When The Circle Network launched on January 1st, 2020 as a joint venture between Gray Television and the Grand Ole Opry’s parent company Ryman Hospitality, everyone had big hopes for it.
On this day fifty years ago, November 10th, 1973, Stringbean Akeman frailed his final phrases on a Vega #9 five-string banjo, did his signature hand wave and hat flip one last time, and stepped off the Opry stage.
Saturday night, October 14th, 2023, was a special night at the Grand Ole Opry. Instead of presenting the regular Saturday night slate of performances, the Opry presented a tribute to country music legend Keith Whitley.
It turns out that the people of country music chose Morgan Wallen to be the inaugural People’s Choice Country “Artist of 2023” and other major awards. But you would have no clue this happened by watching the awards.
Yes, there was actually a country music awards show on Thursday night (9-28). But unless you are a massive Dan + Shay fan or just a glutton for punishment, you probably didn’t even notice or know about it.
There is still a point of contention that comes up regularly whenever the name of the Grand Ole Opry is evoked in certain circles—the strained relationship between the Grand Ole Opry and the Hank Williams legacy.
Beyond the big headlines and the culture war back-and-forths, the regular rhythms of country music continue on, like the rare but vaunted invitations to join country music’s most storied institution.
It is a mournful week in country and bluegrass as we’ve lost two mandolin playing legends, two influential titans of the bluegrass discipline, and the two oldest members of the Grand Ole Opry in a span of five days.
30 years ago today—May 1st 1993—Charley Pride took the stage of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville as he had done many times before, but this time it was special.
Becoming the first California-born artist to become a Grand Ole Opry member makes the invitation historic, and speaks to how the Opry continues to try and expand its membership beyond the institution’s conventional borders.
There’s just about nothing bigger for a girl from Kentucky than being recognized by the Bluegrass State’s Governor and playing the Grand Ole Opry. Brit Taylor is about to experience both in as many weeks, and it’s well deserved after earning worthy praise for her recent album ‘Kentucky Blue.’
In the media business, you’re not supposed to acknowledge your supposed competition, unless you’re lambasting them for doing something wrong or bad. You’re supposed to pretend they don’t exist, lest your readers/listeners/fans figure out they have other options, and jump ship.
Nothing has ever happened on the Grand Ole Opry stage, good or bad, that tops the moment that the recently-minted Country Music Hall of Famer and the even more recently dearly departed Jerry Lee Lewis enacted when he made his Grand Ole Opry debut 50 years ago.
During a special Facebook Live presentation on Friday night (1-6) from backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, radical preservationist and Opry member Marty Stuart invited comedians Henry Cho and Gary Mule Deer to both be the next official members of the Grand Ole Opry … the first time in nearly 50 years.
In 2022, something happened at the Grand Ole Opry that is only fair to label as historic. More so than any other year in its nearly 100-year existence, the coveted Grand Ole Opry debut was doled out to deserving artists from across the panorama, checking off bucket list items, populating glowing resume points…
Ashley McBryde will be the next member of the Grand Ole Opry. Announced very awkwardly and unconventionally on the CBS This Morning TV show Thursday morning (10-6), she was invited by Garth Brooks via satellite link. Ashley McBryde was in the television studio in New York, being interviewed.
It was revealed previously that between 2007 and 2014, Loretta Lynn had been making regular visits to the Cash Cabin Studios in Hendersonville, TN originally built by Johnny Cash, and recording tracks with her daughter Patsy Lynn Russell and John Carter Cash acting as producers.
There are many artists whose life experiences have been interwoven into their music, and resulted in the purest form of what has gone on to be recognized as “country” around the world. But few, if any—especially from the feminine perspective—had the same grace, the same truth, the same impact as songs of Loretta Lynn.
Maybe you’re not intimately familiar with the name, but you’re most definitely familiar with the licks he played, and the songs that he helped turn into country hits and standards over decades. One of the most prolific and respected session guitarists in country music history, Ray Edenton, has died.
Things in country music are changing, and across the board, even at an old relic like the Grand Ole Opry. Of course, it’s days of launching stars overnight are long gone. But you ask any artist in country music, and they’ll tell you that making their Grand Ole Opry debut is a lifetime bucket list achievement.
On August 11th, 1952—70 years ago today—one of the most notorious moments in country music history occurred. The original King of Country Music, and the genre’s first undisputed superstar, Hank Williams, was unceremoniously fired from the institution that he helped bring to prominence.
The fact that this tribute starts off with an unheard recording of John Prine who’s been gone now for two years now speaks to just how long it takes to put something like this together. It’s also one of the multiple reasons this is not just ‘another’ tribute record. A lot of love went into this one.
It’s always exciting when one of your favorite country artists like Dwight Yoakam, Alan Jackson, or Sturgill Simpson decides to cut a bluegrass album. It’s pretty rare to have a bluegrass outfit decide to flip the script and make a country album. But that’s exactly what long-time bluegrass duo Dailey & Vincent have decided to do.
Don’t look now, but we’re gonna have to stop complaining about how how all the losers in the country music industry keep criminally overlooking Kaitlin Butts, and start recognizing that she’s finally getting the recognition she has deserved for years thanks to the strength of her 2022 album “What Else Can She Do.”