Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City

4 Air Castle of the South

61 four Air Castle of the South Late in the fall of 1933, WSM transmitter engineer Jack Montgomery stirred himself at about ten minutes to five in the afternoon and left the white transmitter house in the meadow in Brentwood. The sun was setting early now, heralding the nightly coming of the skywave that would amplify WSM’s signal over thousands of miles. The tower soared above his head, poised as if for take off, caught in the sunset like a tall flame against a darkening sky. Gravel crunched beneath Montgomery’s feet as he walked out the gate and down Calendar Road toward the road cut. A half mile away he arrived at a white shed with a shingle roof, adjacent to the tracks of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad,an iron artery running south to New Orleans and north to Cincinnati. He unlocked the shed and found the microphone,uncoiled its cord,switched on its amplifier, and hung it on a hook outside the shed next to the tracks. From a field telephone in the shed,Montgomery called the WSM studios at Seventh and Union. Aaron Shelton took the call and checked the line to the amplifier in the shed and confirmed the connection. A few minutes later another expected call came.An engineer from the L&N at a switching house six miles south of Nashville confirmed that the locomotive Pan American was on time,heading south under full steam. Six minutes later the train tripped a switch on the track that rang a bell in the shed.Montgomery informed Shelton i-xx_1-286_Havi.indd 61 7/17/07 10:27:45 AM 62—air castle of the south in the studio.He gave a visual cue to the announcer on duty,David Stone,and he signaled Marjorie Cooney to wrap up her piano interlude. It was 5:07. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Stone said, “we now take you to a point twelve miles south of Nashville where the L&N’s crack passenger train, the Pan American , is about to pass the 878-foot tower of station WSM on its journey south from Cincinnati, Ohio, to New Orleans, Louisiana.” Listeners with very good radios might have heard the engines against the background white noise,but most first heard the bell,then the whistle letting go a regulation grade-crossing signal of two long blasts,one short,and a final long blast.A rhythmic click of iron wheels against the track seams grew along with the churning of the steam engine. Montgomery watched the eye of the locomotive get brighter and its belching,steaming iron bulk grow like a chargingdinosaur .Thenitpassed,withablastof wind,shakingthebroadcasthouse and forcing a roar through the microphone that pushed radio sets around the nation past their distortion point. The whistle hovered on top and suddenly dropped in pitch in a Doppler-effect downshift that marked the passing of the locomotive,followed in a swoosh by the coal tender,six passenger cars,a Pullman car,a dining car,and the caboose,chattering away toward its southern vanishing point. Montgomery recoiled the mike cable,switched off the amplifier and locked the shed while an engineer mixed Stone back in over the fading rumble: “And there goes the Pan American, L&N’s crack passenger train speeding south to the Crescent City.” Formorethantenyears,beginningin1933,thepassingofthePanAmerican wasadailyfeatureonWSMandindeedoneofitssignatureprograms.Theidea may have grown out of a friendship between C. A. Craig and L&N Railroad executiveJ.B.Hill.Conceivedasaspecialpromotion,itproved—liketheGrand Ole Opry—too popular to cancel. Though it took three audio engineers and at least that many train employees some effort every day, the Pan American resonated with listeners from farms,factories,and fine homes.Trains were the era’s most potent symbol of progress and adventure,the fastest ticket to points elsewhere,besidesradiosignalsontheir“tracklesspathsofair.”Thelonesome sound of a whistle drifting across open country inspired countless country songs. And the Pan American itself had already been musically enshrined by DeFordBailey,whostilldazzledlistenerswithhisharmonicaimpressionofthe locomotive in “Pan American Blues” most weeks on the Opry. Over the years, WSM listeners came to know the Pan American’s engineers —oily-fingered veterans of the waning steam locomotive era.Tom Burns i-xx_1-286_Havi.indd 62 7/17/07 10:27:45 AM had entered railroading in 1880 and had been an engineer for forty-eight years. JackHayesjoinedL&Nin 1887.BillMcMurryhadbeenarailroaderfifty-three years and an engineer for seven. They received bags of fan mail and requests for pictures,care of WSM.Some listeners could identify the engineers...