crazy Tennesseans that gained a large following on Knoxville, TN radio stations. “Great Speckled Bird” was their most popular song. They then went on to record “Wabash Cannonball” which became Acuff’s signature song. A key to the radio success of the Crazy Tennesseans was the clarity of Acuff’s voice. He is credited with being largely responsible for the evolution of country music from its early string band/hoedown focus to one that is lead singer-oriented.
Next came a move to Nashville for auditions with the Grand Ole Opry, which he joined in 1938. Opry management convinced Acuff to change the name of his group to the Smokey Mountain Boys. Putting aside a brief departure, he remained one of the Opry’s key performers and promoters for nearly four decades.
In 1942, Acuff partnered with Fred Rose to form Acuff-Rose Music, the first Nashville-based country music publishing company. Acuff-Rose signed many important acts including Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, and the Everly Brothers. Acuff-Rose also published iconic songs such as “Tennessee Waltz,” which was made famous by Patti Page. In 1948, Acuff ran unsuccessfully for governor of Tennessee.
Ultimately Acuff’s music career waned as younger artists such as Eddy Arnold and Ernest Tubb gained popularity with a newer sound. But his dedication to the Opry continued. In his final years, he would arrive early for shows to do odd jobs such as stocking soda machines. In 1991, he was the first country artist to be awarded the National Medal of the Arts. Acuff died a year later at the age of 89.
Eddy Arnold
Eddy Arnold. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.
Born in 1918 to a farming family, Eddy Arnold’s nickname was the “Tennessee Plowboy.” As a teenager he attained a degree of success singing and playing guitar on the radio and in local night clubs and bars. His career was significantly advanced in 1940 when he joined Pee Wee King’s Golden West Cowboys as a featured vocalist. With King’s group, he was introduced to the Grand Ole Opry and also engaged in an extensive tour of military bases in the US and Central America.
After a few years Arnold set out as a solo artist. Through his continued association with the Opry he came to the attention of and was signed by RCA Records. Starting in the latter part of the 1940s, for 40 years he was hardly ever off the Billboard country charts! During the early 1950s Arnold began working in television and hosted The Eddy Arnold Show.
With the emergence of rock and roll in the 1950s, country music sales experienced a slump. Arnold was one of the key artists to bring forward the modernized country music often referred to as the “Nashville Sound.” Chet Atkins (discussed later in this article) is given substantial credit for developing the Nashville Sound. This was a blending of traditional country music with pop, jazz, and R&B. Other elements of the Nashville Sound were the use of orchestration and background harmony singers. Arnold was also one of the first country artists to work in Las Vegas.
Eddy Arnold scored an incredible 147 songs on the country music charts in seven different decades. He sold over 85 million records during his illustrious career and was a recipient of the National Medal of the Arts and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He passed away in 2008 at the age of 89.
Chet Atkins
Chet Atkins. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.
Born into a musical Tennessee family in 1924, Chet Atkins learned to play guitar and fiddle at a very young age. After high school, he landed a job playing fiddle and guitar at a Knoxville radio station. His career evolved rapidly, taking him to Cincinnati, then Raleigh, North Carolina and then Chicago, where he joined Red Foley’s band. With Foley, he made his first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry in 1946. That same year, he made his first recordings.
Atkins moved on to radio stations in Richmond, Virginia and then Springfield, Missouri. He was often fired because he didn’t sound “country enough.” Station managers did not comprehend that Atkins was beginning to develop what would later be the Nashville Sound. He moved on to Denver, where he came to the attention of RCA Records. Atkins was signed to a contract and moved to Nashville, where he recorded eight tracks as vocalist and guitar player. RCA management was so impressed that they made Atkins the studio guitarist for all RCA Nashville sessions for a while.
Next, Atkins joined Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters, the follow-on group to the original Carter Family. This association established Atkins as a regular at the Grand Ole Opry, where he also performed as a solo artist. In 1953, RCA gave him the role of consultant to their Nashville division. Before long he had his first hit record, an instrumental version of “Mr. Sandman.” His role with RCA grew and soon he was producing some of their Nashville recordings. Moving forward, he became general manager of RCA’s Nashville division. Through the 1950s, he continued to perform, produced hits for the likes of Elvis Presley and Eddy Arnold, and discovered new talent. In 1968, he was promoted to Vice President of RCA’s country division.
With the popularity of rock and roll having a significant negative impact on country music sales in the late 1950s, this was a catalyst for the emergence of the Nashville Sound, with much credit going to Atkins. After studying Merle Travis’s guitar playing (Travis will be discussed later in these articles), Atkins had developed a guitar style of using three fingers on his right hand to play melody and his thumb to play bass. He received much acclaim as a great guitarist.
In the 1980s, Atkins' primary musical interest changed from country music to jazz, and he left RCA to sign with Columbia Records in order to pursue that new direction. In his career, Chet Atkins won 14 Grammy awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award. He was named Instrumentalist of the Year nine times by the Country Music Association and was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Chet Atkins passed away in 2001 at the age of 77.
Gene Autry
Gene Autry. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.
Gene Autry was born in Texas in 1917. His family moved to Oklahoma when he was young. After high school, he gained employment as a railroad telegraph operator. During slow periods at work, he would practice playing his guitar and singing. The legendary Will Rogers was a customer of the railroad, and after overhearing Autry performing, Rogers encouraged him to sing professionally. In 1928, Autry went to New York to audition for the Victor Company. They turned him down, but he was encouraged to gain experience on radio and come back for a second audition. He heeded that advice, and returned to Tulsa and became “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy.”
A year later, Autry was signed by Columbia Records. Beginning in the early 1930s, he recorded prolifically. In 1931, he debuted his own Chicago radio show. Columbia management encouraged him to adopt cowboy attire and focus squarely on western songs. Autry then moved to California and made his first movie appearance as a singing cowboy in In Old Santa Fe. His own series of films soon followed. The songs Autry sang in his movies fueled his recording career. Hit records such as “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” “Mexicali Rose,” “South of the Border (Down Mexico Way),” and his signature song, “Back In the Saddle Again” soon followed with great success.
Autry’s career was put on hold when he joined the US Army during World War II. After the War, he had hit Christmas records with “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” “Here Comes Santa Claus,” and “Frosty the Snowman.” From 1950 to 1956 he hosted The Gene Autry Show on television. All told, Autry recorded 635 songs during his career. He also starred in 93 films.
Autry managed his finances very wisely by investing in real estate, television, and radio. In 1960, he became the founding owner of the California Angels major league baseball team. In 1988 he established the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles. Autry is the only person to have five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Radio, Recording, Motion Pictures, Television, and Live Performance. He passed away in 1998 at the age of 91.
The Carter Family
The Carter Family. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/publicity photo.
The Carter Family consisted of A.P. Carter, his wife, Sara, and her cousin, Maybelle, who was married to A.P.’s brother. They all hailed from the Virginia mountains near the Tennessee border. A.P. was an avid collector of traditional folk songs, and the songwriter and arranger for the group's songs. Sara had a beautiful alto voice and sang lead on most of their songs. The instrumental anchor was Maybelle, who played guitar, banjo, and autoharp. The Carter Family were among the first stars of country music, having been recorded at the historic Bristol Sessions mentioned earlier. They are considered the “First Family of Country Music.”
Signed by the Victor Company in 1928 as an outgrowth of the Bristol Sessions, many of their most famous songs were recorded over the next seven years. These included “Wabash Cannonball,” “Wildwood Flower,” “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes,” and “Keep On the Sunny Side,” which became their signature song. Their biggest success, “Can the Circle Be Unbroken (By and By)” was recorded in 1935. These songs have all become country music standards.
A.P. and Sara had separated around 1933 and divorced in 1939. However, they continued to perform together. In the latter 1930s, the Carter Family were employed by radio stations in Texas. Their children sometimes performed with them during these broadcasts (but not on records). By the time World War II broke out, they were working at a North Carolina radio station. However, financial success eluded them and the original Carter Family disbanded in 1943.They re-formed in the 1950s with an often changing lineup and again disbanded in 1956. A.P. passed away a few years later.
The Carter Family were the first music group admitted to the Country Music Hall of Fame. “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” has become the Grand Ole Opry’s unofficial theme song. The Carter Family have been given a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and were elected to the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/publicity photo.
Johnny Cash was born into a poor family of cotton farmers in Arkansas at the height of the Great Depression in 1932. His primary musical influence early on was the gospel music he learned in church. After obtaining a portable radio, he found himself listening to the Carter Family and other country artists. In high school he began performing on an Arkansas radio station. While he also played the guitar, his true talent was as a bass/baritone vocalist and songwriter.
After high school, Cash spent four years in the US Air Force, serving mostly in Germany. After his discharge in 1954, he married his first wife and moved to Memphis. While working odd jobs, Cash auditioned with the legendary Sam Phillips at Sun Records, who signed him to a contract. Phillips was instrumental in transforming Cash from being mostly a gospel singer to more of a rockabilly style. During his three years with Sun Records, Cash emerged as a major country star. “I Walk the Line” was the first of more than a dozen songs that reached Number 1 on the country charts. “I Walk the Line,” “Ballad of a Teenage Queen,” and “Guess Things Happen That Way” crossed over to the pop charts, broadening Cash’s fan base. He also made his first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry.
In 1958, Cash signed a lucrative contract with Columbia Records. He was with Columbia for 28 years during which he recorded over 60 albums. In the early to mid 1960s, he toured extensively with Maybelle Carter and the Carter Sisters, Anita, Helen, and June. During this period, Cash had become addicted to pills and his marriage to his first wife ended. June Carter was instrumental in helping him to overcome his addiction and the two were married in 1968.
From 1969 to 1971, Cash hosted The Johnny Cash Show, showcasing an eclectic mix of musical styles. By the mid-1970s, his popularity began to wane, but he continued to tour with the Carters and others. He also appeared in several films. In 1985, Cash joined with Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson to form a supergroup called The Highwaymen. They produced three albums over the next 10 years.
Johnny Cash wrote or co-wrote over 1,000 songs and sold 90 million records during his career. He was applauded for being a musical advocate for the common man: coal miners, Native Americans, sharecroppers, prisoners, cowboys, et al. He has received a myriad of Grammy and Country Music Association (CMA) awards. In addition to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Cash has been inducted into the Rock and Roll, Nashville Songwriters, Rockabilly, Gospel Music, and several other Halls of Fame. Johnny Cash passed away in 2003 at the age of 71.
Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.
Patsy Cline (nee Virginia Patterson Hensley) was born in Virginia at the height of the Great Depression in 1932. Her early life was difficult. Her mother was 16 years old when she was born and her father was 43. By the time she was a teenager, the family had relocated more than a dozen times. After her father deserted them, she quit school as a teenager to help support the family. Cline worked as a chicken plucker for a while and also as a drug store soda jerk.
Cline’s early singing experiences were in a choir at the family’s Baptist church and at church social events. Her first professional singing opportunity was at a local radio station at the age of 15. She also started singing in juke joints and nightclubs. At age 20 she married Gerald Cline. While the marriage only lasted a few years, she kept that surname for the duration of her career. Shortly thereafter, Cline won a talent contest, which resulted in her becoming a regular on a Washington, DC television show.
In 1954, Cline signed a contract with 4 Star Records. Her initial recordings did not do well and she continued to perform locally. In 1957, she sang “Walkin’ After Midnight” on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts and the song took off. It reached Number 2 on the country charts and also crossed over to the pop charts, where it reached Number 12. However, there was no follow up success, and her career began to sputter. She married again, gave birth to a daughter, and moved to Nashville.
The Nashville move jump-started Cline’s career. She signed with new management, moved from 4 Star Records to Decca, and became a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Her first recording for Decca was “I Fall to Pieces,” which reached Number 1 on the country charts and also did very well on the pop charts. Despite being seriously injured in a car accident, “Crazy” and “She’s Got You” soon followed. Her record albums were also selling very well. She appeared at Carnegie Hall and on American Bandstand. Cline was also touring as lead female vocalist with Johnny Cash and the Carter Family. However, after having had premonitions of her own death, Cline was tragically killed in a plane crash in 1963 at the age of 30.
Patsy Cline was the first solo female artist to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She has been given a Grammy Lifetime Achievements Award. She was only a major star for a couple of years but her legacy lives on. Cline’s music remains popular, and her Patsy Cline’s Greatest Hits album has sold over 10 million copies to date.
Non-Performing Hall of Famers (1961 – 1980)
These are the 10 inductees into the Country Music Hall of Fame during those first 20 years who were not performing artists:
Fred Rose: Important person in the rise of the country music industry as music publisher, producer, and songwriter.
Owen Bradley: Established the first music business in Nashville’s Music Row and produced many country music hit records.
Paul Cohen: Decca Records executive who was key to establishing Nashville as the country music capital.
Jim Denny: Music publisher, booking agent, and long-time manager of the Grand Ole Opry Artists Service.
Joseph Frank: First major promoter and manager in Nashville.
Connie Gay: Entrepreneur and manager of TV, radio, and live shows who played a key role in transforming the country music industry.
George Hay: Visionary who founded the Grand Ole Opry.
Hubert Long: Leading role in the country music industry as talent promoter and music publisher.
Art Satherley: Columbia Records executive who played a key role in country music production.
Stephen Sholes: RCA Records executive who drove the growth of country music after World War II.
This is the first of three “Earliest Stars of Country Music” articles that will appear in Copper. Part Two will cover the following country music artists:
Jimmie Davis
Red Foley
Grandpa Jones
Pee Wee King
Uncle Dave Macon
Bill Monroe
Minnie Pearl
Jim Reeves
Tex Ritter
Header image courtesy of Picryl.com/public domain.
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