Roy Acuff - King of the Hillbillies

Dualtone Vintage re-releases three of Roy's Acuff's historic recordings for a new generation

Roy Acuff: Songs of the Smoky Mountains (1955/1963)

Roy Acuff: The Great Roy Acuff (1964)

Roy Acuff: The Voice of Country Music (1965)

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When listening to Roy Acuff sing, there's a certain feeling of having been placed in a time capsule.  Roy's music lacks the timelessness of many of the country artists who followed him; still, when listening to these songs, collected here in three distinct collections, you know where it all started, and where it all came from.

Roy Acuff was the fourth person named to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1962.  He had been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1938.  And in his cornpone-laden, heavy-on-the-hick-factor songs, you can hear the actual roots of country music, and witness its beginnings.

It's right here on the "Wabash Cannonball," between "Night Train to Memphis" and "The Great Speckled Bird," that you can find exactly where Hank Williams got his honky-tonk; where Jimmie Rodgers found his California yodel; where Bob Wills got his swing; and where Bill Monroe found that high lonesome sound.  It's all here, recorded in 35 tracks on three discs, that you can find where it all started, where it all came from.  This is country music at its most pure and undiluted; there are no drums, no pedal steel, no electrics; there is only the pure old-time sound of the Smoky Mountain Boys:  Pete Kirby aka "Bashful Brother Oswald" on dobro, banjo, and harmony vocals; Howard "Howdy" Forrester on fiddle; Jimmie Riddle on harmonica and piano; Lonnie "Pap" Wilson on acoustic guitar; and Joe Zinkan on string bass. Acuff handled lead vocals (and kazoo on the pleasingly silly "Sixteen Chickens and a Tamborine," from "The Voice of Country Music").

"The Great Roy Acuff" collects 12 songs which were intended for release as singles and were almost all written by the Acuff-Rose songwriters.  Only one of the tracks was never released as a single, "Please Daddy Forgive."

 "The Voice of Country Music" was the second collection of singles recorded from 1953 to 1955 while Roy was on Capitol Records.  The title is extremely apt, as Roy is at his hillbilly best here, showing how he won first the title "King of the Hillbillies," and then later, refined to "King of Country Music."  None of these singles charted for the King, and even by 1953 there was a dated quality to them.  Nonetheless, their genuine sound is a great deal of their appeal.

Capitol also released "Songs of the Smoky Mountains," which was re-recordings of Roy's most well-known and most beloved songs from 1936 to 1955, including "Wabash Cannonball," "The Great Speckled Bird," and "The Wreck on the Highway."

These three albums fit nicely together, time captured and pressed to the ultra-modern compact disc.  It's almost a shame they had to be re-mastered - in them you really should hear the crackle and pop of the old wax on the turntable, the cool clear fluid sound of analog recordings.  But no matter the digital recovery, there is still something so backwater, so truly hillbilly, so deeply spiritual that you can close your eyes and taste the lemonade on the back porch and hear the folks of Mayberry calling hello.  This is where country music grows from, and where, ultimately, you can trace it back to.  It's a sweet walk down memory lane, a door into another time, a place where a lot of people have been trying to get to.

Roy Acuff is probably too rough-hewn, too backwoods for even listeners of "O Brother."  Roy's voice is completely unrefined, a shocker in today's world of ProTools and modulated vowels.  The washtub sound is not what most people would expect from "country" music or even "old-time" country - largely because many of these songs actually pre-date what a lot of folks are calling "old time" now.  In addition to lacking steel and drums, there's also no jangling Scruggs-style banjo; there's no mandolin.

There are a lot of people saying that today's "Hot New Country" is the natural "evolution" of country music.  If they really believe that, then they should trace those roots - I want to know where exactly it connects to this most country of country sounds.  Because I can connect today's Real Country to Roy, who is, truly, The Father Tree.  I can hear where all of the real country sounds of today came from, where they grew, and how it all connects back to Roy Acuff in these songs.  This truly is penultimate country.

Have a jar of iced tea on your back porch and enjoy it.

Kathy Coleman Take Country Back June 2002