Mountains, music, media & memories
Jim Childs by the Edison Phonograph.
Three passionate archivists have created a way for people around the world to listen to the great musicians who came out of East Tennessee and to watch early- and mid-20th century advertising and home movies made in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Smoky Mountain Radio and Archives is a media history preservation company headquartered at the Blount County Historical Museum that showcases a period in the region’s history that historians and scholars had once found too recent to document.
Jim Childs, Bradley Reeves, and Brian McKnight run the company. Through audio and video shared online, they presents the story of 20th Century life in the eastern part of the Volunteer state.
The internet audience can hear recordings dating back to the early 1900s, and view vintage images and video from old local television commercials and black-and-white photographs of vacationing tourists.
Reeves and Childs worked as disc jockeys at Knoxville’s WDVX radio, and, as Childs described, “it was our love of music that brought both of us together.” Reeves’ extensive experience in film and radio preservation led him to create the first version of Smoky Mountain Radio in 2022.
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Mountains, music, media & memories
Part of the museum’s collection of vintage broadcasting equipment.
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Mountains, music, media & memories
A recently-discovered photo of Dolly Parton performing as a small child, circa 1956.
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Mountains, music, media & memories
Bradley E. Reeves at the Radio Station.
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Mountains, music, media & memories
An early Chet Atkins group, then performing over WNOX-Radio.
McKnight, author of “Lost Motels of Gatlinburg,” had experience with documentary filmmaking. He and Reeves began researching and documenting area history in 2024.
The trio relaunched the current version of the media organization that same year.
They digitize multimedia items collected at antique stores, flea markets, estate sales and through community donations, such as 45 records, cassette tapes, eight and 16-millimeter film reels, and 35-millimeter photos. They strive to digitize items before their condition worsens and they are lost forever.
“Some of the items we receive from the community are family heirlooms … and they do not know what to do with them,” McKnight said. Sometimes, they stumble upon the only known copy of an item. Other vintage material in their archives includes tour outfits worn by musicians, concert posters, microphones used at radio stations and tourist brochures of motels and attractions.
Many of the film and photo portions of the archive feature vacations to the Great Smoky Mountains. You can find long forgotten treasures on their web and social media pages, such as images of Jack’s Hamburgers in Gatlinburg and Fort Weare Game Park in Pigeon Forge, along with films of relaxed families enjoying a slice of mountain paradise.
Reeves says it’s easy finding old footage of Gatlinburg, given that it has long been one of the most popular vacation destinations in the United States. “No matter where people lived, I often find an old film of home movies of (them) that vacationed in the Smokies,” he said.
Their radio station is the cornerstone of the media company. DJs host programs featuring roots, bluegrass, Americana, rockabilly, gospel, jazz and blues. About 70 percent of the artists played on the station have an eastern Tennessee connection, ranging from a young Dolly Parton and Elvis performing in Knoxville, to earlier performers such as the Everly Brothers, Bill Monroe, and Carl Butler.
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Mountains, music, media & memories
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Vacation at the River Terrace Motel, June 1960.
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Mountains, music, media & memories
A peek at the film archives.
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Mountains, music, media & memories
Brian M. McKnight operating a 16mm projector.
Many of the early musicians appearing on Smoky Mountain Radio once caught their big break on live radio programs airing on Tennessee-based AM stations such as Knoxville’s WNOX, Chattanooga’s WDOD, and Nashville’s WSM. “Some of these … have not been heard on the radio since they were first recorded in the first place,” Childs said.
The station also airs reruns of CBS Mystery Theater along with retro storytelling pieces and commercials among the 6,000-plus recordings in its library.
“As an internet station, we have more freedom to play what we want,” Reeves said. Having an internet station also allows the flexibility to do remote broadcasts from various towns, which is a long-term goal of the business, along with having live screenings of film and musical performances at the museum, having additional physical exhibits of 20th century life in the region displayed, and becoming a research center for East Tennessee music.
Besides the station, the company also has documentaries and interviews of past Smoky Mountain figures that made the region what it is today. McKnight emphasized: “While the radio station gets a lot of our attention, I do not want to overlook the importance of our documentary and interview work.”
Currently, both Reeves and McKnight are searching for individuals who impacted the region for future interviews and documentaries.
Smoky Mountain Radio and Archives’ goal is presenting East Tennessee’s past in a fun and informative way for broad audiences, with an emphasis on attracting younger listeners to help them appreciate the music and radio history of yesteryear.
“We want to connect with the next generations and show them that history is not some dry, dusty thing kept in a library but is alive, meaningful, and deeply personal,” McKnight said.
Hear more:
To listen to Smoky Mountain Radio, go to smokymountainradio.org, or the Live 365 app by searching Smoky Mountain Radio and their various social media sites, including Facebook and YouTube, for viewing the archive’s images and videos.