The Grand Ole Opry (32 page)

left: Ernest Tubb’s Midnite Jamboree would often take a chance on untested artists, such as Loretta Lynn. Loretta Lynn: “Ernest
had his choice of women singers when he did a duet album, but he chose me after I’d had just a couple of hits. He said I was
an ‘honest country performer who sang with heart and soul.’ ” Loretta first appeared on the Midnite Jamboree promoting her
first record on September 17, 1960.

right: Ott Devine breaks the news to Loretta Lynn that she’s a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Minnie Pearl: “It was a man’s
world when I came here, and it was a man’s world when Miss Kitty and Loretta came in, but Loretta battered down those barriers.”

EMMYLOU HARRIS:

Well you know she lived it, and she told it like it was. When she was upset with her husband, she’d write “Fist City.” When
she was tired of having babies, she [sang] “The Pill,” and she just wrote with just such honesty, but there wasn’t any real
anger. You can almost visualize her voice. Her head almost visualizes itself coming out of your car radio. There’s so much
presence in her voice. Loretta and Kitty Wells may not have wanted to call themselves feminists, but I think that they were
what feminists would hope to be, which is your own woman. Totally comfortable in their own skin, and not giving a hang what
anybody else thinks.

LORETTA LYNN:

I wasn’t trying to change anything. I was just singing how I felt about things. I like to be on the woman’s side, but I never
went out to put a man down.

Dolly Parton left a hardscrabble life in Sevierville, Tennessee, immediately after graduation in 1964, and came to Nashville.
She’d already guested on the Opry and made a few records, but her early years in Nashville would have sent anyone less resilient
back home. Then, in 1967, Opry star Porter Wagoner made her a regular on his syndicated television show and got her on RCA.
By the time she joined the Opry in 1969, she was portraying female sexuality in a more daring way, and getting away with it
because she lampooned it at the same time. And just as Loretta augmented her exposure on the Opry with appearances on the
Wilburn Brothers’ syndicated television show, so Dolly used her appearances on the Opry and Porter’s show as a springboard
to success.

The number of women on the Opry grew steadily. In came Dottie West, Jan Howard, Skeeter Davis, Connie Smith, Barbara Mandrell,
and Jeannie Seely. Before long, they were asking why women never hosted Opry segments.

Dolly and Porter on the
Porter Wagoner Show.
Dolly Parton first hit the
Billboard
charts with the song “Dumb Blonde,” and then proceeded to show the world she is anything but.

BARBARA MANDRELL:

When I was asked to become a member I asked the question, “What must one do to be able to host a segment of the Opry?” and
I was told, “You must have gained enough status and you must be a man.”

JEANNIE SEELY:

It never made any sense to me that a woman couldn’t host a segment of the show. The first Opry manager to want to change that
was Bob Whittaker. He said, “We’re wasting fifty percent of our artist pool.” I used to go up to Bob’s predecessor, Hal Durham,
and I’d say, “I know you’ve told me before why women can’t host, but won’t you tell me one more time.” He’d rock from side
to side and jingle his change and say, “It’s tradition, Jeannie.” I’d say, “Oh, it’s tradition. It just feels like discrimination.”
Back then, they’d introduce women onstage with “Here’s a cute little girl, got on a pretty little outfit, put your hands together
and make her feel welcome . . .” An introduction is when you tell the people about the person you’re introducing. Something
they can relate to. They’d never mention that I’d won a Grammy. Just “Here’s a cute little girl, got on a pretty little outfit.”
As far as dress goes, Patsy changed things a little. She got rid of the cotton ruffles. Dottie West hedged a little. She wore
the cotton ruffles, but she put some sequins on them. I’d never seen the Opry before I appeared on it, and I came from Southern
California where everyone was wearing miniskirts.

Jeannie Seely, 1968.

There were some holdouts, of course, but most men on the Opry eventually came to see that things had changed irrevocably,
and embraced those changes. On the occasion of the Opry’s sixtieth birthday in 1985, a television special featured an all-woman
segment, but most of the women on the Opry didn’t want all-woman segments. Just parity.

Dottie West chats with Opry manager Bud Wendell, 1968.

T
he generation that had grown up with the Grand Ole Opry returned to it, perhaps, as Minnie Pearl said, because it represented
a refuge from the music, social unrest, and divisive politics of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Opry attendance rose, but
in the years after National Life bought the Ryman Auditorium, the building’s shortcomings became increasingly apparent, especially
as people became accustomed to air-conditioning. Moreover, Nashville’s downtown core was disintegrating.

The Shield News,
July 22, 1970.

JACK HURST,
journalist, in the
Tennessean:

In 1971, for the first time, the Opry’s attendance rose above 400,000. “I’d like to remind the Chamber of Commerce that the
Opry crowd is Nashville’s biggest convention of the year, and it happens every weekend,” said Bud Wendell. He said that over
the past five years the Opry’s annual attendance has risen consistently at a rate of 6% a year.

The
Tennessean,
October 14, 1973:

Eighty-eight percent of the persons polled indicated that the Grand Ole Opry was the main reason for their coming to Nashville.
63.2 percent say that it’s “very likely” they will visit the Opry again. Asked “How would you rate the auditorium where you
saw the Grand Ole Opry?” over 40 percent called the Opry House “poor” and another 31 percent said “only fair.”

BILL ANDERSON:

The area around the Ryman had gotten really seedy. It had gone downhill pretty far pretty fast. The Ryman itself was in a
terrible state of repair and the porno businesses had moved into Lower Broadway. You didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time
in that part of town.

BUD WENDELL:

I’ve always felt that the Johnny Cash television show [filmed at the Ryman for ABC-TV, 1969–1971] was really the start of
Nashville as a tourist destination. So all of a sudden we found ourselves just inundated at the Ryman. The Opry had always
had good, strong attendance, but all of a sudden it was just inundated with people wanting to come in: ticket requests, tour
operators, and that whole thing. At the same time, downtown Nashville deteriorated. We were having shootings across the street.
Where the convention center is now, there was a string of bars. Panhandlers harassed the people in line for the shows. The
major retail businesses had left downtown and we had the same problems as many urban centers were having at that time. Well,
here we are, owned by an insurance company; very sensitive to its public image. So, they said to us, “If the Opry is going
to continue, we have to find a new home for it.” We sensed that there was a real opportunity for major television exposure
if we had first-class television production facilities, but we also realized that we had all these people coming down to see
the Opry; coming from an average of 450 miles. Well, we had to have a hotel to take care of some of these people who’ve come
these great distances, because they’re going to spend the night.

Shortly after an initial decision in favor of a hotel and park, there were gasoline shortages.

BUD WENDELL:

National Life was a little timid about going ahead with plans for the hotel. They said, “If people can’t drive 450 miles they’re
not going to need this hotel. We’ve already got the park, so we’re stuck with it.” We put the hotel on hold, but as those
energy problems and gasoline shortage problems eased, we went ahead with our plans on the hotel and finally convinced ourselves
that more people would come to the park than we anticipated, so we could build as much as a six-hundred-room hotel. I hired
Jack Vaughn to develop that property. He said, “You all are going the wrong direction. You’re talking about building overnight
motel accommodations. There’s an opportunity for Nashville to become a convention destination and instead of building this
motel that charges $49.99 a night, we could build a major convention facility, attract organizations, build major exhibit
space, and make Nashville a real convention destination.” He convinced us of that and he said, “We need to build one thousand
rooms.” The insurance company, which had never been in this business before, said, “Whoa! No way are we going to build one
thousand rooms, but we’ll let you build the six hundred rooms and overbuild the exhibit areas and the restaurant space, the
retail area and the public areas,” so that we could eventually add the four hundred rooms. But with the six hundred rooms
it got to be so successful that we had to add more ballrooms and more exhibit space, so to that extent the plan didn’t work
out. Then we added another thousand rooms and then another thousand rooms. The whole plan worked very nicely because we got
the Opry House built and open and we were able to utilize all of those wonderful television facilities at a time when the
networks still had prime-time variety shows, entertainment shows and all of those specials. There was still wonderful exposure
for the artists in Nashville, Tennessee, but it also gave us a wonderful facility for the CMA awards show.

WSM press release, July 1, 1970:

Ground was broken yesterday—with a mule and a plow—for construction of the Grand Ole Opry’s new home in the Pennington Bend
area. The late Edwin Craig, longtime head of National Life and founder of the Opry [who had died on June 26, 1969], was honored
at the ceremony, as were the stars of the Opry, both living and dead. The $25 million entertainment center which will occupy
369 acres along the Cumberland River is scheduled for opening in the spring of 1972. The seating in the new Opry House will
be 50% bigger, increasing from 3,000 seats to 4,400.