Pres. Ronald Reagan & Roy Acuff Trivia[Video]

Today in country music history,  President Ronald Reagan attended country music legend Roy Acuff's 80th birthday at the Grand Ole Opry,  although Acuff's birthday was actually three days later.

Roy was a singer,  fiddler, and promoter, and often was referred to as  the original "King of Country Music."   He's credited with making the "hoedown" string sound widely popular.

Many of Acuff's songs were religiously based,   like "The Great Speckled Bird," "The Prodigal Son, " and "Lord Build Me a Cabin."   Acuff  joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1938,  and remained active in the organization  for nearly four decades.

Roy's father was an accomplished fiddler,   his mother was proficient on the piano,  and during Roy's early years the Acuff house was a popular place for local gatherings, where Roy would often make people laugh by balancing farm tools on his chin!

Today's KWKH Trivia question:  What else did Roy Acuff's father do for a living? One listener guessed, he was a moonshiner. The correct answered was from Jon Bailey, the youth minister at Westview Christian Church in Shreveport, and it was Acuff's father was a Baptist preacher.