DeFord Bailey

DeFord Bailey was born near Carthage in 1899, and polio at about age three left him bedridden for a year, during which he taught himself harmonica by imitating trains and animals. He played on WSM's Barn Dance from 1927 to 1941 and toured with Uncle Dave Macon, Bill Monroe and Roy Acuff, who said Bailey helped him. Jim Crow laws made food and lodging hard to find on the road. WSM fired him in 1941 during a licensing dispute between BMI and ASCAP. He shined shoes afterward, and the Country Music Hall of Fame inducted him in 2005.

What the plaque says

DeFord Bailey 1899-1982 Bailey, a pioneer of the Grand Old Opry and its first black musician, lived in the Edgehill neighborhood for nearly 60 years. His shoe-shine shop was on 12th Ave., South, near this intersection. His harmonica performance of the "Pan American Blues" inspired Judge George D. Hay to dub WSM's Barn Dance the "Grand Ole Opry." Traveling extensively with Opry musicians, he entertained audiences throughout the South and Midwest. In 1928, he recorded eight sides for RCA Victor during Nashville's first recording session.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Negley — 0.7 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.
• National Museum of African American Music — 1.3 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.
• Ryman Auditorium — 1.4 mi
  The 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 1.4 mi
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.

More markers nearby

• William Edmondson Studio and Home Site — 0.4 mi
• Nashville Blacks in the Civil War — 0.6 mi
• Ward- Belmont College — 0.7 mi
• Roger Williams University — 0.8 mi