Editing Grand Ole Opry (section)

===Beginnings===
[[File:Grand Ole Opry.jpg|thumb|right|Decorative brickwork at Opryland Hotel depicting Ryman Auditorium with [[Minnie Pearl]] and [[Roy Acuff]]]]

The ''Grand Ole Opry'' started as the ''WSM Barn Dance'' in the new fifth-floor radio studio of the [[National Life and Accident Insurance Company|National Life & Accident Insurance Company]] in downtown Nashville on November 28, 1925. On October 17, 1925, management began a program featuring "Dr. Humphrey Bate and his string quartet of old-time musicians." On November 2, WSM hired long-time announcer and program director [[George D. Hay]], an enterprising pioneer from the ''[[National Barn Dance]]'' program at [[WLS (AM)|WLS]] in Chicago, who was also named the most popular radio announcer in America as a result of his radio work with both WLS and [[WMC (AM)|WMC]] in Memphis, Tennessee. Though only 29 when he was hired by WSM and turned 30 a week later, Hay (known as the "Solemn Old Judge") launched the ''WSM Barn Dance'' with 77-year-old fiddler [[Uncle Jimmy Thompson]] on November 28, 1925, and that date is celebrated as the day the ''Grand Ole Opry'' began.<ref>{{cite web|title=Our Story - The Show that Made Country Music Famous|url=https://www.opry.com/our-story/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200920202551/https://www.opry.com/our-story/|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 20, 2020|publisher=Grand Ole Opry|access-date=March 1, 2022}}</ref>

Some of the bands regularly on the show during its early days included [[Bill Monroe]], the Possum Hunters (with [[Humphrey Bate]]), the Fruit Jar Drinkers with [[Uncle Dave Macon]], the Crook Brothers, the [[Binkley Brothers' Dixie Clodhoppers]], [[Sid Harkreader]], [[DeFord Bailey]], [[Fiddlin' Arthur Smith]], and the [[The Gully Jumpers|Gully Jumpers]].<ref name="Fifty">{{Citation|last1=Tassin|first1=Myron|title=Fifty Years at the Grand Ole Opry|publisher=Pelican Publishing|edition=1st|year=1975|isbn=978-0882890890}}</ref>

Judge Hay liked the Fruit Jar Drinkers and asked them to appear last on each show because he wanted to always close each segment with "red hot fiddle playing". They were the second band accepted on ''Barn Dance'', with the Crook Brothers being the first. When the Opry began having square dancers on the show, the Fruit Jar Drinkers always played for them. In 1926, Uncle Dave Macon, a Tennessee [[banjo]] player who had recorded several songs and toured on the vaudeville circuit, became its first real star.<ref name="Fifty" />

[[File:Davidson Co Tennessee Road Sign.jpg|left|150px|thumb|Signs welcoming motorists to Nashville on all major roadways include the phrase "Home of the Grand Ole Opry".]]