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Roy Acuff

Roy Claxton Acuff (September 15, 1903 – November 23, 1992) was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the "King of Country Music", Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedown" format to the singer-based format that helped make it internationally successful. In 1952, Hank Williams told Ralph Gleason, "He's the biggest singer this music ever knew. You booked him and you didn't worry about crowds. For drawing power in the South, it was Roy Acuff, then God."[2]

Roy Acuff

Roy Claxton Acuff

King of Country Music[1]

(1903-09-15)September 15, 1903
Maynardville, Tennessee, U.S.

November 23, 1992(1992-11-23) (aged 89)
Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.

Singer-songwriter

1932–1992

Acuff began his music career in the 1930s and gained regional fame as the singer and fiddler for his group, the Smoky Mountain Boys. He joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1938, and although his popularity as a musician waned in the late 1940s, he remained one of the Opry's key figures and promoters for nearly four decades. In 1942, Acuff and Fred Rose founded Acuff-Rose Music, the first major Nashville-based country music publishing company, which signed such artists as Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, and the Everly Brothers. In 1962, Acuff became the first living inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame.[3]

Career[edit]

Early music career[edit]

In 1932, Dr. Hauer's medicine show, which toured the southern Appalachian region, hired Acuff as one of its entertainers.[8] Acuff began his career as a blackface performer.[11][12] The purpose of the entertainers was to draw a large crowd to whom Hauer could sell patent medicines (of suspect quality) for various ailments.[9] While on the medicine show circuit, Acuff met the legendary Appalachian banjoist Clarence Ashley, from whom he learned "The House of the Rising Sun" and "Greenback Dollar", both of which Acuff later recorded.[13] As the medicine show lacked microphones, Acuff learned to sing loud enough to be heard above the din, a skill that later helped him stand out on early radio broadcasts.[9]


In 1934, Acuff left the medicine show circuit and began playing at local shows with various musicians in the Knoxville area, where he had become a celebrity and fixture in local newspaper columns.[14] That year, guitarist Jess Easterday and Hawaiian guitarist Clell Summey joined Acuff to form the Tennessee Crackerjacks, who performed regularly on the Knoxville radio stations WROL and WNOX (the band moved back and forth between stations as Acuff bickered with their managers about compensation).[8] Within a year, the group had added bassist Red Jones and changed its name to the Crazy Tennesseans after being introduced as such by a WROL announcer named Alan Stout.[10] Fans often remarked to Acuff how "clear" his voice was coming through over the radio, important in an era when singers were often drowned out by string-band cacophony.[9] The popularity of Acuff's rendering of the song "The Great Speckled Bird" helped the group land a contract with American Record Corporation, (ARC) for which they recorded several dozen tracks (including the band's best-known track, "Wabash Cannonball") in 1936.[9] Needing to complete a 20-song commitment, the band recorded two ribald tunes—including "When Lulu's Gone"—but released them under a pseudonym, the Bang Boys.[15] The group split from ARC in 1937 over a separate contract dispute.[9]

Grand Ole Opry[edit]

In 1938, the Crazy Tennesseans moved to Nashville to audition for the Grand Ole Opry. Although their first audition went poorly, the band's second audition impressed Opry founder George D. Hay and producer Harry Stone, and they offered the group a contract later that year. On Hay and Stone's suggestion, Acuff changed the group's name to the Smoky Mountain Boys, referring to the mountains near where his bandmates and he grew up.[9] Shortly after the band joined the Opry, Clell Summey left the group and was replaced by Fiddle player Beecher (Pete) Kirby—best known by his stage name Bashful Brother Oswald—whom Acuff had met in a Knoxville bakery earlier that year.[9] Acuff's powerful lead vocals and Kirby's dobro playing and high-pitched backing vocals gave the band its distinctive sound. By 1939, Jess Easterday had switched to bass to replace Red Jones, and Acuff had added guitarist Lonnie "Pap" Wilson and banjoist Rachel Veach to fill out the band's lineup. Within a year, Roy Acuff and the Smoky Mountain Boys rivaled long-time Opry banjoist Uncle Dave Macon as the troupe's most popular act.[9] In the same period, he was initiated to the Masonic Lodge of East Nashville No. 560.[16][17][18]


In spring 1940, Acuff and his band traveled to Hollywood, where they appeared with Hay and Macon in the motion picture Grand Ole Opry. Acuff appeared in several subsequent B movies, including O, My Darling Clementine (1943), in which he played a singing sheriff; Night Train to Memphis (1946), the title of which comes from a song Acuff recorded in 1940; and Home in San Antone (1949), in which he starred with Lloyd Corrigan and William Frawley.


Acuff and his band also joined Macon and other Opry acts at various tent shows held throughout the Southeast in the early 1940s. The crowds at these shows were so large that roads leading into the venues were jammed with traffic for miles.[9] Starting in 1939, Acuff hosted the Opry's Prince Albert segment. He left the show in 1946 after a dispute with management.[1]

Acuff-Rose[edit]

In 1942, Acuff and songwriter Fred Rose (1897–1954) formed Acuff-Rose Music. Acuff originally sought the company to publish his own music, but soon realized that demand from other country artists existed, many of whom had been exploited by larger publishing firms.[19] Due in large part to Rose's ASCAP connections and gifted ability as a talent scout, Acuff-Rose quickly became the most important publishing company in country music. In 1946, the company signed Hank Williams, and in 1950, published their first major hit, Patti Page's rendition of "Tennessee Waltz".[20]

Death[edit]

Roy Acuff died at the Baptist Hospital in Nashville on November 23, 1992, of congestive heart failure at the age of 89.[1] He is buried in the Hillcrest section (grave 6, lot 9) of Spring Hill Cemetery on Gallatin Road in Nashville.[27]

Acuff-Ecoff Family Archives

Biography at Who2

in the Country Music Hall of Fame

Roy Acuff

in the Hollywood Walk of Fame Directory

Roy Acuff

Roy Acuff at hillbilly–music.com

at IMDb

Roy Acuff

at Find a Grave

Roy Acuff

Media related to Roy Acuff at Wikimedia Commons