For more than fifty years, Renfro Valley has showcased some of the biggest and most influential names in country and folk music. Unlike its early competitors, including the Grand Ol' Opry, Renfro Valley emphasized itself as an entire package of entertainment and avoided highlighting individual stars.
John Lair, the ambitious and deeply committed founder of Renfro Valley, fought to resist the encroachment of what he saw as pop "cowboy songs" and keep the stage filled with authentic Kentucky mountain music. As a talent scout, businessman, and collector of folk songs, Lair worked to reaffirm the belief that cherished American values are grounded in a rural past.
In a casual style, Pete Stamper traces the Valley's history from its initial days as a radio program in Cincinnati and Chicago, through the glory years in the 1940s and the lean times in the 1960s when rock and roll seemed to take over the popular music scene, to its renewed popularity in the 1990s.
Stamper's personal recollections are augmented by those of many other beloved performers and by news stories from the Renfro Valley Bugle. As he discusses the careers of entertainers such as Red Foley, Slim Miller, and Old Joe Clark, Stamper describes the roles played by radio, entrepreneurial initiative, and romantic mythmaking in the commercial history of country music.
