Radio Station That Built Country, Paved Way for Opry

One of the most important storylines in country music in 2025 is the celebration of the Grand Ole Opry’s 100th anniversary.

But that milestone, which arrives Nov. 25, wouldn’t exist without another, earlier centennial: the launch of WSM-AM Nashville on Oct. 5, 1925.

Despite the passage of time, some of the same aesthetics are at work at the station in 2025 that were there when it started in 1925, according to current WSM GM/content director Eric Marcum, including a focus on hiring from within and a dedication to its technological history. Marcum made the observations during a one-hour conversation on Sept. 4 with Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City author Craig Havighurst on Tom Truitt’s WHO KNEW The Smartest People in the Room webinar.

Given the age of the station, the 30-something Marcum is a relative newcomer to its history, only becoming aware of it when he spotted the WSM microphone on the cover of the 2008 Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder album Honoring the Fathers of Bluegrass – Tribute to 1946 & 1947.

“I’d never seen call letters for a radio station that were just three call letters,” Marcum said. “Everything I had ever heard my entire life were mostly FM at that point and four call letters. It was also at that time that I learned that anything west of the Mississippi was starting with a K. So it was my introduction, really, to radio.”

Marcum started at WSM in 2013, following his graduation from Purdue University, sharing some commonalities with George D. Hay, the station PD who founded the Opry. Both were born in Indiana, and both joined the staff in their 20s, though Hay started higher up the ladder when he arrived. In just two years, Hay had gone from WMC Memphis to WLS Chicago — where he founded The National Barn Dance and was recognized by Reader’s Digest as America’s favorite on-air personality — to WSM, joining the station exactly five weeks after its original sign-on. Hay inaugurated the Opry less than three weeks later, introducing a fiddler, Uncle Jimmy Thompson, who performed for an hour.

Hay’s two-year advance in broadcasting runs partly parallel to Marcum’s climb up the ranks at WSM. Marcum started as a board operator, progressing steadily into marketing, then traffic, before serving as assistant PD, morning-show producer and eventually GM.

“It was probably a new job title every two to three years,” Marcum said.

Longevity has long been encouraged at WSM. In addition to the Opry, it aired Ernest Tubb’s Midnite Jamboree — the second-longest-running radio program — for over 75 years. A number of its staffers have likewise maintained affiliations of 25 years or more, including Bill Cody (30 years), Keith Bilbrey (30), Eddie Stubbs (25), late stage manager Vito Pellettieri (43) and late Country Music Hall of Fame member Grant Turner (47).

“The way WSM and National Life [and Insurance], its parent company, operated in the golden era — in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s — people I talked to who had worked on either side of that company talked about how much mentorship there was,” Havighurst said, drawing on the research for his book. “People stayed out of loyalty, and because they got promoted, their career development was really healthy.”

WSM’s call letters were an acronym for the National Life slogan — “We shield millions” — and the station was used to enhance the brand identity.

Radio was the first live media, and WSM also used a 150-pound portable transmitter to highlight that strength. The audience didn’t previously connect with the community in real time — news had only spread through newspapers or word of mouth — and the station employed that transmitter to broadcast the sound of the Pan American train passing through suburban Brentwood every afternoon. The new technology fascinated listeners, some of whom knew it was the end of their workday when the train whistle sounded after 5 p.m.

“Today we would think, ‘What is that? What big deal is that?’ ” Havighurst said. “But it lit people’s imaginations up. The train was symbolic and it felt vivid. It was just real radio — real, atmospheric, in-the-field radio — and it went so well… it became a daily feature on WSM for almost 10 years.”

It was one of the first — if not the first — instances of a station transmitting wireless audio to the home studio rather than using a phone cable. Other technological advancements followed, including the installation of its historic broadcast tower in 1932 and its involvements with successive platforms, including network radio, broadcast and cable TV and the internet.

“One of the great things about WSM engineers over time is everybody has known the significance of this radio station,” Marcum said. “Every engineer has left this radio station in a better shape than how they arrived. I think that’s just a fascinating thing, and I feel that weight as the general manager of the radio station, also overseeing the programming department and the sales department. You always want to leave the radio station better than how you found it.”

As WSM celebrates its centennial, the station has launched a 10-part WSM Remembers series of mostly preproduced accounts of its history. The final, live installment airs on the Oct. 5 anniversary.

Meanwhile, WSM itself, like the Opry, has an intense mission to represent country’s big picture in its programming. Classic country, bluegrass, current artists and new acts are all represented in the programming with storytelling holding it together. Three of the four Opry announcers — Cody, Kelly Sutton and Charlie Mattos — form WSM’s morning team, which benefits from the overlap.

“There’s a 75% chance the host of our morning show would have been hosting the show the night before,” Marcum said. “They take the experience that they got watching Jelly Roll interact with a Brad Paisley, watching Post Malone interact with a Vince Gill, and they get to bring that story to the morning show and tell you exactly what you got to feel.”

Thus, WSM remains, after 100 years, the most storied station in country music’s history.