Country music's king: Roy Acuff traded baseball for the Opry stage and the hearts of fans

MAYNARDVILLE — If not for that blazing summer sun, Roy Acuff might have made it to baseball's big leagues — and country music might never have known one of its greatest stars.

Acuff was born Sept. 15, 1903, in this small town about 25 miles northeast of Knoxville, was moved with his family to Fountain City as a teenager and graduated Central High School as a star athlete in 1924. He learned to sing and play the fiddle in church as the son of a sometime lawyer and preacher, but set his sights on a baseball career.

That dream ended in July 1929 when Acuff suffered sunstroke, followed by a breakdown and another sunstroke. While recovering at his parents' home on Raleigh Avenue, he passed the time listening to records and practicing the tunes on his fiddle.

"I reckon the good man up above said, 'Roy, you're not gonna baseball, you're gonna do something else,' " he told News Sentinel reporter Wayne Bledsoe decades later.

The would-be baseball player went to become known as the "king of country music." Look for his story Monday night in the second episode of Ken Burns' documentary series "Country Music" on PBS.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

Medicine shows and mountain music

After Acuff recovered, he signed up as a performer with Dr. Hauer's Medicine Show, roaming the highways and back roads of East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia to hawk the marvelous Mocoton Tonic as a cure for all ills. Hauer promised Acuff all performances would be in the shade and out of the noonday heat.

Acuff learned at those shows how to keep crowds of as many as 2,000 people entertained with songs, stories, jokes and stunts like balancing his fiddle on his nose. By 1934, he'd come to Knoxville to star in his own show on WROL radio with his band, the Crazy Tennesseans (later renamed the Smoky Mountain Boys).

In 1938, Acuff made his debut on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. His fingers stumbled on the fiddle from nerves, and he muffled his initial singing out of habit from performing on small-town stations with low-power signals. So he pulled out all the stops for his last number, "The Great Speckled Bird."

"I laid back just like I was calling the cows out of Union County," Acuff recalled. "When I hit that microphone I knocked some of the smaller stations off the air! ... After I sang it (the audience) all stood up."

Cradle of Country Music:What Knoxville scenes to look for in 'Country Music'

American icon

The gospel song became Acuff's signature, and the performance drew him the most fan mail in WSM radio's history. More hits like "Wabash Cannonball" and "Night Train to Memphis" followed. He became an Opry regular, a movie star and a two-time candidate for Tennessee governor.

Japanese soldiers at Okinawa charged American GIs with the chant, "To hell with President (Franklin) Roosevelt. To hell with Babe Ruth. To hell with Roy Acuff!"

In 1942, Acuff and Fred Rose, a pianist for WSM, founded Acuff-Rose Music, one of Nashville's powerhouse publishing firms. The company set itself apart by championing fair compensation for songwriters.

In 1962, Acuff became the first living member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. He even offered yo-yo lessons to President Richard Nixon on the Opry stage in 1974.

He died Nov. 23, 1992, at age 89.

How to watch 'Country Music' in Knoxville

Ken Burns' documentary series "Country Music" airs on PBS starting at 8 p.m. New episodes continue daily through Wednesday. The second half of the series runs nightly at 8 p.m. from Sept. 22-25. 

The series also is available to stream via PBS Passport.