Knoxville: A Walking Music Guide Part 2

For years now, local historians and journalists have described Knoxville as the “Cradle of Country Music” for the multitude of songwriters and performers who got their start here before moving on to Nashville, “Music City.”  Bristol, Tenn.’s claim to be the “Birthplace of Country Music” has been well documented, but in retrospect, recordings and known performances here in Knoxville have revealed a broader and perhaps more eclectic music scene that deserves greater recognition.

Roy Acuff and the Crazy Tennesseans. (Wilson Library)

One of the earliest country music stars, Roy Acuff born in Maynardville, just north of here, but moved as a teenager with his family to Knoxville suburb Fountain City where he learned to play the fiddle from a car mechanic. By the mid-1930s, Acuff began performing here in town with a short-lived trio, the Three Rolling Stones. But his subsequent band, the brash Crazy Tennesseans took the city by storm, playing at local radio stations WROL and WNOX, the latter which broadcast from Gay Street’s Andrew Johnson Hotel (where management asked the band to leave due to their boisterous fans) and at the 1,000-seat auditorium at the old Market House. It’s been said that Acuff’s band introduced a new instrument to Knoxville audiences: the Hawaiian-inspired Dobro played by Clell Summey. Acuff and his band moved to the state capital in 1938 to begin playing at the Grand Ole Opry as their record, “The Great Speckled Bird,” became a hit. With his distinctive style, Acuff would soon become a fixture in country music.

Flatt Scruggs and Band, ca. 1940s, by Joe Parrott.

Other acts like Flatt and Scruggs would use Knoxville as a career springboard. Breaking away from Bill Monroe’s band, the duo came here from Nashville and began their own recording career in the WROL studio when it was based in the Hamilton Bank Building (now the Holston) in the late 1940s. Atkins, who later became an influential guitarist and Nashville music producer, lived and performed in Knoxville early in his career and played here with Maybelle Carter and her daughters, including June who later married Johnny Cash.

Dolly Parton also got her start on radio in Knoxville. Born and raised in Sevierville, Dolly came here when she was 12 to perform on WIVK radio, then located on North Gay Street, just around the corner from the Southern Station.  It was here that she would later claim “she fell in love with her audience.” Radio listeners were charmed, as was music impresario and local grocery magnate Cas Walker who invited her on his TV show and then urged her to further her career in Nashville. Dolly recently spent a day performing songs at the Bijou Theatre for an upcoming TV show.

Knoxville also has a fine pedigree in classical music. Just after the turn of the 20th century, Bertha Roth Walburn Clark emerged as a singular talent. Originally from Cincinnati, she came here as a trained violinist and worked as a professional musician. She led quartets in her early days here before organizing what she called her “Little Symphony” at the Farragut Hotel in the 1920s. A decade later, she would establish the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and served as its first conductor. After World War II, David Van Vactor, a flutist and composer from Indiana came here to lead the KSO and also served as director of a new music school at the University of Tennessee. Van Vactor had a sharp ear for talent and encouraged the likes of the young Trythall brothers, particularly Gilbert who would be a defining force in the emerging genre of electronic music.

The 1950s brought Rock and Roll to Knoxville, which inspired the young Everly Brothers (see March issue) who began to experiment with the style before moving to Nashville, and by an influential music shop on Market Square. Sam Morrison, owner of Bell Sales Co., who liked to play songs on speakers outside his shop front, got a remarkable reaction from the public when he played a brand-new record by an unknown singer on Memphis’ Sun Records label in the summer of 1954. “That’s All Right,” a cover version of a 1946 Arthur Crudup song by a fresh-faced Elvis Presley, got the attention of a RCA agent passing through Knoxville because the record store was selling it in the thousands. The following year, RCA signed Presley on a major contract, and the singer went on to become one of the most successful artists of all time.

Louis Armstrong Band, 1957. (KHP)

There are many other facets to the city’s music history. The guide also serves as a self-directed walking tour taking in such diverse sites as several downtown churches; the Civic Auditorium and Coliseum, which opened in 1961 as Knoxville’s first unsegregated venue; a slew of sites that flourished briefly or still exist in the Old City; World’s Fair Park site that hosted memorable performances in 1982; and the fondly-remembered bars and clubs that catered for punk and the alternative scene on the Cumberland Avenue Strip. Chilhowee Park has also hosted many legendary shows over the years, but perhaps none like the 1957 concert when Louis Armstrong played during the Clinton High School desegregation crisis, as a bomb went off outside the venue. Fortunately, no one was injured, and the show continued.

Knoxville: A Walking Music Guide is available for free at the following locations: Visit Knoxville, Lawson McGhee Library, East Tennessee History Center, Union Ave Books, and Addison’s Books. An online version can be found on KHP’s website. Knoxville: A Walking Literary Guide is also available.

Article by Paul James and Jack Neely

Photography by Knoxville History Project, Shawn Poynter, and the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection

Originally published in West Knoxville Lifestyle