Museum celebrates music promoter Cas Walker

The Museum of Appalachia will celebrate the legacy of Cas Walker on Saturday, March 2.

A Knoxville retailer and politician, Walker used country music to promote his grocery stores, which helped propel numerous artists onto the national and international scene.

In 1929, Walker created a radio variety show known as the Farm and Home Hour. The program moved to television in the early ‘50s, and over the years featured Roy Acuff, Jimmy Martin, Bill Monroe, Carl Smith, Carl Butler, Jim Nabors and Chet Atkins, to name a few.

Dolly Parton first performed on the program at the age of 10, and the Everly Brothers were regulars on the show in the mid-‘50s.

The museum celebration will feature live music, rare video clips and a museum exhibit.

The show, spearheaded by archivist Bradley Reeves, will be from 4-6 p.m., and includes a screening of surviving video clips from the Farm and Home Show, including classic commercials, vintage music performances, and bloopers and outtakes.

Tickets to the event include admission to the Museum of Appalachia’s Hall of Fame, featuring the Cas Walker Exhibit, with artifacts from his early career.  Preview begins at 3 p.m.

Joshua Stephens Hodge - author of the upcoming book Cas Walker Stories: Life and Legend - will speak on his work documenting Walker’s life story.

Tickets are $10, and are available at www.museumofappalachia.org.

The Museum of Appalachia is an internationally acclaimed living history farm/village - home to a unique collection of early pioneer artifacts from the Southern Appalachian mountains. A non-profit organization, the museum’s mission is to preserve Appalachian artifacts and to cultivate a greater knowledge of, and appreciation for, our Southern Appalachian heritage. The Museum is located in Norris, 16 miles north of Knoxville at exit 122 on Interstate 75.