Acuff is remembered as Nashville’s archtraditionalist-he held out for years against electric guitars and drums-but when he joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1938, his impact was revolutionary. Nashville radio station WSM’s legendary live broadcast had been dominated by string bands: Acuff was a powerfully emotional solo singer who used his Crazy Tennesseans (quickly changed to the more dignified Smoky Mountain Boys) as a backup band and comedy troupe. “I was one of the first fellows who reared back and hit a microphone with a strong voice,” he recalled. The young Hank Williams and the younger George Jones were among the Opry’s millions of listeners; both took Acuff as a model. Tin Pan Alley songwriter Fred Rose suddenly saw the light when he watched Acuff singing “Don’t Make Me Go to Bed and I’ll Be Good”-a guilt-drenched account of a child’s death-with tears rolling down his cheeks. Rose became a country songwriter and Acuff’s business partner; Acuff-Rose, now Nashville’s biggest music publisher, made them millionaires.
By World War II, Acuff had become an emblematic American: Japanese troops on Okinawa reportedly made a banzai charge yelling, “To hell with President Roosevelt! To hell with Babe Ruth! To hell with Roy Acuff!” In 1948 Acuff was even prevailed upon to run as a Republican for governor of Tennessee. (He lost two to one.) But after the war, the electric honkytonk typified by Williams and Ernest Tubb and its obsession with such anti-Acuffian themes as cheating and boozing made the King of Country seem increasingly quaint. Paradoxically, this influx of sin and secularity gave Acuff, by contrast, a dignity that none of his onstage shenanigans like his famous trick of balancing his fiddle bow on his nose-could undercut.
The Opry was Acuff’s life. He lived in the Opryland complex and until last month still performed almost every Saturday night, singing “The Great Speckled Bird” (the religious allegory that was his first hit), “The Wabash Cannonball” and “Wreck on the Highway.” In later years his rafter-shaking power diminished-but never his intensity. He always hit the high notes spot on, and he always sounded like no one in the world but Roy Acuff.
