Robert Lunn

Believe it or not, if you're a fan of the deeply moving talking blues style that Woody Guthrie used to expose the social ills of early 20th century America, then you owe a debt to a silly, light-hearted vaudevillian performer named Robert Lunn. Performed on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry for nearly 30 years, Lunn's rambling comic numbers were more spoken narrative than actual song but were widely popular among concert-goers of the ‘30s and ‘40s. Though he rarely recorded, his radio broadcasts of these talking numbers had a great influence on other performers, among them the great Woody Guthrie.