Roy Acuff Biography

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Roy Acuff
Country Music | 3 CD Set
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Roy Acuff may have become one of country music's most honored practitioners, but he had no idea of his future as a young man growing up in Tennessee. Acuff was born in 1903 in Maynardsville, Tennessee, the third of five children in a family that loved music. His father played fiddle, his mother piano and young Roy sang along with his brothers and sisters while learning to play harp and harmonica. Not interested in school at an early age, he frequently found himself in trouble. He was athletic and played basketball and baseball in high school in Knoxville but also took part in drama and the school glee club. After graduating (at the age of 21) from high school, he gained a reputation as a fighter and occasionally appeared in court. He attempted to follow an acting career in his mid-20s but failed a Chicago audition, sending him back to Knoxville where he did odd jobs and became a semi-pro baseball player. Headed for a tryout with the New York Yankees in 1929, Acuff instead suffered from an acute case of sunburn and a nervous breakdown that had him virtually in bed the whole next year. During this time of inactivity, Roy learned to play his father's fiddle while taking an interest in recordings of country music. With a baseball career out of the question, he decided country music was his future and told an interviewer much later on that "everything was dark until I found the fiddle. If it had not come along, I don't know what I would have become." He hit the road in 1932 with Dr. Hauer's Medicine Show, playing fiddle and acting in skits supposed to get onlookers to buy the medicinal tonic. The success he enjoyed from playing soon put him in contact with other musicians and by 1933-34, he was performing regularly, included in a trio called the Three Rolling Stones (a generation before Mick Jagger and his fellow Brits). He was also on radio as part of the Tennessee Crackerjacks before that group became Roy Acuff and the Crazy Tennesseans, playing six days a week on Knoxville radio in 1935. About this time, he began singing a song called "The Great Speckled Bird," taken from biblical verses by another group, and sung to a traditional English folk melody, "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes." In 1936, Acuff cut his first records for ARC Records, a set of twenty that included "Bird" and a pair of Acuff-penned songs. Although he made more records, in 1937 he stopped when he felt that the company was not treating him fairly. That same year was his low-key debut on the Grand Ole Opry and he repeated in early 1938, not exactly thrilling his musical cohorts and Opry management. However, listeners were excited about this new fiddle and vocal talent and he scored radio spots and concert appearances with the popular Delmore Brothers. Radio WSM in Nashville did not like the Crazy Tennesseans name and suggested that since the musicians came from the Smoky Mountains that they become Roy Acuff and the Smoky Mountain Boys. When ARC Records merged with Columbia in 1938, Acuff went along, subsequently recording the Carter Family's "Wabash Cannonball" and seeing that become a large hit and a gold-disc winner. He followed that with a national tour, recording in 1940 in Dallas and then moving to Hollywood to be in the movie, "Grand Ole Opry," which began a movie career alongside his music. By 1942, Acuff was making $200,000 a year. He joined pianist/songwriter Fred Rose in 1943 to forge the Acuff-Rose Publication Company, the first country music publisher in the United States, a move that played a major role in Nashville becoming Music City U.S.A. He later admitted he and Rose thought their company would be a good idea but had no inkling it would be the massive benefit it became. And Rose had not been a country music fan prior to his relationship with Acuff, but after standing in the wings at the Grand Ole Opry one night watching Acuff mesmerize the audience, he had a change of heart. Acuff by the mid-to late 40's had become a major country music star and after passing a chance to run for governor of Tennessee in 1944 and 1946, became the Republican candidate in 1948. He got more votes than any other Republican candidate had received but lost the chair in the Democratic state, saying that if he had run as a Democrat he might have won. Between 1942-48, Roy appeared in several western movies but after that gave up film work to concentrate on music, even joining Opry regulars, including Hank Williams, on a tour of Europe in 1949. His hits were frequent through the 40s, including during World War II, when he made both country and pop hits. Between the Acuff-Rose business and a country music park he began in 1947, his financial fortune ballooned. He continued to play through the 50s and 60s, racking up both U.S. and European tours and going to Korea and Japan in 1953 and Australia in 1959. He was named to the Country Music Association Hall of Fame in 1962, the award calling him the King of Country Music. He was injured in a car accident in 1965 and came back in 1966-67, playing Vietnam and other sites. His touring slowed in the 70s although he was still a major part of the Opry. He did perform on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band LP, WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN, with many country stars. He had his last chart hit in 1974, "Oldtime Sunshine Song" reaching No. 97. When the new Opry home was opened in 1974, Acuff was a featured artist, even trying to teach President Richard Nixon how to play with a yo-yo, which Acuff had been proficient with since childhood. In 1983, he played England's Wembley Festival again at age 80, proving to be a major hit. Acuff continued to host the Opry until mid-1992, a few weeks before his death on November 23.

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