A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry
by Charles K. Wolfe

List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $17.49
You Save: $12.46 (42%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $3.53 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Book Summary Information

Book Reviews of A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry

Book Review: Early Years of a Radio Classic
Summary: 5 Stars

Summary of A Good-Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry

Or so the story goes. In truth, the birth of the Opry was a far more complicated event than even Hay, "the solemn old Judge," remembered. The veteran performers of that era are all gone now, but since the 1970s pioneering country music historian Charles K. Wolfe has spent countless hours recording the oral history of the principals and their families and mining archival materials from the Country Music Foundation and elsewhere to understand just what those early days were like. The story that he has reconstructed is fascinating. Both a detailed history and a group biography of the Opry's early years, A Good-Natured Riot provides the first comprehensive and thoroughly researched account of the personalities, the music, and the social and cultural conditions that were such fertile ground for the growth of a radio show that was to become an essential part of American culture.

Wolfe traces the unsure beginnings of the Opry through its many incarnations, through cast tours of the South, the Great Depression, commercial sponsorship by companies like Prince Albert Tobacco, and the first national radio linkups. He gives colorful and engaging portraits of the motley assembly of the first Opry casts -- amateurs from the hills and valleys surrounding Nashville, like harmonica player Dr. Humphrey Bate ("Dean of the Opry") and fiddler Sid Harkreader, virtuoso string bands like the Dixieliners, colorful hoedown bands like the Gully Jumpers and the Fruit Jar Drinkers, the important African American performer DeFord Bailey, vaudeville acts and comedians like Lasses and Honey, through more professional groups such as the Vagabonds, the Delmore Brothers, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, and perennial favorite Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys.

With dozens of wonderful photographs and a complete roster of every performer and performance of these early Opry years, A Good-Natured Riot gives a full and authoritative portrayal of the colorful beginnings of WSM's barn dance program up to 1940, by which time the Grand Ole Opry had found its national audience and was poised to become the legendary institution that it remains to this day.

Co-published with the Country Music Foundation Press

The bulk of Wolfe's chronicle is told through discussions of the Opry's stars, their lives, and their music, adding station logs, repertoire listings, press releases, and news clippings to his own extensive interviews and research. He progresses from early staples like Bate, Thompson, DeFord Bailey, and Uncle Dave Macon (the only early member who was actually a well-known professional musician), to innovators like the McGee Brothers, Fiddlin' Arthur Smith, and the Delmore Brothers, to Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe, who brought country music into the modern age. By the time Acuff and Monroe held sway, circa 1940, the Opry had become a nationally syndicated NBC show and most of its stars were actively and successfully making records. Wolfe documents the first 15 years of the Opry in incredible detail, and in doing so illustrates the development of old-time music from homespun, informal diversion to finely honed commercial powerhouse. --Marc Greilsamer

Music Books

• Books > Subjects > Arts & Photography
• Humor & Entertainment > Radio > General Broadcasting