Roy Acuff

Acuff reached the Opry by way of a medicine show and Knoxville radio. He took up his father's fiddle in 1929 while recovering from a sunstroke that ended his baseball career. Judge George Hay rebuffed him from 1934 until a February 5, 1938 audition, and WSM then insisted his band, the Crazy Tennesseans, become the Smoky Mountain Boys. Songbook sales led to Acuff-Rose Publishing in 1942. He ran for governor as a Republican in 1948 and lost, and in 1962 became the first living artist elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

What the plaque says

Roy Claxton Acuff Roy Claxton Acuff, Grand Ole Opry star for more than 50 years, actor, international music entertainer, goodwill ambassador, and humanitarian, was born in Maynardville, near this site, on September 15, 1903. He recorded more than 100 country and gospel songs, "Great Speckled Bird," "Wabash Cannon Ball," "Precious Jewel," "Down in Union County," and "Night Train to Memphis."

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of Appalachia — 16 mi
  John Rice Irwin's 65-acre collection of moved log cabins and mountain objects north of Knoxville, opened in 1969, with a cabin believed to be Mark Twain's father's.
• Norris Dam and Norris Dam State Park — 16 mi
  TVA's first dam, finished in 1936 on the Clinch River, and the state park beside it with the 1798 Rice Grist Mill, built for a valley whose families were moved out.
• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 20 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Blount Mansion — 21 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.

More markers nearby

• Horace Maynard — steps away
• Walker's Ford — 6.6 mi
• Albert Miller Lea — 8.3 mi
• Emory Road — 8.5 mi