It is generally acknowledged that the 50,000 watt WSM signal is responsible for Nashville becoming Music City. The live "Saturday Night Barn Dance" show on WSM featured local pickers and singers, and quickly became a Saturday night tradition in millions of homes within the powerful reach of the clear-channel signal. In an ad-lib transition from a CBS broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera from New York City, the show was dubbed the Grand Ole Opry by announcer George D. Hays in 1927, when he joked, "You've been listening to the grand opera, but now it’s time for the Grand Ole Opry!"

Soon, talented singers and musicians from far and wide began showing up in Nashville, in the hopes of getting their moment in the spotlight of the Grand Ole Opry. The rest is history – the iconic honky tonks, the birth of Music Row, a movement was being born…all because of the legendary WSM "torch" on Concord Road…now honored in the architecture of buildings all over town…

From The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum…

To the downtown arena…

Even McDonald's…

The Blaw-Knox "Diamond" antenna, really two self-supporters stacked to create a very tall vertical antenna, is still in use today. At 808 feet, it is the tallest of eight such towers that remain in use in North America.

So…when WSM announcer David Cobb dubbed Nashville "Music City USA" on the air in 1950, he knew that his voice was going out on the very signal that made it happen!