Solemn Ol Judge


The National Broadcasting Company aired the Metropolitan Opera out of New York was dreamily carrying the sounds over the airwaves. Violins, clarinets, basses and percussion brought the songs to life. The performers in the studio in Tennessee were tuning up their instruments for their program that followed. As the orchestras program from New York came to an end, a man of stature leaned towards the microphone on WSM radio in Nashville. The hills had been echoing with classics, now he needed to bring the audience back to reality. He took a breathe and spoke.

From here on out folks, it will be nothing but realism of the realistic kind. Youve been up in the clouds with grand opera; now get down to earth with us in a shindig of Grand Ole Opry. And so brought on the icon that made country music what it is, all because of one man, George D. Hay.

George Dewey Hay had greater impact on country music than most any other person in the history of the industry. Known as The Solemn Ol Judge, he had the vision to see the potential of country music. Because of his insight, the hillbilly or old-time sounds hit the airwaves with a project that introduced country music to a wider audience, the Grand Ole Opry. He was instrumental in this endeavor; however, he never truly played a musical instrument.

George Dewey Hay was born in Attica, Indiana on May 9, 1895. When he was twenty, George was in the real estate business and sales. In 1919, he became a reporter in Memphis, Tennessee for the Memphis Commercial Appeal. One day, George was assigned an interview with a World War I hero in Mammoth Springs, Arkansas. While there Hay was invited to a hoedown at a local cabin which lasted until the break of dawn. No one in the world has ever had more fun than those Ozark Mountaineers did that night, the Judge later recalled.1 This event became influential in his life.

Nicknamed The Solemn Ol Judge (even though he was in his twenties) while being a criminal beat reporter, he wrote a popular humorous column titled, Howdy, Judge. This column used dialogue between judges and those people charged with petty crimes. His column used a black dialect that developed a humorous way of court room proceedings. This reporting would help him in the future by producing hillbilly style of musical entertainment by being down to earth. The Memphis Commercial Appeal took the initiative to branch out into the infant business known as radio. Hay made the best of the situation by splitting his time between writing columns for the paper and being radio editor and announcer for WMC, one of the pioneer radio stations of the South. This is where his radio persona developed when he opened his broadcast tooting on Hushpuckena his name for the steamboat whistle he blew. When George as a reporter scooped the rest of the country of the death of President Warren G. Harding, Hay knew radio was his career.

The Solemn Ol Judge envisioned the future of radio and wanted to make his name in the industry. So, George was lured to Chicago to be employed on WLS. There he became the announcer for a program called the WLS Barn Dance. This show evolved into what was known as The National Barn Dance. Within a very short time, this show became one of the most popular programs on radio. Due to his popularity, Hay was named the top announcer in the country in 1924.

In 1925, Hay was invited to the grand opening of WSM radio station in Nashville owned by the National Life Insurance Company. WSM (call letters for We Shield Millions) began as a thousand watt radio station that could project some seventy miles outside the Nashville metropolitan area and reach a mass audience for the insurance company that financed its programming. At the grand opening of the station, George was offered a job as director with the fledgling company. A month later, Hay resigned from WLS and accepted the position.

George knew of the success of The National Barn Dance. He contemplated with the idea of transferring the Barn Dance to Nashville but delayed the idea while WSM evolved. While doing one of his many duties at the new station of being a tour guide, Hay ran into an eighty year old gentleman by the name of Jimmy Thompson. His stories inspired George to begin a show at his station that would take advantage of local talent. At 8:00 p.m. on November 28, 1925, The Barn Dance debuts on WSM. George D. Hay emceed the show while Uncle Jimmy Thompson played old-time tunes on the fiddle and told anecdotes for the 65 minute program. The telegrams and letters poured into WSM during the next week, so Hay announced that the show would be regularly broadcasted on Saturday evenings. WSM only paid scale (minimum payment) for performers so such professionals like Jimmie Rodgers never considered performing on The Barn Dance. Hay started sending out press releases to the newspapers in Nashville on a regular basis announcing weekly performers. The Opry was conceived.

WSM carried out programming originating from New York several times weekly. The NBC Metropolitan Opera preceded the Barn Dance. As previously noted, Hay made that famous country music speech and by December 10, 1927, The Barn Dance had been transformed into The Grand Ole Opry. Before long local entertainers that included Uncle Dave Macon, jug bands, fiddlers and string bands all were playing the Opry. The broadcast was extended to three hours on Saturday nights with Judge George D. Hay starting and concluding each session with his steamboat whistle he named Hushpuckena after a town in Mississippi being blown. George literally blew to tell listeners and performers alike that the show was over.

In 1929, Hay maneuvered the station into becoming a clear-channel station and successfully gained approval of a 50,000 watt power jump in 1932. The signal expanded the stations airwaves blanket to the entire South, most of the Midwest and parts of Canada. This strength enabled the Opry to be reached for a wider listening base and inspired listeners into becoming entertainers for decades to come.

During the 1930s, Hay started to lose his influence at WSM. His strengths at the station were promotion, publicity and announcing. His managerial duties were relieved and he used the extra time wisely. He changed band names to sound more like they came from the hills. Like Humphrey Bates Augmented String Orchestra became the Possum Hunters. George implemented costumes to the bands that may include overalls and straw hats that could be used in promotional pictures which were located on farms, in fields and even in pig pens. He followed a simple formula for success, Keep it down to earth. Near the end of the decade, Hay suffered from several nerves breakdowns. He took leaves of absences from the Opry for up to eighteen months at a time to recover.

In 1940, George performed in a Hollywood film, The Grand Ole Opry with many of the very stars he had recruited (like Roy Acuff, Uncle Dave Macon along with The Weaver Brothers and Elvira). For the decades of the 1940s and 1950s, George D. Hay remained the announcer of the Grand Ole Opry and spent most of his weekdays as a talent scout for that institution. Although the Opry offered scale, Hay was able to influence many artists to join the cast by offering employment (concerts) throughout the week with other stars as long as the bands were back in Nashville on Saturday night to perform on the radio broadcast. Having the Opry broadcasted throughout the South and Midwest did not hurt Georges recruiting and such artist as Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe joined the fold. The talent agency placed performers under the Opry control. The organization could make or break a persons career thus putting a thumb on their employees.

George was a traditionalist. He felt that the instruments on the Opry should be of old-time nature and preserve this type of music. When Pee Wee King brought fancy clothes and electric guitars to the Opry, Hay objected wholeheartedly. In 1944, Bob Wills came to perform at Nashvilles Mother Church. His Western Swing band was known for their horns, drums and big band style. Hay objected because he had strong feelings against this admission because it opposed his philosophy of keeping the old-time music alive. Everything he had worked for in his career was on the line. Wills was informed of the managements decision; Wills ordered his band to pack up because they were going home. A compromise had to be reached. The management relented and Wills was allowed to perform.

George D. Hay began to show signs of metal instability and retired to his daughters home in Virginia Beach, Virginia in 1951. George returned to the limelight by being elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1966. When Hay dead on May 9, 1968, he was on call for the Opry and still being paid by WSM due to his remaining on the stations payroll.

When the new Grand Ole Opry auditorium groundbreaking took place in 1974, George D. Hay was there in spirit. Although dead for over six years, the crowd in attendance at the groundbreaking ceremony heard his presence. Hays steamboat whistle Hushpuckena blew once more with the thanks another great icon of the Opry, Roy Acuff. If it were not for these two men, the potential of the Opry may never have been reached. When the new Grand Ole Opry opened its doors, a six foot circle of the original Ryman Auditorium floor was implanted into the new stage for the older member of the cast. The members felt they needed something from the days of George D. Hay in the new dwelling. Placing the wood within the new stage resulted in being a grand tribute to the man who truly made the institution possible and was the Father of the Grand Ole Opry.


1 www.cmt.com/artists/az/hay_george_d_/bio.jhtml