Lee Mace's Ozark Opry: Nightly Hillbilly Music
Near Lake Of The Ozarks, Missouri
Long before Branson down the road became a music capital, the sound of fiddles and banjos rang out nightly here at Osage Beach, thanks to a Korean War veteran named Lee Mace. Mace grew up near Brumley in rural Missouri, the son of an accomplished fiddler, and came home from Korea in the early nineteen fifties looking to make a living with music. In nineteen fifty three he and his wife Joyce opened a little show along Highway Fifty Four called Lee Mace's Ozark Opry.
It began as a show or two a week. It grew into performances six nights a week for more than thirty years, mixing country music, gospel, and cornpone comedy for vacationing families. The couple is often credited with launching one of the first live nightly family shows in the country.
Over its long run the Ozark Opry welcomed millions of guests and helped make the lake a family entertainment destination. Mace also hosted a television program. He died in nineteen eighty five, but the man who gave the Ozarks a nightly song is still remembered.
