Rural Missouri - April 2011 - (Page 11)

photos courtesy of Joyce Mace Dressed as hillbillies, the Ozark Opry wowed audiences with an entirely new form of entertainment. The formula would be emulated by others, including the Mabe Brothers, founders of Branson’s Baldknobbers Jamboree. From left, the 1953 cast included Bob “High Pockets” McCoy, Ramona Bullington, Lee Mace, Basil Robinette, Lonnie Hoppers, “Ozark Annie” Rambo, “Bashful Bob” Penny and Billie Moore. Jim von Gremp and his son, also Jim, sit in the foreground. Eventually, the hillbilly attire would be retired. same group on the stage and change points out that with or without the the audience,” he explains. “Now, hillbilly clothing, the content of the thanks to Lee, we have a billion-dolOpry never wavered — just like the lar-a-year music industry here in the show’s creator. Ozarks.” “Lee was the same everywhere he From the beginning, Lee built his went,” Goofer says. “No matter who career and the success of the Ozark he was with, he was always the same. Opry on adherence to the old tradiHe was just Lee.” tions and values of country music. The authenticity and sincerity the Although much of the show’s talMaces exemplified is often credited ent was discovered in smoke-filled with the Ozark Opry’s longevity. It roadhouses and dance halls — where was the first music show in the nation liquor flowed freely and to run six nights a week the show was seldom during the tourist seafamily oriented — Jim son, often with two Phinney says that an shows a night, with the Watch excerpts of the Ozark important component same content in each Opry’s television show in of the Opry’s longevity show and a “starless” the online edition at was the care Lee took to ensemble cast. www.ruralmissouri.coop. keep the entertainment Lee was sure of the family friendly and importance of the entire “down home.” troupe being the “star.” Joyce recalls “Lee told us we shouldn’t worry that Lee even resisted the addition of about making musical history, just put his name to the marquee, something on a good show,” Jim recalls. “And we she favored as a propriety measure. He did what he asked. We put on a good finally relented around 1960. show and in doing it, we made musiOthers were watching and learning cal history.” from the Maces. In 1959, the Mabe Joyce agrees. “Lee said many times Brothers opened a show, The Baldthat our intent was always good. knobbers Jamboree, in the Branson When people spent their money to area. That show, which was based on come to the show (tickets cost just 90 the Ozark Opry format, would be the cents in the early years), they must seed of the country music and enterhave a good time. He said that was tainment sensation referred to today always our intent — always.” as “Branson-style” entertainment. Don Ginnings, the publisher of the Peek, a Boone Electric Cooperative Index newspaper in Hermitage, has member who resides in Columbia, is a followed both the Ozark Opry story former Ozark Opry performer. His book, and the development of Branson-style “Live! at the Ozark Opry,” is available entertainment as a dynamic dimenonline at www.historypress.net or whersion of the country music industry. ever books are sold. “Lee Mace was the first to keep the Ozark Opry founder Lee Mace plays his “baseball bat” bass. Lee served in the U.S. Army. While stationed in France, he and some fellow soldiers formed a band, but they needed a bass fiddle to round out their sound. They found a bass with a broken neck, and Lee’s friend, Jim Logue of Stafford, Kan., made a new one from a baseball bat. APRIL 2011 11 http://www.ruralmissouri.coop http://www.historypress.net

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Rural Missouri - April 2011

Rural Missouri - April 2011
Contents
Comments
Columns
Memories of that Mountain Music
Growing pains
Mail Bag
International instruction
Best of Rural Missouri
Hearth and Home
News Briefs
Prairie passage pit stop
Marketplace
Around Missouri
Valley of Many Deer Gallery
Neighbors
Just4Kids

Rural Missouri - April 2011

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