CMT Blog: Archive

Although I write extensively about the Opry in my new book, Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain, I did not grow up listening to the show.

As a kid, I did watch Porter Wagoner’s TV show from Nashville. In Pittsburgh, where I grew up, we also had a local country TV show starring an all-girl band called Abbie Neal & Her Ranch Girls. Except that they were renamed the E-Z Time Ranch Girls for the program because the sponsor was Wilkins Jewelers, whose ad jingle went, “E-Z credit, E-Z credit/Wilkins is the place where you can get it!”

And on Saturday nights, I did listen to a radio barn dance. But it was the Wheeling Jamboree on WWVA, which was just over the state line in West Virginia, less than an hour away. It, too, had 50,000 watts of clear-channel power, just like Nashville’s WSM. I have warm memories of hearing Doc & Chickie Williams on the show and was truly saddened when the program went under in 2005. Begun in 1933, it was second only to the Opry in longevity.

So I was familiar with live country radio when I moved to Music City. I began listening to the Opry in 1977. We were young and broke back then. For our Saturday-night “dates,” my wife and I would drive up the Ashland City Highway along the Cumberland River and listen to the Opry broadcasts on the car radio. The road was a two-lane blacktop back then, and gas was a lot cheaper.

I honestly can’t remember when I saw my first Grand Ole Opry show. But I do recall being seated high in the balcony. At one of my earliest visits, I saw Lester Flatt when Marty Stuart was a kid in his band.

Visiting backstage for the first time was a blast. I have a photo that I treasure of me standing between Roy Acuff and Minnie Pearl in Roy’s dressing room. There’s another of me sitting on that bench, stage left, deep in conversation with Dottie West about something.

I have so many fond Opry memories. I have so many Opry buddies. There is nothing else on earth like that live radio show. And it’s so cool that it is multi-generational.
To this day, we listen to the Grand Ole Opry as we cook dinner every Saturday night. It’s still our favorite “date.”

(Editor’s note: Read a chapter from Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain.)