Ten Favorite Hills and Mountains Songs: Smoky Mountain Memories (#3)

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It's time to trudge up another mountain to discover the next song that's on my list of favorite tunes that have "hill" or "mountain" in the title. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm done with the "hills," so only the mountains are alive with the sound of music now. Here's the next song on the list. #3: Smoky Mountain Memories - Roy Acuff If you're going to go with country music, you might as well go with the king. Today people refer to George Strait as "king George," but even he'll tell you that Roy Acuff is, was, and ever shall be the King of Country Music. The reason is simple: Strait made his millions in the era of CMT, 2,500 country radio stations, Entertainment Tonight, Lear jets, country music magazines, and country being "cool." None of that existed in the 1930s when Roy Acuff rose to superstardom, quickly going from the featured act on WNOX's "Midday Merry-Go-Round" to one of the biggest names in music, not just country music. He was so well-known that kamikaze pilots would taunt American troops by yelling, "To hell with Roosevelt! To hell with Babe Ruth! And to hell with Roy Acuff!" as they attacked during World War II. I've chronicled what a great businessman he was as well, co-founding Acuff-Rose Publishing with Fred Rose (who was the second person inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame [Acuff was fourth overall, and the first living inductee, in 1962]). So now I'll focus on the music. Acuff was hardly the best at anything. I'm sure younger listeners will find his plaintive voice annoying and indicative of what they don't like about what country music used to be, but that's exactly what endeared him to generations. He could make you bawl your eyes out with the emotion he conveyed in songs like "The Great Speckle Bird" or "Don't Make Me Go to Bed and I'll Be Good," then have you dancing for joy to songs like "Night Train to Memphis." Here he sang of the joy of the eastern Tennessee area where he was born and raised (he was from the same county as Dolly Parton....although there's no statue of him on the courthouse square ) and the "better place and time" of bygone years. Joined by his longtime (as in, from 1937 until Acuff's death in 1992) dobro player, "Bashful Brother Oswald" on harmonies, he sang of "homemade remedies, overalls with the ragged knees, all day singing, dinner on the grounds" that are staples of country life. Long live the king. Smoky Mountain Memories Written by Eddy Raven and Roy Acuff Jr. Recorded by Roy Acuff From Smoky Mountain Memories, 1975 There's still those ties that bind me: