As you might know by now, 2025 is the 100th anniversary of the Grand Ole Opry.
But how clear is our knowledge about the early history of the show? Not as complete as you might think since we have few recordings and no detailed written records from the early years of what was played on WSM (the radio station that has broadcast the Opry from the time it started).
The most complete source on this subject is Charles Wolfe’s 1999 book A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry. I recently looked over this book again and went back through old newspapers. And I’ve prepared seven true/false statements about the history of the Opry that might interest you.
1. WSM was Nashville’s first radio station. FALSE!
WSM stood for “We Shield Millions” — reflecting the fact that its original purpose was to sell insurance for its owner, Nashville’s National Life and Accident Insurance Company. When WSM went on the air at 7 p.m. on Oct. 5, 1925, it was a big deal. Thousands of people stood outside National Life’s headquarters and listened to the first broadcast on speakers.
However, by that time, Nashville had another station. WDAD, which was owned by a business called Dad’s Auto Parts and Accessories, went on the air about a month before WSM did. The man responsible for WDAD was Fred Exum, who was known as “Radio Dad” on the airwaves.
WDAD vanished by 1928, when its equipment was purchased by the Life & Casualty Insurance Company (when it started a station called WLAC). However, WDAD did have a long-term impact on WSM. Many of the early Opry musicians, including Humphrey Bate and DeFord Bailey, played on WDAD before they played on WSM. (Also, Bessie Smith, the “Empress of the Blues,” appeared on WDAD on Oct. 2, 1925 — but that’s a different story.)
2. WSM’s original director was George Hay. FALSE!
In 1945, George Hay wrote a 64-page booklet called A Story of the Grand Ole Opry; it was sold to tourists for 50 cents. In that book, Hay claims that “your reporter (Hay) who was the first director of WSM, had considerable experience in the field of folk music when the station opened in 1925.”
However, Hay wasn’t the first director of WSM because he didn’t even work for the station until Nov. 9 — more than a month after it went on the air.
The first director of WSM was a woman named Bonnie Barnhardt. We know this because on Sept. 13, 1925, the Nashville Banner published a large photo of Barnhardt with the words “STATION WSM DIRECTOR” above the photo — the first of several times that the Nashville papers referred to her by that title. Weeks later, the Tennessean had this to say about Barnhardt: “Starting as a studio pianist, she climbed the radio ladder as a singer of Southern melodies, teller of bedtime stories up to the position of studio executive of WSB (Atlanta radio station).”
So why did Barnhardt not remain with WSM? I don’t know, but she moved back to Atlanta in 1926 and started her own talent agency. Two years later, Barnhardt was in Cincinnati, working on station WFBE.
According to author Donna Halper, Barnhardt moved to Miami in 1932 to work for station WQAM. It was there that she met and married a former detective named William Beechey. Bonnie Beechey died in 1984.
3. George Hay got his inspiration for the Opry when he attended a funeral in Arkansas. TRUE!
In 1921, when George Hay was a reporter for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, he attended the funeral of a World War I veteran named Oscar Moore, whose body was being returned from France to Arkansas for burial.
The night before the service, Hay witnessed an old fashioned “hoedown,” with a fiddler, guitar player and banjo picker playing songs. “They danced, they danced, they danced all night long,” Hay recalled in 1952. “They laughed and yelled and had a wonderful time, and I tucked it away in my mind as the happiest scene I ever saw. Years later, when I got into radio full time, the whole scene came back to me — the music, the laughter, the little Arkansas cabin. It has been my ideal for every performance of the Grand Ole Opry.”
In 2023, Missouri State University professor Brooks Blevins published an article in the Arkansas Historic Quarterly called “The 100 Percent American Story of the Arkansas Origins of the Grand Ole Opry.” Look it up if you would like to read more about this.
4. The first person who played hillbilly music on WSM was Uncle Jimmy Thompson. FALSE!
Most of the Opry histories I’ve seen claim that “Uncle” Jimmy Thompson was the first person who played “old-timey” or “hillbilly” music — as traditional country music was called then — on WSM. However, the first person who probably played that type of music on WSM was a graduate of the Vanderbilt Medical School.
Humphrey Bate was a physician from the Sumner County community of Castalian Springs. In his spare time, he played harmonica with a band called the Castalian Springs Barn Dance Orchestra.
When I researched Fortunes, Fiddles and Fried Chicken in 1999, WSM’s parent company allowed me to access National Life’s Our Shield newsletter from the early 20th century. According to the newsletter, Bate and his band appeared on WSM on Oct. 18 and 24, 1925 — weeks before George Hay worked there.
5. The show was called the Grand Ole Opry within weeks of it going on the air. FALSE!
At first, the show George Hay spontaneously created was simply called the “Barn Dance.” It went by that name for about two years. Problem was, other radio stations such as WLS (Chicago) and KDKA (Pittsburgh) had similar shows called barn dances.
It wasn’t until December 1927 that Nashville newspapers began referring to the WSM show as the “Grand Old Opry.” Two years later, “Old” was replaced by a more colloquial spelling.
“We used to call this affair the Saturday night barn dance and shindig,” George Hay was quoted in the July 7, 1929, Knoxville News Sentinel as saying. “But Walter Damrosch (conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra) and his series of operatic music gave me a new idea. Now it’s the Gran’ Ol’ Op’ry.”
The show wasn’t the only thing George Hay renamed. He rechristened Humphrey Bate’s band the “Possum Hunters.” A band called Paul Warmack and His Barn Dance Orchestra was renamed the “Gully Jumpers.”
In fact, according to Charles Wolfe’s book, Hay “kept a list of ‘colorful’ names in his desk drawer, and when a new band signed, he chose one from the list.”
6. The first Grand Ole Opry was on Nov. 28, 1925. MAYBE TRUE, MAYBE FALSE?
Official histories claim the Grand Ole Opry started on Nov. 28, 1925. The two pieces of evidence we have of this are:
- A Dec. 27 Tennessean story said the Barn Dance started “about a month ago.”
- George Hay’s 1945 history of the Opry claims the show started on Nov. 28.
As we’ve already seen, George Hay’s history isn’t perfect.
Meanwhile, the WSM schedule published by the Nashville news-papers on Saturday, Nov. 28, was Francis Craig’s orchestra at 6:30 and studio concert sponsored by Nashville Lion’s Club at 10. (The same night, WDAD had “Humphrey Bate’s old-time music” at 7:30.)
WSM’s printed schedule for Saturday, Dec. 5, was Francis Craig’s orchestra at 6:30, bedtime story at 7 and Columbia Military Academy band at 10. (Meanwhile, WDAD had an “Old Fiddler’s Contest” with Humphrey Bate at 8 p.m.)
The WSM schedule for Saturday night, Dec. 12, 1925, was Francis Craig’s orchestra at 6:30, bedtime story at 7, piano hour at 8 and the Golden Echo Quartet singing spirituals at 10. (Again, WDAD had an “Old Fiddler’s Contest.”)
On Dec. 19, 1925, the WSM schedule was Francis Craig’s orchestra at 6:30, bedtime story at 7 and studio program sponsored by American Legion at 10. (WDAD had Humphrey Bate.)
If the Barn Dance started spontaneously on Saturday, Nov. 28, and if listeners embraced it from the start, why did it take more than a month for WSM’s published schedule to reflect it — especially when WDAD was scheduling the same type of music?
7. A few months after it began, WSM tried to cancel the show. TRUE!
As WSM became affiliated with country music, many of the Nashville’s residents were embarrassed about their station’s impact on their image. The criticism from the community got so bad that on May 9, 1926, the Banner reported that “WSM will continue the barn dances through the month of May but beginning June 1 will probably discontinue the old-time music for the summer, unless the public indicates its desire to have it continued throughout the hot weather.”
Two weeks of fan letters later, National Life executives reversed that decision. “The proportion is about 50 to 1,” the Tennessean reported on May 24. “Letters have been received from the surrounding towns in the state signed by scores of residents indicating a decided preference for the oldtime music. Several letters have been received from Nashville expressing a decided opinion against the barn dance programs.
“In an effort to please as many people as possible, WSM will continue the barn dance programs on Saturday night, but the time allocated to the old-time music will be cut down.”
