Roy Acuff Sun Jan 26 2003 at 21:47:26 C O U N T R Y M U S I C H A L L O F F A M E R index | ⇐ last | next ⇒ In 1903, Roy Acuff (“The King of Country Music”) was born in Maynardsville, Tennessee. As a boy, he played in the church choir and played baseball, hoping to someday become a professional baseball player for the New York Yankees. Those dreams were dashed when he was left physically debilitated by a severe case of sunburn while on vacation, during the year he spent recovering he learned to play the fiddle. After a brief stint in 1962, with a traveling medicine show, he began singing on a Knoxville radio with a band known as Crazy Tennesseans. His rendition of “The Great Speckled Bird” led to a recording contract with American Recording Company.