On This Day in 1989, We Said Goodbye to the Genius Who Made Country Music Popular and Introduced the World to Patsy Cline and Jimmy Dean

On this day (December 3) in 1989, marketing genius and media mogul Connie Gay died of cancer in McLean, Virginia. Gay is remembered as one of the founding fathers of modern country music. He brought the genre to a wider audience and introduced some of its biggest stars. Maybe most notably, he gave the genre its name.

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In the late 1930s, Gay got a job with the Farm Security Administration. After years of working in different areas of the government agency, he became a news commentator, appearing on the National Farm and Home Hour. In 1946, after the end of World War II, he left his government job and began working in broadcasting in the private sector.

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Over the next 15 years, Gay worked in radio, TV, and the music industry. He was a DJ, concert promoter, radio host, talent scout, manager, and record executive. The most notable period of his career began when he began working at WARL in Arlington, Virginia.

There, Gay convinced the station manager to give him a half-hour afternoon show. Thinking ahead, he traded a salary for a share of his show’s marketing revenue. He trademarked the name Town and Country Time and began building a legacy. The show went from a lunchtime broadcast that featured “hillbilly music” to a three-hour show. Then, it was syndicated across hundreds of stations. Next, Gay started a Town and Country Time TV show, which also gained national syndication.

Gay discovered Jimmy Dean, who later became the host of the Town and Country Time TV show. The program also featured other artists Gay managed, including Roy Clark and Patsy Cline, who made her television debut on the show, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Connie Gay and Important Country Music Institutions

Connie Gay is credited as being one of the few people who helped coin the term “country music.” Before that, it was categorized under the much less marketable moniker “hillbilly music.” He also had a hand in forming some of the genre’s most important institutions.

Gay was a founding member and the first president of the Country Music Association. He also helped launch the non-profit Country Music Foundation, which operates the Country Music Hall of Fame.

In 1972, just 26 years after launching the radio show that started it all, Gay retired, having changed the face of country music forever. Eight years later, in 1980, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

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