"Stars of the Grand Ole Opry" with Roy Acuff, George Morgan, and Minnie Pearl

This is a mysterious fragment of some incredibly historic footage - possibly the earliest known footage from the Al Gannaway "Stars of the Grand Ole Opry" television series.
Mostly filmed in 1955 and 1956, the Al Gannaway "Stars of the Grand Ole Opry" show (later known, among other titles as "The Country Show" and "Country Music Caravan") was the first real attempt to translate the Grand Ole Opry into a television series. Through decades of television syndication, and later numerous volumes of home releases on VHS and DVD, the Al Gannaway films have become legendary among country music fans for documenting the Grand Ole Opry when it's star power was at it's height, but also for the fact that Gannaway filmed the episodes using color, 35 mm movie stock.
Gannaway's contract to film Grand Ole Opry TV shows was signed in August 1954. Multiple sources have filming starting in the Ryman Auditorium (then home of the Grand Ole Opry) in November 1954, where one session of unsatisfactory filming took place. Starting in February 1955, filming took place on the campus of Vanderbilt University, where 92 episodes were reportedly filmed between then and December 1956. Unless this figure of 92 episodes counts epidodes that were created later by editing existing footage, nowhere near 92 unique episodes have surfaced on over three decades of home video release. Neither has anything from the earliest filming at the Ryman surfaced. Except for this fragment that all clues point to being a part of that earliest filming.
Roy Acuff, who was Gannaway remembered was "very much in favor of the project," is notably absent from all the circulating 1955-56 footage. This video is pieced together from fragments shown in the 1977 movie "That's Country", hosted by actor Lorne Greene, which used Gannaway's footage heavily. Although the set uses the backdrop on Gannaway's earliest 1955 films, Opry founder, the "Solemn Old Judge" George D. Hay introduces Acuff to open this show. Although Hay is on some later 1955 episodes, he never introduces the show at the beginning as he does here. The microphone stand onstage here is unique; on every other known Gannaway film the center stage mic is suspended from above the stage. The crowd shots appear to be original, another aspect not seen on any of Gannaway's studio-filmed episodes. All these factors lead me to assume this must be a small fragment of surviving film from Gannaway's earliest filming session at the Ryman Auditorium, in November 1954.
What we have here, is frustratingly brief, but fascinating footage. Although the color is extremely washed-out compared to Gannaway's later episodes, this is the earliest known color footage of all the Grand Ole Opry stars performing here. We see George D. Hay introduce Roy Acuff with Smoky Mountain Boys, "Oswald" Kirby (dobro), "Howdy" Forrester (fiddle), Jimmie Riddle (harmonica), Joe "Pap" Zinkan (guitar), Robert Lunn (guitar), "Odie" Rhodes (bass), who perform a couple of verses of "Sunshine Special". Then George Morgan with a fragment of "Almost", and Minnie Pearl with "Careless Love" (backed up by the Smoky Mountain Boys). We see the whole gang (including Smoky Mountain Girl Jerry Johnson) close the show with a line of "I Saw the Light", before "Howdy" Forrester fiddles the show to a close as Pap pulls out Odie's long shirt and Minnie Pearl dances with Oswald and his big shoes.
It isn't clear that this episode ever aired originally, how this much found it's way into "That's Country" in 1977, or if this or any more footage from this early episode still exists in the Gannaway vault. If the rest is still there, hopefully someday a Gannaway release will include this most historic of country music films in it's entirety.

Видео "Stars of the Grand Ole Opry" with Roy Acuff, George Morgan, and Minnie Pearl канала Robert Montgomery