Cord Byrd: “OK. Well, I was a high school senior in 1934. I graduated that year. And we were hearing talk, in those days, about a…”

“OK. Well, I was a high school senior in 1934. I graduated that year. And we were hearing talk, in those days, about a gadget that would allow one to see a person as that person spoke or would allow one to see a person who played the violin as the violin was being played. That was a few years right after the invention of the television. Television was invented in 1926. And so I am talking about 1934, just 8 years after television was invented. Eight years after television was invented, 1934. Oh, we heard about this gadget, as I say. It was coming and would be on the market in a few years. My, what a change that made. 1934; well, the last day of 1934, Joe Meadows was born. He never learned to read a sheet of music, but he could really play it. He could make that fiddle cry. He could make it scream. He did have neighbors and a father who played the fiddle. He had an extraordinary gift for music: Joe Meadows from the hills of southern West Virginia. He is one of the finest bluegrass musicians I ever heard. Like many lads in southern West Virginia, including myself, Joe Meadows grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio. The Grand Ole Opry, I can remember the times when that was all we had to listen to on Saturday night--the Grand Ole Opry. Yes, I can remember the Solemn Old Judge and Deford Bailey. Deford Bailey played that harmonica. Oh, he could make that harmonica scream. He could make that harmonica play ``Freight Train Blues,'' Deford Bailey.…”