The Carnegie Hall crowd cries out for Martha White

In 1941, Cohen Williams mortgaged his family farm in Triune, Tennessee, and bought a Nashville firm called Royal Mills. Williams renamed the business "Martha White" (the name of its best-selling brand) and began spending an extraordinary amount of money on advertising, at least by industry standards. The most important of these advertising outlets was the Grand Ole Opry, which Martha White sponsored starting in 1950.

Shortly thereafter, Williams hired country music band Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, and the Foggy Mountain Boys to tour the South as spokesmen for the company. Years later, when Flatt and Scruggs performed at Carnegie Hall along with a group of Grand Ole Opry stars, the audience called for the Martha White theme.