ROY ACUFF
(1903 - 1992)

(born September 15, 1903, Maynardsville, Tennessee;
died November 23, 1992, Nashville, Tennessee)

A native of Maynardsville, Tennessee, Roy Claxton Acuff did not become active in music until sensitivity to sun ruled out a career in Major League baseball.  He was then 30.

By 1942, he was the leading vocal star of the Grand Ole Opry.  That year, he founded the first important music-publishing company in Nashville with songwriter Fred Rose, a company whose giant catalogue includes the songs of the "Hillbilly Shakespeare" Hank Williams (1923 - 1953).

In 1942, too, he organized the Smoky Mountain Boys, with whom he recorded a vast number of hits, including "The Great Speckled Bird," "Wabash Cannonball," "Precious Jewel," "I Saw The Light," and "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?".

He is reputed to have sold over 30 million disks in a career that in 1962 led to his being elected as the first living member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.