There are two institutions in country music that are viewed as hallowed ground for country music lovers. One is the Country Music Hall Of Fame. The other? The Grand Ole Opry. For over 80 years, a radio show turned radio & television show has showcased country music like no other venue in the world. Nearly every single country music artist that even sniffed a whiff of stardom has stood upon its stage.That Nashville Sound is currently in the middle of running a series of different stories, photos and videos about the Opry. Today’s story is a little feature we like to call The Top Tens.
Ten most notable moments in Grand Ole Opry history:
1. The Opry is born. The Grand Ole Opry started out as the WSM Barn Dance in the new fifth-floor radio station studio of the National Life and Accident Company in downtown Nashville on November 28, 1925. On October 18, 1925, management began a program featuring "Dr. Humphrey Bate and his string quartet of old-time musicians." On November 2, WSM hired long-time announcer and program director George D. Hay, an enterprising pioneer from the National Barn Dance program at WLS Radio in Chicago. Hay launched the WSM Barn Dance with 77 year old fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson on November 28, 1925, which is celebrated as the birth date of the Grand Ole Opry.
2. 1939 The NBC network carries a half hour broadcast of the Opry.
3. 1943 The Opry moves to the Ryman Auditorium where it will stay for 30 years.
4. 1945 Western swing band leader, Bob Wills, brings drums to the Opry stage for the first time
5. 1949 Hank Williams makes his Opry debut. On August 11, 1952, Williams was fired from the Grand Ole Opry for drunkedness. Told not to return until he was sober, he instead rejoined the Louisiana Hayride.
6. 1954 Elvis appears on the Opry for the first and last time. Although the public reacted politely to his revolutionary brand of rockabilily music, after the show he was told by one of the organizers (Opry manager Jim Denny) that he ought to return to Memphis to resume his truck-driving career, prompting him to swear never to return.
7. 1965 Johnny Cash stomps out the footlights and is banned.
8. The start of the Opry 'Curse', that begins with the airplane crash in 1963 that killed Patsy Cline, along with Hankshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas and Randy Hughes, the pilot and manager. Jack Anglin, from the duo Johnny and Jack, was killed in a car accident on the way to Cline's memorial service. Three weeks later, Texas Ruby died in a trailer fire while her fiddler husband, Curly Fox, was playing onstage at the Opry.
9. 1974 The Opry moves to its current home, The Grand Ole Opry House. President Nixon attends the first show and Roy Acuff teaches him to yo-yo on stage.
10. 2005 The Opry is telecast live over Armed Forces Television for the first time for the soldiers in Iraq.
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