Country-variety show The Grand Ole Opry debuts. The show is the longest-running live music show, having celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2000. The show started as a country-music hour on WSM, a local Nashville radio. Host George Dewey Hay loved authentic country music and invited an 83-year-old Civil War veteran to play fiddle for an hour one afternoon. Hay continued to encourage grassroots musicians to come to the studio and play, and soon audiences were flocking there as well. In 1959, the show, previously called the “The WSM Barn Dance,” was dubbed “The Grand Ole Opry.” Although the show lasted only an hour on the air, the live version often ran for four hours or more. The audience kept outgrowing the studio-from a small space, to a 500-seat studio, to a 2,000-seat auditorium in 1939. In 1974, the show moved to a new home, “Opryland,” which boasted a 4,400-seat theater.

Country-variety show The Grand Ole Opry debuts. The show is the longest-running live music show, having celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2000. The show started as a country-music hour on WSM, a local Nashville radio. Host George Dewey Hay loved authentic country music and invited an 83-year-old Civil War veteran to play fiddle for an hour one afternoon. Hay continued to encourage grassroots musicians to come to the studio and play, and soon audiences were flocking there as well. In 1959, the show, previously called the “The WSM Barn Dance,” was dubbed “The Grand Ole Opry.” Although the show lasted only an hour on the air, the live version often ran for four hours or more. The audience kept outgrowing the studio-from a small space, to a 500-seat studio, to a 2,000-seat auditorium in 1939. In 1974, the show moved to a new home, “Opryland,” which boasted a 4,400-seat theater.