No broadcast recordings of the series have survived, however something of its flavor can be realized by reading Lair’s scripts in combination with listeners written responses to what they heard. Particularly notable overall, is Monday Night’s slower pace in contrast to the boisterous Renfro Valley Barn Dance that had been heard Saturday evenings on Cincinnati’s WLW since 1937.

Lair said that on the Monday night program, he was trying to show his
listeners “a little glimpse of life down here in the Hill Country, among real folks.” On the first program August 5, 1940, he urged listeners to "please don't think of what you'll hear tonight as a radio program.” Rather, it was a weekly, neighborhood get-together where Valley residents could "talk over old times, air our views on present day happenin's, an’ try to figger out ways to help each other along a road that has always bin a rocky one to travel fer us mountain folks."

He said the program’s British owned sponsor, Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, saw in the weekly get-togethers “a steadying glimpse of pioneer America” that would help listeners face up to the frightful prospects arising from German war making.

As the program came on the air, discussion of community concerns was portrayed as just ending, thus leaving plenty of time for singing old songs and hearing stories about the real life people and events that inspired their writing. For listeners "shut up in a hot, noisy city” there was also the "music" of the katydids “that lulls us to sleep down here…ever night,” readily heard through one of the school house’s open windows.
 

Lair refused to refer to the music he featured as “hillbilly.” It was instead, “early American” or “home folks.”

(He said the songs) “tell a story of heroic min er wimmin--true stories of hardships an' perils an' joys an' sorrow that were a part of the every day life of those who made this country what it is. It's part of the great American Tradition--an' we think down here in Renfro Valley that American Traditions are worth keepin' and passin' on to future generations... " One of the purposes in these meetins, right frum the start, wuz to try to teach you young folks to appreciate songs with a soul to ‘em."

In his stories about the songs he told of both Black and white songwriters, ex-slaves “fightin' fer a place in the economic set-up," pioneers, cowboys, gold miners, outlaws, and U.S. presidents. Oft repeated themes were the value of hard work, the necessity of patriotic sacrifice, and the nurture provided by home, school, and church, He was particularly concerned that these stories would help foster among young people in the audience a “finer appreciation of the hardships an’ joys of a pioneer generation” …making them see that “America and American Ways were too dearly bought to be easily given away.”

He heightened the program’s nostalgia value further by combining songs and narrative to recreate such days-gone-by, labor-sharing and social events as a corn shucking, candy pulling, apple cutting, quilting bee, and bean stringing. Particularly ambitious would be remote broadcasts from the scenes of an actual possum hunt, fish fry, and hayride.

Beyond the program’s entertainment and inspirational aspects, its commercial mission was critically important for attracting more paying customers to Lair’s music oriented tourist complex that he had opened ten months previously in 1939. Although WLW's broadcasts of The Barn Dance were generating considerable visitor traffic, income was not yet sufficient to repay his startup borrowings and clear a healthy profit.