This morning began with my morning walk, just like almost
every other day since May of 2022! Our first of two “big” events today occur at
10am. We will walk in the footsteps of country music’s superstars and get an
exclusive look at what happens behind the scenes of the show that made country
music famous on our backstage tour of the Grand Ole Opry House.
We enjoyed pictures outside of the Opry first! This is a picture of the staff for this 2023 American Mountain Music tour.
The tour begins with a state-of-the-art theater
experience with music, special effects, priceless archival footage, and
superstar hosts Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood.
We stood under over $90,000 of Gibson guitars. This
feature was specially designed for the Grand Ole Opry.
There are life size pictures of the stars everywhere!
We toured the artist entrance, where stars walk into the
world-famous Opry House every night, and learned about the significant pieces
of art and traditions.
We stood at the security desk, where every artist check-in. Each member has a mailbox, and you can send them mail.
You don’t even have to know the zip code, or so our tour guide claims!
We could run our fingers over all the plaques that the
Grand Ole Opry members install themselves when they are inducted.
Next was a glimpse and some information about the many
dressing rooms that the stars use.
We went backstage and even on stage and stood in the
circle!
We had free time until our dinner at the Aquarium and the
Saturday night Grand Ole Opry show.
The Aquarium is a restaurant that surrounds a large fish tank!
The Grand Ole Opry is the stage that
showcases country music's past, present, and future. They have been home to country
music for over 96 years. In 1925, a radio-loving founder of National Life and
Accident Insurance Company convinced the company to launch its own radio
station: WSM – named after their slogan “We Shield Millions." WSM went
live for the first time on October 5, 1925.
George D. Hay launched the WSM Barn Dance with Uncle
Jimmy Thompson, a 77-year-old fiddle player, on November 28, 1925 – widely
known as the day the Grand Ole Opry was born. In December of 1927, following an
NBC broadcast of Walter Damrosch's Music Appreciation Hour, George D. Hay
proclaimed on-air, "For the past hour we have been listening to the music
taken largely from the Grand Opera, but from now on we will present the Grand
Ole Opry.” The new name for the WSM Barn Dance stuck.
Roy Acuff opened the first show in the new 4,440-seat
Grand Ole Opry House with a performance of "The Wabash Cannonball.”
President Richard Nixon was in attendance and lead the Opry audience in singing
"Happy Birthday" to First Lady Pat Nixon. The night featured a packed
lineup, so each artist was limited to performing just one song.
The Opry House gave the show more space and the
facilities necessary to grow and evolve. It was televised live for the first
time on March 4, 1978, as part of a PBS fundraising special, but the show
wouldn’t start regular television broadcasts until 1985. The Opry family began
welcoming more giants like The Gatlin Brothers, John Conlee, Ricky Skaggs,
Lorrie Morgan, Reba McEntire, Randy Travis, and Patty Loveless.
The 1990s brought some of the Opry’s most monumental
moments: Minnie Pearl and Jimmy Dickens celebrated their 50th anniversary with
the show; Roy Acuff made his final Opry performance, one month before he
passed; Charley Pride, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris,
Martina McBride, Diamond Rio, and Trisha Yearwood were all welcomed into the
family.
Throughout the 2000s, the show and its cast paid tribute
to fallen members Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings, and Minnie Pearl. In 2002,
the Opry celebrated its 4000th consecutive Saturday Night broadcast. And the
family continued to grow, adding Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley, Trace Adkins,
Carrie Underwood, and Montgomery Gentry, among others.
In May of 2010, the venue was ravaged by a historic flood
that forced the Opry House to close its doors for five months for restoration.
The show pressed on at other venues across Nashville, including two former
homes: War Memorial Auditorium and the Ryman. The Opry House was beautifully
restored, and the show made its triumphant return on September 28, of that same
year.
The Grand Ole Opry celebrated 40 years at the Opry House
on March 16, 2014, with an all-cast opener led by Old Crow Medicine Show, and
performances by some of country music’s biggest names. In 2015, the show
celebrated its 90th anniversary with a star-studded weekend-long birthday bash.
The 2010s brought Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, Darius Rucker, Old Crow Medicine
Show, Little Big Town, and more into the Opry family.
In March of 2020, COVID-19 forced the Grand Ole Opry to
make the hard decision to temporarily cancel live audience shows. In a historic
moment for the Opry, the Saturday Night Grand Ole Opry broadcast live without
an audience, via Livestream. The show continued to broadcast live on WSM Radio
and Circle TV, which incidentally launched in January of 2020 – keeping the
music playing and the circle unbroken.
After seven months of performing without a live audience,
in October of 2020, the Opry kicked off its 95th anniversary by welcoming back
500 guests to the Opry House – and so began a month-long celebration of the
Opry, country music, its artists, and its fans. The Opry family continues to
grow, with Rhonda Vincent, Lady A, Carly Pearce, Lauren Alaina, and many more
inducted in the last few years.
Our show included some great performances by seasoned
Opry members and 2 entertainers having their Opry debuts.
Our opening act was the Opry Square Dancers. They have
been a Saturday night Grand Ole Opry tradition since 1952. This troupe of
dedicated square dancers has performed every week at the top of the Saturday
night show and following intermission. The Opry Square Dancers’ distinctive
style of clogging is rooted in Southern Appalachian culture, and they are a crowd-favorite.
Riders in the Sky was up next. Back more than 40 years
ago when they first started playing together, there were no laptops, no cell
phones, no Google, Apple, or Microsoft. No texting, tweeting, or Ubering. It
truly was a different world.
But there were three young men with drive and wit
who wanted to keep a special music alive. They believed in preserving the
heritage of Western Music and presenting it to a new generation. They believed
in entertaining, and they did so… entertaining themselves as well as the
audience! And they believed in creating original Western Music to continue the
tradition, not just seal it in amber as a museum piece. What they did not
realize at the time was that they would be doing the same thing 40 years later.
Riley Clemmons was on the Opry stage for the 2nd
time tonight. She grew up singing in church and performing around town but was
discovered at a high school talent show. She signed with Capitol CMG Label
Group and released her debut single, "Broken Prayers," at the end of
2017. The song quickly found its way onto the Billboard Hot Christian Songs
chart. She is a rising artist from Nashville, TN who has accumulated over half
a billion global streams and 85 million YouTube video views.
Ashley McBryde was our next Opry member to perform. She
grew up in Arkansas and she was drawn to various types of music from a young
age. She also developed a passion for writing songs and later moved to
Nashville to pursue a music career.
Between 2006 and 2011, McBryde released a pair of
self-released albums. Her 2016 release drew attention from country artist Eric
Church. His support helped her gain a country music recording contract with
Warner Music Nashville.
In 2017, both her album and her single received
critical acclaim and led to recognition from several music associations. It was
followed by 2019's Never Will, which was also met with critical acclaim. Its
lead single "One Night Standards" reached the top 20 of the American
country songs chart and topped the Canadian country survey. She has received
one Grammy Award from six nominations, one Country Music Association Award,
three Academy of Country Music Awards, and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy.
She earned one of country music's crowning achievements when she was invited to
become a member of the Grand Ole Opry by Garth Brooks and was subsequently
inducted by Terri Clark on December 10, 2022.
They told us that "If Dolly Parton, Earl Scruggs, and Spinal Tap spawned a
litter of puppies, it would be The Cleverlys."
It was a great day and an awesome night of entertainment!
