By the time Whispering Bill Anderson asked a crowd full of Grand Ole Opry members to raise their glasses for a toast Friday night, the country music institution was working on a quick turnaround. The early show — the first of two on the night celebrating the Opry’s official 100th birthday — had run half an hour longer than scheduled, and most of the nearly 30 artists who took the stage to celebrate were sticking around for the second performance, but this moment was as important as any that happened on stage.
“To 1925 and all that was,” the 88-year-old Anderson declared. “To 2025 and all that is, and to a hundred years from tonight for all that there may be, long live the Grand Ole Opry.”
Moments earlier, the same artists Anderson — who is the longest-tenured Opry member with 64 years under his belt — led in their glass-raising had capped a nearly three-hour showcase with a rendition of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” led by Steven Curtis Chapman and a chorus that included the likes of Anderson, Vince Gill, Lorrie Morgan, Pam Tillis, Jamey Johnson and Ricky Skaggs.
The concert fell on the exact anniversary of the first Opry performance in 1925. Skaggs kicked off the whole thing by playing “Tennessee Wagoner” on the same fiddle that Uncle Jimmy Thompson had used to play the first note of that inaugural show. From there, a who’s who of members gave homages to the Opry’s country, bluegrass, gospel and comedy foundations.
Scotty McCreery, Mandy Anderson, T. Graham Brown and Mark Wills led a cover of George Jones’ “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes” to provide a theme for the evening. A tearful Anderson dedicated “Thankful” to the fans gathered inside the Grand Ole Opry House. Lorrie Morgan sang “Something in Red” and Kathy Mattea and Suzy Bogguss traded acoustic versions of some of their best-known songs. Gary Mule Deer and Henry Cho ran through comedy routines, and Marty Stuart led both the Tennessee Mafia Jug Band and the Opry Square Dancers in bluegrass numbers.
RACHAEL BLACK
Fans saw the Opry’s machine-like production process in full swing, a far cry from the afternoon’s rehearsals when McCreery and Brown spent several minutes seeking the precise key for “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes” and Wills did a dry run of his introduction for a cover of “Wabash Cannonball.” On-stage banter was brief, but the crowd saw a steady backdrop of video montages from historic moments or artists being surprised on stage with memberships. In Opry fashion, there was one-night-only merchandise like a diamond-edition vinyl celebrating the anniversary in the gift shop too.
“Off the top, I would say it has taken everything we’ve had,” says show producer Nicole Judd of the behind-the-scenes work that went into the birthday celebration. “We’ve been celebrating this milestone since October of last year. It’s been years in the making. We’ve been talking about this centennial year for a number of years. We really started heavily planning a couple of years ago, and we knew once we hit last October, it was gonna be feet-on-the-ground.”
The efficiency of the night from the front of the house stood in stark contrast to the collegial, family reunion atmosphere backstage. In country music, there are effectively two Oprys. Fans see the carefully crafted mix of corporate structure and country music history, but even the few that sign up for the backstage tours when Opry shows end only catch a glimpse of the second Opry. This is the one that plays out behind the curtains. This is the Opry that endears itself to the artists who play it.
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This is where Gill holds court as the de facto artist host from the dressing room that the late Roy Acuff used to fill the same role. On Friday night, Gill greeted passersby with “Hi, I’m Vinnie Acuff. Nice to see you, sir” and joked that he hoped Anderson would not whisper during his toast.
Backstage at the Opry is where a collection of country music artifacts resides that would fit in any hall of fame: Minnie Pearl’s hat. The footwear McCreery wore when he was inducted. Historic programs and a handwritten list of “the top ten ugliest men on the Grand Ole Opry” could all be found on Friday. Skaggs carried Thompson’s fiddle around nearly everywhere he went, including the red carpet setup in the makeshift studio behind the stage.
When Johnson, who would play his hit “In Color” during the show, walked the red carpet, he said, “When I played the Opry the first time, all of a sudden there was the time before and the time after.”
As Pam Tillis walked the carpet and was handed a photo of herself and her father, Mel Tillis, at the Opry, she teared up and said, “In the words of Hank Williams, Jr., I’m carrying on a family tradition — just not the stoned part.”
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It’s that relationship between artist and institution that has driven Opry leadership to spend recent years connecting a younger generation of artists to the circle at the center of its stage. Aided by the OpryNext project, rising stars like Kaitlin Butts, 49 Winchester and Wyatt Flores have had multiple nights at the Opry this year. Opry vice president Dan Rogers tells Rolling Stone that such a move is meant to ensure a 200-year celebration when the time comes.
“I’m not exaggerating when I reach out my hand to folks in their dressing room and thank them for being here, and then I watch them on stage and think ‘That’s the future of country music and the future of the Grand Ole Opry.’”
For the better part of the 20th century, it has been Gill who most often bridged the fans’ Opry and the backstage Opry. His sincere delivery of songs like “Go Rest High on That Mountain” and “When I Call Your Name” is by itself responsible for dozens of highlight moments for ticket holders. Naturally, he provided the crescendo of Friday’s birthday celebration, too, when he stepped out on stage near the end of the show to play the tune voted by fans as the best country music song of all-time.
“I’m gonna have a crack at this song that no man should sing other than George Jones, but I’ll give it my best,” Gill said. Then, he kicked off “He Stopped Loving Her Today.”
Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose book (Almost) Almost Famous will be released April 1 via Back Lounge Publishing.