The Grand Ole Opry

by Colin Escott

  BUD WENDELL:

  When road dates got so lucrative, you couldn’t ask an act to come in and play the Grand Ole Opry for $100 or $200 when they were making $20,000 or $30,000, and now they’re making $100,000, so it now becomes a situation, in my judgment, where, if they really want to be part of the tradition or the family, they’ll cut out enough dates, or balance their schedule, where they’ll be there on Saturday nights and make it worth their while and worth the Opry’s while.

  In the late 1980s and early 1990s, country music and the Grand Ole Opry were reinvigorated by artists with a deep respect for all that the Opry represented. Emmylou Harris and Ricky Skaggs had kept tradition-based music alive through some lean times, but suddenly they were joined by Randy Travis, Reba McEntire, Vince Gill, Clint Black, Patty Loveless, Alan Jackson, Marty Stuart, and Garth Brooks. These new artists didn’t need the Opry as earlier generations had, but wanted it for all it symbolized.

  RICKY SKAGGS:

  Mister Acuff said something to me the night I joined the Opry. He said, “Yeah, we’ll make you a member, but you’ll never show up. You’ll be like all the rest of ’em.” And I said, “I’m gonna make you eat those words.” And so every weekend I was at the Opry, I’d knock on his door, and I’d say, “Hey, Mister Acuff, I’m here again.” Finally, it got to a point where he said, “I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

  Ricky Skaggs picks with Roy Acuff backstage.

  STEVE BUCHANAN, president of the Grand Ole Opry Group:

  There was one time that Vince Gill played on Roy Acuff’s portion of the Opry. Vince was singing “When I Call Your Name,” and Roy Acuff was sitting off to the side on a stool. Roy was listening so intently to Vince, and tears were running down his cheeks. It spoke to his love of the music. He was very unselfishly engaged in the song. To me, that perfectly symbolizes the Opry, handing it down from generation to generation.

  Garth Brooks joined on October 6, 1990, the same night that Alan Jack-son first appeared on the show. Introduced by Johnny Russell, Brooks performed “Friends in Low Places,” “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” and “The Dance.”

  CAROL LEE COOPER, Opry star:

  Garth Brooks said that when he went out there it was so touching to stand in that circle where all of these people had stood before, people that are no longer with us, and he said that all he could do was stand there and cry. Johnny Russell was the one who introduced him that night, and Garth said, “I’ll never forget Johnny Russell for this. He hugged me, and put the microphone down at his side where no one could hear what he said, and he said, ‘Just enjoy it. Enjoy the moment.’ ”

  HAL DURHAM:

  There was an occasion in the 1960s at the Ryman when the audience reacted to a performance by Johnny Cash. They stomped their feet on those wooden floors, and the sound of a full house stomping their feet on those floors was unbelievable. When we moved to Opryland with its concrete floors, it was a whole different sound. But there was one time when Garth Brooks appeared. He’d been on the Opry for a good while, but he had a period of achieving great success very suddenly. And he came back to the Opry for the first time after maybe a couple of big records, and the noise in the Opry House reminded me of the noise I’d heard at the Ryman in the 1960s.

  left: Roy Acuff looks on as Vince Gill performs.

  right: Johnny Russell inducts Garth Brooks.

  ROY CLARK to the Opry audience, following Garth Brooks:

  Twenty years ago, your mothers used to scream like that for me.

  The new members joined the Opry just in time for the older members to pass the torch. Grant Turner died on October 14, 1991, and the following year the Opry lost one of its most iconic performers.

  JAY ORR, journalist, in the Nashville Banner:

  On its 67th anniversary broadcast Saturday night [November 30, 1992], the Grand Ole Opry family mourned the passing of a stalwart and celebrated the arrival of an exciting new member. A holiday weekend capacity crowd joined the Opry in marking the passing of Opry legend Roy Acuff and in welcoming new member Marty Stuart. Opry manager Hal Durham said, “This is an evening of great personal sadness for us all. For the first time in 54 years, the Grand Ole Opry will be going on without Roy Acuff. It will simply never be the same without him, and there is no way to replace him. But while we will miss his presence, his music and his spirit will forever be a part of this show.” Jimmy Dickens presided over the evening’s brightest moment, the televised induction of Marty Stuart as the 70th [active] member of the Grand Ole Opry. He was announced as being the 71st member before Acuff’s death.

  MARTY STUART, press conference, November 1992:

  There’s a brand-new crop of country fans that haven’t a clue about the Opry. I think it’s our job to recruit ’em and introduce them to how great the Opry can be. I worked the Opry with Lester Flatt, but I left the show when Lester died in 1979. I called Hal Durham and told him that the prodigal son was ready to return. I’ve talked to Saturday Night Live bandleader G. E. Smith and Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer, and I’m finding that people like that have always died to play the Opry, but never had a reason or been asked. Hal’s agreed to let people like that come out and sit in with me.

  Minnie Pearl had suffered a stroke in 1991; she died on March 4, 1996. Her husband didn’t tell her of Acuff’s passing.

  When Bill Monroe was asked “Who will lead bluegrass music into the twenty-first century?” he replied without a moment’s hesitation: “I will.” He knew, though, that his prodigious energy was failing, and he died on September 4, 1996, knowing that the music he’d done more than anyone to create was more popular than at any time in its history.

  BILL ANDERSON:

  Mister Monroe mellowed a lot. I think he finally found that what he’d created was accepted and honored. He realized that it had all been worthwhile and was justified. That served to mellow him tremendously. It was a complete metamorphosis, and it was fun to watch. In earlier days, I’d pass him in the hallway backstage and I’d say hello and he’d walk right by you, but it got to where he’d kid with you, and he’d put a quarter in your hand after you’d performed. He could put aside some of the old animosities.

  An all-star bluegrass band, including the Osborne Brothers, Earl Scruggs, Jim and Jesse, Bill Monroe, the Whites, Ricky Skaggs, and Patty Loveless.

  SHARON and CHERYL WHITE of the Whites:

  Ricky [Skaggs] played commercial country music but tried to show the bluegrass influence. He was competing with whatever was on the radio, but he had Bill Monroe in the videos, and Bill began to appreciate that. Then when the Kentucky Headhunters did his song “Walk Softly on This Heart of Mine,” the royalty checks made a believer out of him. It showed you could take bluegrass and make something commercial out of it, just like Elvis had done thirty years earlier. They put us in a dressing room with [Bill] at the Opry. We were on MCA Records then, and he’d pitch songs to us. He’d say, “Listen to this. Sing with me.” We’d never heard it before! But when Bill Monroe says, “Sing with me,” you try. We’d watch his mouth, and try our best.

  RICKY SKAGGS:

  Seeing people like me and others showing him respect really started to break down some of the walls he’d put up for protection. He was a very shy and very lonesome person, and I just pushed my way into his life. I think the love that I and Marty Stuart, Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, and others showed him began melting a lot of the coldheartedness he’d had. Then he had open-heart surgery, and that’ll get your attention. I’d go over to his place, and we’d just play for three or four hours. He’d listen to me and he’d see that the music was going to live. Before he died, I promised him that I would tell the story of him and his life and his music. He was able to rest after that. I told him that the music was much bigger than him.

  His funeral was a sad day but a happy day. It was at the Ryman, and it was one of those moments that only seem to happen at the Ryman. There’s a scripture in the Bible which says that if the seed does not die and fall to the ground, it cann
ot produce fruit some thirty, some sixty, some hundredfold. Me and Marty and Vince Gill had been out to sing “Angel Band,” and we came backstage. There was a digital clock backstage, and I looked at it. It had 11:11 on it. That number has followed me. So many times, I’d look at a clock and it would be 11:11. The way a digital clock reads, it looks like a scripture. Eleventh chapter, eleventh verse. There was an illumination around it, and I felt that my heart was being pulled toward that. I said to Marty, “That’s a scripture. I’m gonna look that up.” God is trying to tell all of Mister Monroe’s seed something. We’d sung all these somber songs—“Angel Band,” and so on—and Marty looked at me, and said, “Don’t you think we ought to send him home with a celebration?” I said, “Absolutely.” He said, “Let’s do ‘Rawhide,’ ” and I said, “Yeah!” We got out there and played “Rawhide” at six hundred miles an hour. I said to everyone, “If you have a problem with this, get over it. This is to honor Bill Monroe.” The place came unglued. It was like you’d put an electric shock in every seat. It was a holy experience. When I got home, I got my Bible out, and looked at different scriptures. I looked at Isaiah, chapter 11, verse 11. It says, “And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time.” Second time, you see. You can look, but from 1996, bluegrass music has turned somersaults. It has grown and become so popular. People say, the revival in this music started with [the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? ]. Wrong! O Brother didn’t fire up our music. Our music fired up O Brother. When Mr. Monroe died, I felt that it was time for me to give up my career in country music and take my place at the table to play this music I’d grown up playing.

  Roy Huskey, Jr., Patty Loveless, Vince Gill, and Marty Stuart bid farewell to Bill Monroe.

  VINCE GILL:

  He loved that music so much, and he created it. Who else can say that they defined a genre of music? It was Earl [Scruggs’] banjo and much else, but he put it together, and that’s a prideful thing and he was a prideful man. But it comes back to the songs, and they’re his songs. They’re the common denominator. “Can you play ‘Molly and Tenbrooks’ ”? “Can you play ‘Rose of Old Kentucky’?” The legacy of great songs goes beyond his popularity as a singer. It’s like Hank Williams in that regard. I sang at Bill’s memorial, and I was doing okay until the bagpipes played my song, “Go Rest High on the Mountain.” Then I lost it. I didn’t know it was coming. I was so honored that a song of mine was played at his memorial.

  Hank Snow died December 20, 1999, and at the beginning of the new century, Little Jimmy Dickens was the only regular remaining cast member from the 1940s. The older generation was now the stars who’d come to the Opry in the 1950s, artists like Jimmy C. Newman, Wilma Lee Cooper, Porter Wagoner, Stonewall Jackson, and Jean Shepard.

  JEANNIE SEELY:

  They changed the Opry in their day and we changed it with drums and violins and in other ways. Their Opry has gone away, and now our Opry is going away because it’s supposed to be going away. It’s supposed to change, and it’s changing as it’s supposed to change.

  As the new century dawned, country music was second only to rock as the most popular type of music in the United States, but once again the landscape was changing. Online radio, satellite radio, and music downloads were on the near horizon, changing an industry that once thought solely in terms of analog radio and records. Again, the Opry had to adapt or risk obsolescence.

  GRANDOLEOPRY

  NEW MEMBERS: 1990s

  CLINT BLACK

  GARTH BROOKS

  BASHFUL BROTHER OSWALD (Pete Kirby)

  DIAMOND RIO

  JOE DIFFIE

  VINCE GILL

  ALAN JACKSON

  HAL KETCHUM

  ALISON KRAUSS

  EMMYLOU HARRIS

  MARTINA MCBRIDE

  JOHNNY PAYCHECK

  CHARLEY PRIDE

  MIKE SNIDER

  MARTY STUART

  TRAVIS TRITT

  STEVE WARINER

  TRISHA YEARWOOD

  16

  FACING THE FUTURE

  In the mid-1970s, the chance of Nashville’s seedy downtown core being reborn looked no brighter than the Ryman’s chance of avoiding the wrecker’s ball, but by the late 1990s, weekend crowds thronged downtown as they had in the 1940s. Jo Mielziner, the theatrical designer who’d called for the Ryman to be demolished, died in 1976 and didn’t live to see the Ryman become not only a centerpiece of Nashville’s downtown renewal but one of the country’s premier live-music venues. Even the Grand Ole Opry returned there for limited runs.

  STEVE BUCHANAN, president of the Grand Ole Opry Group:

  The Ryman had been open for daily tours and there were some segments of television shows and movies shot there. In 1991, Emmylou Harris recorded an album at the Ryman with a small audience and it really got people thinking about what we could do with it. Then, in 1992, we staged a special performance to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the Ryman, again with a relatively small audience. It was a magical night with performances by Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Bill Monroe and Connie Smith. It reminded everyone of what an extraordinary place the Ryman is to hear live music. At the same time, the city was starting to focus on downtown redevelopment, so the time seemed right to bring the Ryman back to life.

  Passing it on. Vince Gill and Loretta Lynn, August 18, 2001.

  RICHARD BENNETT, coproducer of Emmylou Harris’s At the Ryman:

  The safety code meant that total admissions were restricted to something like two hundred a show, and we planned out the set list and recorded the same set three times in three days. All the reverb is natural there. It’s just a marvelous room for recording. I think everyone had forgotten just how good.

  EMMYLOU HARRIS, liner notes to At the Ryman:

  It’s more than the size and shape of that cornerless room. More than the wood used to build the curve in the Confederate Gallery, and more than the distance that a bass note has to travel to hit that back wall with those stained glass windows where the light sometimes came streaming in to illuminate the heart and soul of it all. It’s the hillbilly dust.

  MARY HANCE, journalist:

  Opryland’s parent company, Gaylord Entertainment, invested more than $1 million [eventually $8.5 million] in 1989–1990 to clean, stabilize, and restore the exterior of the Gothic structure and re-roof the Ryman Auditorium. The renovation and expansion (the construction of a 14,000 square foot support building on the north side) is set for completion by June 1994, in time for Fan Fair. The project will return the revered auditorium as a performance venue with 1,500 seats instead of the original 3,200. [The final capacity would be just over 2,300.] The total Ryman site size has tripled to 1.1 acres with the land Opryland is purchasing through the Metro Development and Housing Agency.

  Garrison Keillor and Chet Atkins on A Prairie Home Companion at the Ryman. Keillor would eulogize Atkins at his funeral, held at the Ryman in 2001.

  The official reopening was slated for June 4, 1994. The first show held there was Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, the radio program inspired by the last night at the Ryman twenty years earlier.

  In January 1999, the Opry returned to the newly refurbished Ryman for a three-show run. The following year it spent all of January there, and has since made the Ryman its winter home.

  BILL ANDERSON:

  From an artist’s point of view, it’s wonderful for the half hour or so that you’re onstage back at the Ryman. But then you have to park across the street in good or bad weather. There are no lockers so you can’t leave your instruments or costumes or anything. There’s not as many dressing rooms. But there’s something awfully magical about walking out onto that stage. That said, after four months I’m ready to come back out to the new Opry House.

  Porter Wagoner stars at theOpry’s return to the Ryman, 1999.

  In January 1998, Opryland amusement park closed. In May 2000, the Opry Mills shopping mall opened on the site. The mall does
n’t draw as many tourists as the park once did, and without the park as a “feeder,” the Grand Ole Opry now relies more heavily upon its artists. At the same time, it has embraced new media, and in addition to its traditional home on WSM-AM, it can be heard over the Internet and on satellite radio. Parts of the show are also seen on American Forces television and on Great American Country cable television.

  Hal Durham retired in 1996 and Bud Wendell in 1997. Bob Whittaker replaced Hal Durham. He’d joined the Opryland amusement park in 1971 and produced shows for the park before moving to the Opry in 1993.

  BOB WHITTAKER:

  I was a frustrated singer, but no one ever paid a dime to hear me sing, nor should they. I think the music and the industry dictate the changes at the Opry. It hasn’t lasted because some general manager came in and decided to do something. It has lasted because we’ve been responsive to the industry and the fans.

  We ask Opry members to do twelve appearances a year, but flexibility is the name of the game. Marty Stuart will walk in and ask if there’s any room on the show. Vince Gill, too. One of the charms of the Opry is that it’s not a tightly formatted show.

  Bob Whittaker retired in 1998, and the Opry is currently in the hands of Steve Buchanan, president of the Grand Ole Opry Group, and Pete Fisher, vice president of the Opry Group and manager of the Grand Ole Opry.

  PETE FISHER, Opry vice president and general manager:

  The legacy alone is motivation enough to make you want to do your best for the Opry. When I first came here, I didn’t want to do anything that would evoke a reaction, like scheduling James Brown, but I’ve come to realize that the Opry is so diverse that reaction is good. If people aren’t saying, “Well, I loved it,” “Well, I hated it,” then we’re losing some of the magic. Just because we’re here to celebrate country music doesn’t mean that we always have to preach to the converted.