Roy Claxton Acuff, born September 15, 1903, in Maynardville, Tennessee,  was 
an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter, often called 
 The King of Country Music. 

Acuff's family was fairly prominent, his paternal grandfather, had been a 
Tennessee state senator, and his maternal grandfather was a local physician. 
Roy's father was an accomplished fiddler and a Baptist preacher and his 
mother was proficient on the piano. During Roy's early years the Acuff house 
was a popular place for local gatherings. At such gatherings, Roy would 
often amuse people by balancing farm tools on his chin. He also learned to 
play harmonica and Jew's harp at a young age.

During high school, Acuff sang in the school chapel's choir and performed in 
student plays. He suffered from sunstroke after high school and while 
recovering he began to hone his fiddle skills. His father gave him several 
records of regionally-renowned fiddlers who influenced his style.

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

In 1934, Acuff left the medicine show circuit and began playing at local 
shows with various musicians in the Knoxville area. That year, guitarist 
Jess Easterday and Hawaiian guitarist Clell Summey joined Acuff to form the 
"Tennessee Crackerjacks," who performed regularly on Knoxville radio 
stations. Within a year, the group had added bassist Red Jones and had 
changed its name to the "Crazy Tennesseans," after being introduced as such 
by WROL announcer Alan Stout. 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 noise. The popularity of Acuff's 
rendering of the song "Great Speckle Bird" helped the group land a contract 
with the American Record Corporation, for whom they recorded several dozen 
tracks, including the band's best-known track, "Wabash Cannonball."

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 Acuff and his bandmates grew up. Shortly after the band 
joined the Opry, Clell Summey left the group, and was replaced by Dobro 2 
player Beecher Kirby, best known by his stage name "Bashful Brother Oswald." 
Acuff's powerful lead vocals, Kirby's Dobro playing and high-pitched backing 
vocals gave the band its distinctive sound. By 1940, 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 line-up.

In the spring 1940, Acuff and his band appeared in the motion picture, 
 Grand Ole Opry. Subsequently, Acuff appeared in several B-movies, 
including O, My Darling Clementine (1943) and Night Train to Memphis 
(1946), the title of which comes from a song Acuff recorded in 1940.

In 1943, Acuff invited Tennessee Governor Prentice Cooper to be the guest of 
honor at a gala held to mark the nationwide premier of the Opry's Prince 
Albert show. Cooper rejected the offer, however, and lambasted Acuff and his 
"disgraceful" music for making Tennessee the "hillbilly capital of the 
United States." A Nashville journalist reported the governor's comments to 
Acuff, and suggested Acuff run for governor himself. While Acuff initially 
did not take the suggestion seriously, he did accept the Republican Party 
nomination for governor in 1948.

Acuff's nomination caused great concern for E.H. Crump, the head of a 
Memphis Democratic Party political machine that had dominated Tennessee 
state politics for nearly a quarter-century. Crump was not worried so much 
about losing the governor's office, in spite of Acuff's name recognition, 
but did worry that Acuff would draw large crowds to Republican rallies and 
bolster other statewide candidates. While Acuff did relatively well and 
helped reinvigorate Tennessee's Republicans, his opponent, Gordon Browning, 
still won with 67% of the vote.

Acuff spent several years touring the Western United States, although demand 
for his appearances dwindled with the lack of national exposure and the rise 
of musicians such as Ernest Tubb and Eddy Arnold, who were more popular with 
younger audiences.

In 1962, Acuff became the first living person to be inducted 
into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

In 1979, Opryland opened the Roy Acuff Theatre, which was dedicated in 
Acuff's honor. Dunbar Cave State Park was established in 1973 largely around 
a recreational area the state had purchased from Acuff. Two museums have 
been named in Acuff's honor, the Roy Acuff Museum at Opryland and the Roy 
Acuff Union Museum and Library in his hometown of Maynardville. Acuff has a 
star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 1541 Vine Street.

In the 1980s, after the death of his wife, Mildred, Acuff moved into a house on the 
Opryland grounds, and continued performing. In 1991, he was given a lifetime 
achievement award by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. 

Many of Acuff's songs show a strong religious influence, most notably "Great 
Speckle Bird," "The Prodigal Son" and "Lord Build Me a Cabin." Such songs 
were typically set to a traditional Anglo-Celtic melody, which is most 
apparent on "Great Speckle Bird" and the 1940 recording "The Precious 
Jewel." Acuff also liked to perform popular songs of the day, including Pee 
Wee King's "Tennessee Waltz" and Dorsey Dixon's "Wreck on the Highway." He 
even recorded a version of Cajun fiddler Harry Choates' "Jole Blon." 

Some traditional recordings include "New Greenback Dollar," which he probably 
learned from Clarence Ashley while on the medicine show circuit, and 
"Lonesome Old River Blues," which he recorded with the Smoky Mountain Boys. 
Acuff and the Crazy Tennesseans recorded "Wabash Cannonball," another 
traditional song. Although Acuff did not sing on the first recording made in 
1936, on the better-known version from 1947, Acuff did provide the vocals.

Acuff died in Nashville on November 23, 1992 of heart failure.

Band lineup:
1934 as The Tennessee Crackerjacks :
* Roy Acuff (guitar)
* Jesse Easterly (guitar)
* Clell Summy (guitar)

1935 as The Crazy Tennesseans :
* Roy Acuff (guitar)
* Jesse Easterly (guitar)
* Clell Summy (guitar)
* Red Jones (bass)

1938 as The Smoky Mountain Boys :
* Roy Acuff (guitar)
* Jesse Easterly (guitar)
* Red Jones (bass)
* Beecher Kirby aka: Bashful Brother Oswald (Dobro guitar)

1940 still as The Smoky Mountain Boys :
* Roy Acuff (guitar)
* Jesse Easterly (switches to bass guitar)
* Beecher Kirby aka: Bashful Brother Oswald (Dobro guitar)
* Lonnie "Pap" Wilson (guitar)
* Rachel Veach (banjo)

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 1 The Grand Ole Opry started out as a weekly country music radio program 
and concert broadcast live on WSM radio in Nashville, Tennessee. It is the 
oldest continuous radio program in the United States, having been broadcast 
on WSM since October 5, 1925. Later it became a live show that has been 
housed in many venues.

 2 Dobro is a trade name now owned by the Gibson Guitar Corporation and used 
for a particular design of resonator guitar. The name was coined by the Dopyera 
brothers when they formed the Dobro Manufacturing Company in 1928. In time 
Dobro came to mean any resonator guitar, or specifically one with a single 
inverted resonator. This particular design was introduced as competition to 
the already patented tricone and biscuit designs owned and produced by the 
National String Instrument Corporation. The Dobro brand later also appeared 
on other instruments, notably electric lap-steel guitars and solid-body 
electric guitars and on other resonator instruments such as Safari resonator 
mandolins. When Gibson acquired the name in 1994, the company announced that 
it would defend its right to the exclusive use of the Dobro name.