National Barn Dance

National Barn Dance, broadcast by WLS-AM in Chicago, Illinois starting in 1924, was one of the first American country music radio programs and a direct precursor of the Grand Ole Opry.

Having lived on a farm, he knew how people loved the familiar sound and informal spirit of old-fashioned barn dance music.

The show regularly featured Gene Autry, Henry Burr, Red Foley, The Three Little Maids, Jenny Lou Carson, Eddie Dean, Lulu Belle and Scotty, Pat Buttram, George Gobel, The Williams Brothers (featuring future crooner Andy Williams), Arkansas Woodchopper, The DeZurik Sisters and the Hoosier Hot Shots.

Other guests included Smiley Burnette, Eddie Peabody and Joe Kelly, best remembered today as the host and moderator of NBC's Quiz Kids.

The show continued to air on WLS until 1959 when ABC bought the station and changed the format to Top 40 rock and roll, canceling National Barn Dance outright.

[4] A fictionalized account of the show's origins, The National Barn Dance (1944), was filmed by director Hugh Bennett from a screenplay by Hal Fimberg and Lee Loeb.

In 1964, it became a nationally syndicated program through Mid-America Video Tape Productions, then a subsidiary of television station WGN-TV in Chicago (the predecessor of Tribune Entertainment).