Country music -- Kentucky -- Renfro Valley -- History.

Scope and Contents First Annual Renfro Valley Old Time Fiddler's Convention, June 11-13, 1971. (There were also Guitar and Band competitions.) Sunday morning of the third day, June 13th, included a show by Roy Acuff and the Smokey Mountain Boys. During the show, Roy Acuff talks with John Lair and Glen Pennington about country music and Renfro Valley history.CONTESTANTS: Bob Baker, Jesse Baker, Ray Brown, Wally Bryson, Charlie Collins, Charles A. Corns, Cumberland Mountain Boys, Sam Davis, Jack...

Abstract

The John Lair papers document the life of country music broadcaster, music collector, and community historian John Lee Lair (1894-1985).

Scope and Contents This collection consists of audio recorded interviews with fifteen performers and others who were associated with the Renfro Valley Barn Dance and other radio programs and stage shows produced by John Lair in Renfro Valley, Kentucky, mainly during the period 1940 - 1970. The interviews were conducted during the period 1985-1986 by Country Music Foundation Historian, John Rumble under the auspices of the Kentucky Oral History Commission. Persons interviewed are: Bob Baker, Al...

Abstract Born in Berea in 1921, Thomas J. Wood, Jr. was a Navy veteran of World War II and a graduate of Harvard University and the Harvard Business School.  Wood had a lifelong career in advertising. Acting as an agent for John Lair,  Wood would sell a package of three network Renfro Valley radio programs—the Saturday night Barn Dance, Sunday Morning Gathering, and Country Store—to General Foods in New...