Roy Acuff

While recovering Acuff began to hone his fiddle skills often playing on the family's front porch in late afternoons after the sun went down. He joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1938 and although his popularity as a musician waned in the late 1940s he remained one of the Opry's key figures and promoters for nearly four decades. Starting in 1939 Acuff hosted the Opry's Prince Albert segment but left the show in 1946 after a dispute with management.

In 1962 Acuff became the first living inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 1942 Acuff co-founded the first major Nashville-based country music publishing company—Acuff-Rose Music—which signed acts such as Hank Williams Roy Orbison and The Everly Brothers. Acuff began his music career in the 1930s and gained regional fame as the singer and fiddler for his group the Smoky Mountain Boys.