A People's History of the Lake of the Ozarks by Peek Dan William & Van Landuyt Kent

Author:Peek, Dan William & Van Landuyt, Kent [Peek, Dan William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2016-05-25T04:00:00+00:00

Lee Mace was an early visionary for the lake with his music show, including a weekly broadcast on local television. Mace was instrumental in area development enterprises. Courtesy of Missouri State Capitol Commission, Missouri State Archives .

But the narrative should reset here to an unaddressed issue: if Lee and Joyce Mace were successes in Nashville, what was the motive for returning to the Ozarks?

By the late 1950s, the word “hillbilly” had been banished from Nashville, replaced by the more market-friendly “Country and Western” designation. With notable contrarianism, Mace promoted the Ozark Opry by driving his Buick through the tourist areas around Bagnell Dam with a blaring loudspeaker on top inviting the world to come see his “hillbilly” show.

He composed a theme song for the show:

Howdy all you friends and neighbors

Welcome to our hillbilly show

Tune up the five-string banjo

Take down the fiddle and the bow

Roll back the rug in the parlor

Light up the corncob pipe

Everyone is going to have some fun

At the Ozark Opry tonight

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