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 is the second in a series of three articles that discusses the 24 performing artists who were inducted into that institution during its initial 20 years. The first artist, discussed in Part One of this series, was Jimmie Rodgers. Hank Williams, arguably the greatest of all country music stars, will be last. The other Hall of Famers are 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 headed a list of 10 non-performing Country Music Hall of Fame members from those first 20 years who were briefly profiled in the first article in this series.
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.
There is also reference to the “Nashville Sound” in these articles. The Nashville Sound was an important development in the history of country music that arose in the late 1950s. It introduced smooth vocals, lush orchestration, and other elements of pop music into the country music genre. A group of people that included Chet Atkins (discussed in Part One of this series) is given credit for developing the Nashville Sound.
Jimmie Davis
One of 11 children, Jimmie Davis was born into a poor Louisiana sharecropper family in 1899. Despite his family’s poverty, he worked his way through college and then earned a master’s degree from Louisiana State University. His early music career included singing in college glee clubs. He also sang regularly on a Shreveport, Louisiana radio station. After obtaining his master’s degree, Davis accepted a teaching position at a Baptist women’s college. After a year, he left to begin working as a clerk for the Shreveport Criminal Court. This served as his entry into a political career.
Davis signed his first recording contract with the Victor Company in 1929. Early on, he sang very much in the style of Jimmie Rodgers. Some of those songs were quite risqué. After recording 68 songs for the Victor Company, most of which he wrote himself, Davis signed with Decca Records in 1934. His first hit, “Nobody’s Darling But Mine,” soon followed.
In 1938, Davis was elected to the office of Shreveport Commissioner of Public Safety. He served in that role for four years and often accompanied his speeches by singing with hillbilly bands. (Note that country music was still called “hillbilly music” until the 1940s.) Next came an appointment to the Louisiana Public Service Commission.
Davis was adept at intermixing his performing and political careers. Starting in 1942, he appeared in seven Hollywood movies. In 1944, Davis was elected Governor of Louisiana. As governor, he had a Number 1 country hit with “There’s a New Moon Over My Shoulder.”
In 1951, Davis performed for the first time at the Grand Ole Opry. In 1960, he was elected to his second term as Louisiana governor. Davis had recorded a series of gospel albums and in 1967 he became president of the Gospel Music Association. He would later be elected to the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Having written over 700 songs, Davis also became a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Davis owned the copyright for and claimed to have authored “You Are My Sunshine,” which became Louisiana’s state song. However, that authorship is disputed. Jimmie Davis passed away in 2000 at the age of 101.
Red Foley
Red Foley. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.
Born into a musical family in Kentucky in 1910, Red Foley became one of the biggest country music stars in the post-World War II era. By the time he was nine years old, he was playing harmonica and guitar to entertain patrons of his father’s general store. At the age of 17, he won a state-wide talent competition. While attending college, Foley came to the attention of a talent scout associated with a Chicago radio station. This led to his leaving college to play guitar and sing in the house band for National Barn Dance, one of the first country music radio programs. He was in that group for seven years.
In 1937, a new radio program, Renfro Valley Barn Dance, was created to showcase Foley’s talents. Next, NBC made him the first country artist to host a network radio program, Avalon Time. This was co-hosted by comedian Red Skelton. Now Foley was in high demand, performing regularly in theaters, clubs, and at fairs. He then returned to National Barn Dance for another seven years.
Foley was a minor recording artist in the 1930s. His recording career took off in 1941 when he signed a long-term contract with Decca Records. His first hit, “Old Shep,” soon followed. “Old Shep” has been covered by Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, and many others and has become a country music standard. In 1945, he became the first country artist to record in Nashville. In 1946, Foley replaced Roy Acuff as the host of and a performer on The Prince Albert Show. This was the portion of the Grand Ole Opry that was carried by NBC Radio. (Acuff had temporarily left the Opry because of a contract dispute.) Due to his work over the next seven years on The Prince Albert Show, Foley is credited with establishing the Grand Ole Opry as the pre-eminent country music radio show.
It was during this period that Foley’s recording career went into high gear. From 1947 to 1949, he had seven Top 5 country hits. His rendition of “Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy” reached Number 1 on both the country and pop charts in 1950. This became his signature song. By now, he was intermixing rockabilly, R&B, gospel music, and country in his recordings. Foley’s “(There Will Be) Peace In the Valley (For Me)” was one of the first gospel records to sell a million records.
In 1955, Foley shifted his focus to television and became host of ABC’s Jubilee, USA. This ran for five years. He then spent a season playing a key role on the TV series Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which starred Fess Parker (of Davy Crockett TV show fame). He then moved back to Nashville. While his heyday had passed, Red Foley continued to perform until his death in 1968 at age 58.
Grandpa Jones
Louis “Grandpa” Jones was born into a Kentucky farming family in 1913. His father played the fiddle and his mother was a singer. While he also played the guitar, Jones is best known as a banjo player and singer of old-time country music. As a teenager, the family had moved to Ohio, where he performed on a local radio station as the “Young Singer of Old Songs.” Jones was a big fan of Jimmie Rodgers and incorporated yodeling into his repertoire.
Next came a stint playing in a string band on the very popular Lum and Abner radio show. His career took him to a Boston, Massachusetts radio station, where he was given the nickname “Grandpa” due to his old and grouchy demeanor during the early morning show. Note that Grandpa Jones was only 22 years old at that time! Jones liked that nickname and decided to build a stage persona around it. He began wearing a vaudeville outfit and fake mustache. He also honed his skills as a comedian and raconteur.
In 1937, Jones set out on his own and performed on radio stations in West Virginia and Ohio. Now his preferred instrument shifted from guitar to banjo. Jones is credited with helping to keep the banjo alive as a country music instrument at a time when it had fallen into disfavor. In 1942, he teamed up with Merle Travis to form a gospel quartet. (Travis will be covered in the next article in this series.) They made their first recordings in 1943. The next year, Jones began recording as a solo artist.
Jones’ career was put on hold when he enlisted in the army during World War II. Upon his discharge in 1946, he married Ramona Riggins and moved to Nashville to join the Grand Ole Opry. Riggins was a talented fiddler and singer and she became part of his act. During the 1950s, the pair toured extensively. Jones was also recording with RCA and then Decca Records. In 1959, he and Riggins were back in Nashville to focus on the Opry.
In 1969, Jones became an original cast member for the Hee Haw television program. One of his memorable Hee Haw skits had people off-stage call out, “Hey, Grandpa! What’s for supper?” He would typically reply with a rhyming, talking-blues style list of Southern comfort foods followed by “yum, yum.” He was with Hee Haw for its entire 23-year duration. Grandpa Jones passed away in 1998 at the age of 84.
Pee Wee King
Pee Wee King. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/public domain.
Pee Wee King was born into a Polish-American family in Wisconsin in 1914. His given name was Julius Frank Anthony Kuczynski. His father was a professional polka musician who taught him to play the accordion. He also learned to play the fiddle. King made his musical debut at age 15 playing accordion in his father’s band. He later changed his stage name due to an admiration for bandleader Wayne King and became known as Frank King.
King formed a band and soon had his own show on a Wisconsin radio station. His big break came in 1934 when he moved to Louisville to work with promoter, J.L. Frank. One of J.L. Frank’s clients was Gene Autry. King was now backing up and touring with Autry. It is said that it was Autry who gave him the nickname “Pee Wee.” King was also an accordionist for a group on a Louisville radio station. Shortly thereafter he married J.L. Frank’s daughter. (Note that J.L. Frank is a non-performing member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and was profiled in Part One of this series of articles.)
Next came a stint in Knoxville where he formed his group, the Golden West Cowboys. They moved to Nashville the following year to join the Grand Ole Opry. The Golden West Cowboys were a fixture with the Opry for the better part of ten years. King was also now appearing in Gene Autry movies and those of other cowboys. During World War II, his group was part of an Opry tour consisting of 175 shows at military bases in the US and Central America. Other Country Music Hall of Fame members who had stints with King’s band were Eddy Arnold, Ernest Tubb, and Minnie Pearl.
King was a key figure in unionizing country music. He and his group were musicians’ union members, a first for the Opry. Additionally, early on the Opry banned drums (and, also, brass and electronic instruments). It is debated whether it was King or Bob Wills who first brought drums to the Opry in the mid-1940s.
King wrote or co-wrote over 400 songs, many with the Golden West Cowboys’ lead vocalist, Redd Stewart. The most famous was “Tennessee Waltz,” with Stewart writing the vocals and King the music. “Tennessee Waltz” would become the Tennessee state song. King had a major hit in 1951, with “Slow Poke” reaching Number 1 on both the country and pop charts. Another big hit was “Bonaparte’s Retreat.” In all, he recorded 157 singles and over 20 albums.
King left the Opry in 1947 and returned to Louisville to perform regionally on radio and television. This led to a six-year stint with the Pee Wee King Show on ABC television. He continued to tour extensively and in 1969 went into semi-retirement. Pee Wee King passed away in 2000 at the age of 86.
Uncle Dave Macon
Uncle Dave Macon. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/JblattnerNYC.
Uncle Dave Macon was born in Tennessee in 1870. He was an old-time banjo player, singer, songwriter, story teller, and comedian. Macon was the first major star of the Grand Ole Opry. He was given the nickname "The Dixie Dewdrop” by Opry founder George Hay.
Macon’s family was well off and as a young boy, he took piano and guitar lessons. They moved to Nashville in 1884 to own and manage a hotel that catered to show business people. Macon frequently watched entertainers practice in the hotel’s basement. He learned to play the banjo from a circus comedian who was staying at the hotel. Macon became quite adept at the banjo and was much admired for his myriad of finger-picking styles. After his father was murdered, the family moved out of Nashville and his mother ran a stagecoach rest stop. Macon would entertain travelers by playing his banjo, singing, and telling funny stories.
After marriage, Macon moved to a Tennessee farming community and opened a mule and wagon freight line that he ran for 20 years. He also performed on a regular basis at local functions, always without pay. His first payday came in 1918 when he performed at a farmer’s party. He was not expecting to be paid but the farmer wound up giving him a 15 dollar tip.
By 1920, competition from emerging trucking companies drove Macon’s mule-driven enterprise out of business. He then began performing professionally at church fund raisers and civic events. Macon came into contact with a talent scout from Loew’s Theaters and was signed to a contract to perform on their vaudeville circuit. Now he was touring all over the South and Northeast and earning several hundred dollars a week. As a result, Macon became known nationally and made his first recordings in 1924. Some of his more popular songs then were “Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy All the Time,” “Eleven Cent Cotton, Forty Cent Meat,” and “How Beautiful Heaven Must be.”
In 1925, Macon joined the cast of WSM Barn Dance, the forerunner to the Grand Ole Opry. He would appear only occasionally because there was much more money in touring and recording. But for the next 15 years, he was the undisputed headliner for the show. In 1940, Macon was invited to be in the cast of the movie Grand Ole Opry. There’s a memorable scene where he’s performing “Take Me Back to My Old Carolina Home” and he jumps out of his seat and breaks into a dance. Macon was a much more regular performer at the Opry later on until his passing away in 1952 at the age of 81.
Macon’s greatest legacy is probably his collection of traditional music from a bygone era that is preserved on his recordings of over 180 songs. The repertoire of songs he performed was as many as 400. He transformed the folk music of the 19th century to the country music genre. Every July, the city of Murfreesboro, Tennessee conducts an “Uncle Dave Macon Days” celebration that draws more than 40,000 people. His house in Kittrell, Tennessee is on the National Register of Historic Places. Uncle Dave Macon was a truly historic figure.
Bill Monroe
Bill Monroe. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/bunky's pickle.
Bill Monroe was born into a musical family in Kentucky in 1911. His father was a dancer, and his mother played accordion and fiddle and also sang. As the youngest of eight children, he was relegated to playing the less-desirable mandolin because his older brothers were already playing guitar and fiddle. The mandolin was considered a background instrument at that time.
By the time he was 16, both of Monroe’s parents had passed away and he lived with his uncle Pen. His uncle was a fiddler and Monroe would sometimes accompany him, playing at local dances. At the age of 18, he moved to the Chicago area to join his brothers, Charlie and Birch, working at an oil refinery. The three Monroe brothers became a trio and started playing on local radio stations. They would also perform at dances and parties.
Birch left the trio and Bill and Charlie continued as a duet, performing on radio stations in Nebraska, Iowa, and then North Carolina. In 1936, they signed with RCA Records and had an immediate hit with the gospel recording, “What Would You Give in Exchange for Your Soul?” During the next two years, the Monroe Brothers recorded 60 songs. However, Charlie and Bill were not getting along and in 1938 they split up. Bill formed the Blue Grass Boys and Charlie started his own group.
Soon thereafter, the Blue Grass Boys headed to Nashville and were signed by the Grand Ole Opry. Their Opry audition included a rendition of Jimmie Rodgers’ “Mule Skinner Blues” which was to become one of their most famous songs. At the time, the group consisted of four instruments: mandolin, guitar, fiddle, and bass. Due to his Opry connection, Monroe became known nationally and soon would be earning $200,000 a year.
An important event in the evolution of bluegrass music came in 1945 when the Blue Grass Boys signed with Columbia Records. Monroe added a banjo to the group, which served to complete the classic bluegrass configuration of having five string instruments. He also stepped forward as lead vocalist on many of their songs, thus establishing what came to be known as bluegrass's “high, lonesome sound.”
In 1946, Lester Flatt on guitar and Earl Scruggs on banjo joined the group and the bluegrass genre was solidified. In the two years that Flatt and Scruggs were members of the Blue Grass Boys, 28 songs were recorded. These included “Molly and Tenbrooks,” “My Rose of Old Kentucky,” “Little Cabin Home on the Hill,” and Monroe’s signature song, “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” This is viewed to be the definitive collection of bluegrass songs.
The popularity of bluegrass music began to fade in the 1950s, partially due to the rise of rock and roll. There was renewed interest with the folk revival of the 1960s. Ultimately, bluegrass music became the domain of a loyal set of followers. Monroe wrote over 200 songs. More than 150 musicians were members of the Blue Grass Boys over the 58-year existence of the group. Monroe is a member of the Nashville Songwriters, Rock and Roll, and International Bluegrass Music Halls of Fame. He has received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the National Medal of Arts. Bill Monroe passed away in 1996 at the age of 84.
Shortly before he passed away, I had the opportunity to meet and shake hands with Bill Monroe. The Blue Grass Boys were performing at a small club in upstate New York. I’ll never forget their stage persona: five white haired men wearing three-piece, dark blue, pinstriped suits, and big white Stetsons. Monroe was an old man by then. He only played on a couple of songs and relegated the rest of the set to another mandolin player. There was a warmup band that night and Monroe came out between acts to mingle with the audience.
Minnie Pearl
Minnie Pearl. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Denny-Moeller Talent, Inc./public domain.
Minnie Pearl (Sarah Ophelia Colley) was born into a wealthy Tennessee family in 1912. When she was growing up, she liked to listen to classical music. She attended a prestigious women’s college where she majored in theater and dance. Upon graduation, Pearl was a dance instructor for a few years. She then took a job producing and directing plays and musicals for a traveling theater company. Her job involved promoting the theater company to various civic organizations. That gave her a vehicle for developing her Minnie Pearl routine. This began to crystallize when she met a rural Alabama woman with a heavy Southern drawl who was wearing a gingham dress.
She made her first stage performance as Minnie Pearl in 1939 at a women’s club function in South Carolina. Despite the fact that she would be married to the same person for 50 years, the essence of her character was a spinster joking about her inability to find a “feller.” She bought her trademark straw hat at a department store right before that first performance. The story goes that she didn’t realize that the dangling $1.98 price tag was still on the hat and decided that it should be part of her costume going forward. Pearl also adopted her standard intro of a loud, high-pitched “How-DEEEE!” to open her routine. Her act was mostly a combination of corny jokes and comic stories about fictitious relatives and neighbors. Pearl would also sometimes sing and dance. Her standard exit line was, “I love you so much it hurts!”
In 1940, some Grand Ole Opry executives saw Pearl’s act at a Tennessee banker’s convention and invited her to perform at the Opry. She immediately received a large amount of fan mail and her future with the Opry was secured. Opry star Roy Acuff, the “King of Country Music,” was so impressed that he invited her to join his road show.
Pearl worked with many country music stars during her career. Starting in 1948 and until his death in 1958, she teamed up with Opry comedian Rod Brasfield. She then started appearing on a myriad of television variety shows. She was a frequent guest on Ozark Jubilee which starred Red Foley. Pearl became a regular on the long-running Hee Haw series. She was often a celebrity panelist on game shows such as The Match Game and Hollywood Squares. She also made a cameo appearance as Minnie Pearl in the film Coal Miner’s Daughter.
After a long illness, Minnie Pearl died in 1996 at the age of 83. She was the first widely-known female stand-up comedian. She was also the first woman inducted into the National Comedy Hall of Fame. Her Country Music Hall of Fame plaque is inscribed with, “Humor is the least recorded but certainly one of the most important aspects of live country music.”
Jim Reeves
Jim Reeves. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/RCA Records/public domain.
Jim Reeves was born in Texas in 1923. He started playing the guitar at age five and began listening to Jimmie Rodgers and other country artists, to whom he was introduced by his older brother. At age 12, he performed on a Shreveport, Louisiana radio show. Through his teen years, music became secondary to his interest in athletics, and he won a baseball scholarship to the University of Texas. However, college life did not appeal to him and World War II was in process. He dropped out of college after six weeks to join the Army only to face the disappointment of failing his Army physical exam.
Reeves then worked as a welder while continuing to play semi-professional baseball. He was signed to a baseball contract by the St. Louis Cardinals and was a pitcher in their minor league system for three years. An unfortunate injury ended his baseball career. Reeves had a number of blue-collar jobs over the next few years. He continued to sing as an amateur, both solo and as frontman for a local band. In 1949, Reeves made several recordings which did not do well. He then began to work as a radio announcer. In 1952, he found his way back to Shreveport as the host of the popular Louisiana Hayride radio show. When a performer failed to show up for one of the shows, Reeves was asked to substitute. That led to his becoming a regular performer on the show.
Reeves had his first hit, “Mexican Joe,” in 1953. It reached Number 1 on the country charts. Other hits soon followed. In 1955, he was signed by RCA Records. It should be noted that Reeves’ recordings were primarily produced by RCA executive Chet Atkins. That same year, he joined the Grand Ole Opry. Reeves now began embracing Atkins’ Nashville Sound, that smooth, lush, pop-oriented country music also being performed by Eddy Arnold, Red Foley, and others. “Four Walls” reached the top of the country charts and also Number 12 on the pop charts. More success followed, and “He’ll Have to Go” reached Number 2 on the pop charts. Reeves had now abandoned Western attire in favor of conservative sport coats and an occasional tuxedo. His recordings featured his rich, baritone voice and he rarely played his guitar anymore.
Reeves’ popularity extended internationally. He toured Europe and South Africa and became very popular in India and other places. He is given credit for bringing country music to the rest of the world. At the height of his popularity, his private plane crashed, and Jim Reeves died in 1964 at the age of 40. His popularity continued to grow after his death. He had numerous posthumous hits and charted as late as 1983.
Tex Ritter
Tex Ritter. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Capitol Records/public domain.
Woodward Maurice “Tex” Ritter was born into a farming family in Texas in 1905. He grew up listening to Western music. Ritter was an excellent student and after graduating from high school with honors, he studied law at the University of Texas. While in college, he had his own radio program where he would sing cowboy songs. In 1928, he dropped out of college to join an acting troupe in New York City. After struggling for a while, he moved to Chicago to resume his law studies at Northwestern University. But the acting bug was still with him and he returned to New York prior to completing his degree.
This time Ritter met with success. In the early 1930s, he appeared in five Broadway shows. He was also acting in and hosting shows on radio. With Gene Autry having paved the way for singing cowboys to star in movies, Ritter moved to Hollywood in 1936. He would go on to appear in more than 60 movies. He also had signed a contract with Decca Records. However, his movie company was not as prestigious as Autry’s and he was unable to use movies as a springboard for record sales.
In 1942, Ritter became the first country artist to sign with Capitol Records, and his recording career skyrocketed. In 1944, “I’m Wasting My Tears Over You” topped the country charts and reached Number 12 on the pop charts. Other hits soon followed. Now recording became his top priority. He had his last starring movie role in 1945. Ritter continued doing movie soundtracks, most notably “The Ballad of High Noon” for the classic western High Noon. He performed that song at the Academy Awards, where it won Best Song in 1953.
In the 1950s, Ritter was no longer making an impact on the country music charts. “The Ballad of High Noon” scored well as a pop hit as did his rendition of “The Wayward Wind.” He turned to television, where he co-hosted the very popular country music show Town Hall Party for seven years. Ritter continued to record prolifically and had a brief return to the country charts in 1961 with “(I Dreamed of a) Hillbilly Heaven.”
As his recording career was winding down, Ritter became a key player in the formation of the Country Music Association and served two terms as its president. He helped oversee the building of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. In 1965, he moved to Nashville and became a lifetime member of the Grand Ole Opry. Tex Ritter passed away in 1974 at the age of 68. Note that actor John Ritter was his son.
Conclusion
This is the second of three Earliest Stars of Country Music articles that are appearing in Copper. Part Three will cover the following country music artists:
Hank Snow
Sons of the Pioneers
Merle Travis
Ernest Tubb
Kitty Wells
Bob Wills
Hank Williams
Webb Pierce (honorary mention)
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