03/26/2025
With his easygoing, engaging, and friendly on-air delivery, Jesse Granderson “Grant” Turner became a favorite announcer among Grand Ole Opry artists and listeners. The Texas-born “Voice of the Grand Ole Opry” remained a fixture on the show for forty-seven years.
Turner first became fascinated with radio when a man showed up at his school auditorium to demonstrate the still-new invention. In 1928, while in high school, he began performing as Ike and His Guitar on Abilene radio station KFYO. He also first announced for the station that same year.
During the 1930s, Turner found work at various radio stations and newspapers in Texas and Louisiana. He moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1942 and joined WBIR, where he used the on-air name Tex. Two years later, he rode an all-night bus to Nashville to audition for powerhouse station WSM. Station manager Ott Devine shortened Turner's name when Turner started at WSM on June 6, 1944, as an announcer on the station’s early-morning programs.
Six months later, Turner became an announcer on the Grand Ole Opry. In 1949, he traveled with members of the Opry cast—including Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, and Minnie Pearl—to visit Air Force bases in Europe. Turner also served as announcer on other WSM programs, including Ernest Tubb's "Midnite Jamboree” and Hank Williams’s “Health & Happiness Show.”
Turner was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1981 and announced his final Grand Ole Opry show a decade later, on Friday, October 18, 1991. He died a few hours later, on October 19, at age seventy-nine.
Read more: https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/grant-turner
