The Jamboree had its roots in the Texas Barn Dance, a live country music show first staged at Dallas' Sportatorium in 1946. The Texas Barn Dance became the Lone Star Jamboree when it found its first radio home on WFAA in Dallas a year later. However, WFAA already featured a country music stage show (the Saturday Night Shindig), so in 1948 the show put down more permanent stakes on the airwaves of KRLD. Rechristened the Big D Jamboree, the barn dance debuted over KRLD on 16 October 1948.

     KRLD, named for the Radio Laboratories of Dallas, had begun broadcasting on 31 October 1926 and achieved its 50,000-watt designation in 1938. The station's power allowed it to cover a 100-mile radius during daytime hours, and to reach more than 30 states during the nighttime hours. The Big D Jamboree indeed had a powerful conduit through which to reach its radio audience. In the early 1950s, the Jamboree gained wider distribution when the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) radio network agreed to feature the show on its Saturday Night Country Style, a program that featured various country music barn dances around the United States.

     The show that would become the Big D Jamboree was the brainchild of Sportatorium owner Ed Mclemore (who also staged wrestling matches in his venue), Dallas nightclub proprietor Slim McDonald, and KLIF radio (Dallas) disc jockey Big Al Turner. By the time the show appeared on KRLD, only Mclemore still had a hand in producing the show. Turner, the show's host going back to the Texas Barn Dance days, emceed the Big D Jamboree at KRLD for a short time, but that role soon went to KRLD personality Johnny Hicks, who would be the on-air voice most associated with the program during its run. KRLD's Johnny Harper was the Jamboree's announcer, and he also shared producing credit with Mclemore and Hicks.

     Cast members of the Big D Jamboree who achieved national success in country music included Billy Walker, Sonny James, Ray Price, Lefty Frizzell, Hank Locklin, and Charline Arthur. Many other country music performers visited the Big D Jamboree frequently and found it a career­ amplifying stage; among them were Jim Reeves, Hank Snow, Ferlin Husky, Hank Thompson, Johnny Cash, and Hank Wil­liams. Local acts who never enjoyed much national fame but who nonetheless expanded their profile in Texas included the Callahan Brothers, Romana Reeves, Sid King and the Five Strings, Jimmie Heap, Gene O'Quin, Riley Crabtree, and Okie Jones.

     The rise of rock and roll in the mid- to late 19 50s was one of the factors that ultimately silenced the Big D Jamboree and other barn dances featured on radio, but ironically the Jambo­ ree had a role in fueling the dissemination of the rock sound during the genre's early days. Elvis Presley, who toured frequently in Texas at the outset of his career, appeared often on the program before he became nationally known, as did other important figures such as Carl Perkins and Gene Vincent (who was managed by Ed Mclemore). Other notable purveyors of the new sound who also appeared regularly on the Jamboree were the Belew Twins, Wanda Jackson, Johnny Carroll, and Werly Fairburn.

     By the late 1950s, the Big D Jamboree's way had become uneven as rock and roll increasingly overshadowed country music, the primary staple of the program. The once-vital show limped along into the mid-1960s before fading. The Jamboree was briefly revived in 1970, but it failed to recapture the glory that inspired historian Kevin Coffey (2000) to call it "an enviable presence on the Southwestern music scene."