Urban cowboys, harmonica wizards and queer trailblazers: 100 years of the Grand Ole Opry, country music’s greatest institution
It started out as promo for an insurance company and ended up powering an entire industry. As the Opry strikes out for London, can it stay relevant for another century?
It’s the only American radio show that’s been on the air for 100 years, an institution that launched the country music industry as we know it and a stage production that made country fans flock to Nashville in the first place – and keeps them coming for a singular experience today. “I somehow understood the weight of what I was stepping into,” says Marty Stuart of the Grand Ole Opry, specifically the first night he played in 1972 as a mandolin-playing prodigy sitting in with bluegrass star Lester Flatt’s band.
Stuart went on to become a country star, and Opry member, himself, and has now embraced the role of elder on the show: on 26 September, he along with Luke Combs, Darius Rucker, Ashley McBryde and Carly Pearce will take part in the Opry’s first-ever overseas broadcast at the Royal Albert Hall, as part of a year-long 100th birthday celebration. “A hundred years of anything, especially in show business, it’s just unheard of,” he marvels.
Continue reading...© Photograph: CBS Photo Archive/CBS/Getty Images
© Photograph: CBS Photo Archive/CBS/Getty Images
© Photograph: CBS Photo Archive/CBS/Getty Images