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  6.“COME ON ALONG, JOIN IN THE SONG” A farmer living in radio station WCYB’s listening area toward the end of December 1946 or in January and February 1947 would have completed much of his work by noontime, since winter was removed from the planting and harvesting seasons. He would be more than ready to sit down for his noon meal and a break from the never-ending chores. If he lived near the city of Bristol, whose combined population of 25,000 in the mid1940s resided on both sides of the Virginia and Tennessee state line, he might have heard about a new radio station going on the air. Even if he had not, he might be turning his radio dial to find a program to entertain him as he ate. This may have been the one time each day he was in contact with the world outside his farm. As he rotated the radio dial, his ears perked up when he heard the familiar sounds of old-time country music, but at a musical tempo that was excitingly unfamiliar. Not only were the musicians playing at breakneck speed; they were whooping and yipping as if it was some kind of Saturday evening social. He had experienced this surge of energy from time to time when musicians got into the music at barn dances and pie suppers, but he had never encountered anything like it on local radio. Before long he discovered that he could listen to this show every day but the Lord’s Day, so he left his radio tuned to WCYB and made the new show a daily ritual—a welcome respite in a life of hard work and unbreakable routine. Even the program’s name, Farm and Fun Time, made it sound as if the show were produced with him in mind. Larry Gorley, host of WOPI’s Bluegrass Jamboree program, recalled: I remember listening to the radio show as a boy and my most vivid memory is visiting my grandparents’ home during summer vacation from school. They would stop whatever work was being done and gather around the kitchen table for lunch. After the blessing was said, they would turn the family radio on to WCYB and Farm and  “Come on Along, Join in the Song” Fun Time. Listening to the program gave them great pleasure as well as the latest farm news and it was only in my later years that I found that so many others made it a point to be tuned in to the show that could be heard in several states.1 The WCYB studios were located on the Virginia side of Bristol in the General Shelby Hotel at 100 Front Street,2 not far from the train depot where musicians had debarked in 1927 to audition for Ralph Peer. In the winter of 1946–47, the four members of the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys3 would arrive shortly after 10:00 a.m. to tune their instruments and rehearse several numbers for that day’s program.4 Within a few minutes of show time, they would gather around the largeheaded , single microphone bearing the station’s call letters, pluck a few notes and clear their throats one last time before going on the air. The engineer in the glassed-in booth would cue the group with the time remaining —fifteen seconds . . . ten . . . five—and signal with his hand that the group was on the air. Above his glass window, the red light would go on, and at the same moment, Carter, Ralph, Pee Wee, and Leslie would jump into their theme song: “Moving along, singing a song / singing a song of home sweet home / Come on along, join in the song / singing our troubles away.” The song lasted about twenty-four seconds, catching the audience’s attention so that Carter could introduce the first full number. In the years before tape recording, WCYB and other radio stations featuring live music had to solve the problem of what to do on the occasional day when the group might not be able to perform in the studio. The solution was a 16-inch-diameter transcription disc that could record about a third of the 55-minute show. Three discs could reproduce a full program. Fortunately for those interested in the career of the Stanley Brothers, a transcription disc from 1947 survived to be issued on vinyl in 1988 and reissued on compact disc in 1997.5 The...

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