Undocumented and ignored, it was called folk music because it was the music that the people of America sang and played for themselves. You’d hear it at weekend hoedowns and barn dances, when families who would rarely see another family all week would come together to share a meal and play music. The barn dance would be in someone’s barn with hay bales for seating; the hoedown might be outside or in a church hall or in someone’s front parlor. It would probably be on bath night, and the women would have curled their hair with curling tongs heated over the flame of the coal oil lamp. As the nineteenth century ended, few could have foreseen the impact that two recent inventions, radio and records, would have upon the music played at rural get-togethers. When commercial radio became popular in the 1920s, local music suddenly wasn’t local anymore. All the pieces of American folk music came together to make country music, and if there was one stage where it happened, it was the Grand Ole Opry.
What do You think about The Grand Ole Opry (2009)?
