"The Mother Church of Country Music"

As with all music genres they have a birthplace or point of origin from which they evolve, take hold, grow and expand either locally, regionally or in some cases eventually nationwide if and when it gains the respect and acceptance of enough people.

In the case of Dixieland Jazz that place was Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans, Louisiana, from 1897 through 1917 with such greats as King Oliver, Kid Ory’s Original Creole Jazz Band and the fabulous Louis Armstrong just to name a few.

As this music caught on locally it began to expand along the Mississippi river to cities such as Memphis and St. Louis and nightclubs, bars and honky tonks in places such as Beale Street which is considered by many as eventually becoming the birthplace of what we know as the blues.

As the American music experience expanded and grew more and more it became influenced by other ethnic groups and morphed into other sub-genres with different instrumental influences and to the tastes of other ethnic groups. By 1935 Big Bands had developed and with the advent of radio the music spread nationwide and eventually burst wide open with Benny Goodman taking the country by storm at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angles with his nationwide broadcast which many say was the beginning of an era that would last until the end of World War II.



With the advent of radio being the prime mover of the music, many others genres quickly developed such as country music and with radio shows such Louisiana Hayride broadcast out of the Municipal Auditorium in downtown Shreveport, LA. Inspired by and modeled on such seminal "barn dance" radio programs as the WLS Barn Dance out of Chicago, the Hayride evolved into a true phenomenon. But the most famous of all was the Grand Ole Opry from Nashville, TN., and the “Opry” is the oldest continuous radio program in the United States, having been broadcast on WSM since October 5, 1925.



From the very inception of the Opry audiences to the live show increased, the National Life & Accident Insurance's radio venue became too small to accommodate the hordes of fans. They built a larger studio, but it was still not large enough. After several months of no audiences, National Life decided to allow the Opry to move outside its home offices. The Opry moved, in October, 1934, into then-suburban Hillsboro Theatre (now the Belcourt), and then on June 13, 1936, to the Dixie Tabernacle in East Nashville. The Opry then moved to the War Memorial Auditorium, a downtown venue adjacent to the State Capitol. A 25-cent admission was charged in an effort to curb the large crowds, but to no avail. On June 5, 1943, the Opry moved to the Ryman Auditorium.



The Ryman Auditorium is a 2,362-seat live performance venue located at 116 Fifth Avenue North in Nashville. The auditorium first opened as the Union Gospel Tabernacle in 1892. It was built by Thomas Ryman (1843–1904), a riverboat captain and Nashville businessman who owned several saloons. Ryman conceived of the auditorium as a tabernacle for the influential revivalist Sam Jones. After Ryman's death, the Tabernacle was renamed Ryman Auditorium in his honor.



It was used for Grand Ole Opry broadcasts from 1943 until 1974, when the Opry built a larger venue just outside Nashville at the Opryland USA theme park. The Ryman then sat mostly vacant and fell into disrepair until 1992 when Emmylou Harris and her band, the Nash Ramblers, performed a series of concerts there (the results of which appeared on her album “At the Ryman”). The Harris concerts renewed interest in restoring the Ryman, and it was reopened as an intimate performance venue and museum in 1994. Audiences at the Ryman find themselves sitting in pews, the 1994 renovation notwithstanding. The seating is a reminder of the auditorium's origins as a house of worship, hence giving it the nickname "The Mother Church of Country Music".



The ultimate experience for every C&W musician is being invited to perform at the Opry. There have been so many country music greats that have performed at the Ryman since its inception including the legendary Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, Jim Reeves, Roy Acuff, Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, Garth Brooks, Patsy Cline, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Emmylou Harris, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Glen Campbell, Reba McEntire, Conway Twitty, Dolly Parton, Marty Robbins, Ernest Tubb, Dottie West, Crystal Gayle, Gretchen Wilson, Willie Nelson, The Judds and list goes on and on!

The Ryman Auditorium was included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and was further designated a National Historic Landmark in 2001.

As we kick off our forum I felt it only appropriate that a few words needed to be said about its namesake. I wanted to use a newspaper type banner as the name so we decided on the Observer and of course a name for the blog that all Country and Western music fans would readily recognize, thus Opry Observer.

The Blog is an open forum for those who wish to write about their favorite stars and to share their photos and videos. To become a contributor please sign up or send us an e-mail for more information on how to submit your articles.





Spencer "Wolf" Smartt
Moderator
Dallas, Texas
Email Me
http://www.ryman.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryman_Auditorium
http://www.opry.com/

Bob Wills - The King of Country Swing

When I was growing up in the southern Appalachian mountains of Tennessee during the late forties and the early fifties, my mother was one of the hippest swingers of the time (not the same as “swingers” of today!). She could really bop to Benny Goodman and was as good as they came when it came to dancing to swing. Mom also liked country music because that was the music she grew up with.

My dad was a dyed-in-the-wool country and western music lover. When he wasn’t driving a coal truck delivering coal to the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) or running moonshine to Atlanta or Augusta, Georgia, he spent his time working part-time at the local radio station playing the latest country music hits of the time. Now don’t let me mislead you here. Radio stations in rural Tennessee during that period would let just about anyone with the nerve get on the radio and be a DJ.

What he loved about that job was getting to meet those that were out on the road promoting their own songs by delivering their own records to the radio stations personally and asking the DJ on the air to play their records. One of his proudest moments was when Hank Williams came to his little station and asked my dad to play his music. He still has a picture of Hank and him in front of that little radio station holding Hank's new hit record with their arms over each others shoulders.

Dad was a pretty good guitar player and singer in his own right at the time and spent many weekends at the local Juke Joints playing and singing with his little four-piece band. But I think his most favorite music, that of which mom liked the most, was playing the music of his all time favorite Bob Wills. That was the “Swing” that my dad enjoyed.



James Robert (Bob) Wills (1905-1975) was born in Kosse, Texas in 1905 and was considered to be the father of what we all know as “Country Swing”. Bob’s father and grandfather taught young Bob to play the fiddle and the mandolin at a very young age. Bob spent much of his youth picking cotton and listening to cotton picker’s songs.

During the 1920’s, "Jim Rob," as he was called at the time, became a barber as his trade, married, and moved first to Roy, New Mexico then to Turkey, Texas ( can you imagine living in a place called Turkey?). Soon Jim Bob grew restless and moved to Fort Worth to pursue a career in music. It was while performing in a medicine show in Fort Worth that he learned comic timing and some of the famous "patter" he later delivered on his records.

Wills made his professional debut as a blackface singer along the lines of Al Jolson who was also a big hit during this time. Bob was a big fan of Bessie Smith and once rode 50 miles on horseback just to see her perform live.

Wills formed The Wills Fiddle Band in 1930 when Milton Brown joined his group as lead vocalist. Brown brought a sense of innovation and experimentation to the band. They became the “Light Crust Doughboys” sponsored by the makers of Light Crust Flour. Bob was despised by his superiors at the flour company because they considered his music as "hillbilly music."



Wills and his best friend, Tommy Duncan, his then lead singer, left the Doughboys in 1933 after Wills had missed one show too many due to his sporadic drinking, which finely lead to his death in 1975.

Bob Wills continued throughout the years adding to his band the music of the times and of the south where he played. I could go on with page after page about the music and the man. However, you can read up on the life of Bob Wills at Wikipedia and other internet sites about his life.

My dad, now in his early 80’s, lives in Denver with his wife, Rosemary, whose brother was a songwriter in Nashville. He wrote a couple of songs for Buck Owens during the 1960’s. They still talk about Buck when he was rising to fame in Phoenix and the many friends that they knew over the years in country music like Chet Adkins and Ernest Tubb. Dad and Rosemary were friends with other country music greats like Merle Haggard and Wayland Jennings who they also met in the 1960’s in Phoenix through Buck.

When I was growing up my old man often had his friends over to play their music, drink and sing their songs. To me, they were just a bunch of country singers trying to make it big in the country music business. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but as the years have passed by, I’ve looked back at the time they spent out on the patio and wish I had paid more attention to who they all were.

The one thing they all seemed to say back then was that the greatest of them all, when it came to showmanship, was the king himself, Bob Wills. How I wish we could have known him!

I want to thank my dad for those great memories and for the love of country music that he instilled in me.




Spencer "Wolf" Smartt
Dallas, Texas
Email Me

From the 1974 album Fathers and Sons featuring songs by both Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys and Asleep at the Wheel:

Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys


San Antonio Rose
Trouble in Mind
Miss Molly
Time Changes Everything
Big Beaver
Can't Go On This Way
The Convict and The Rose
Roly-Poly
Back to Tulsa
New San Antonio Rose

Asleep at the Wheel


Choo Choo Ch'boogie
Jumpin' at the Woodside
Miss Molly
Blood-Shot Eyes
Dead Man
Don't Ask Me Why (I'm Going to Texas)
The Kind of Love I Can't Forget
Last Letter
Our Names Aren't Mentioned (Together Anymore)
You and Me Instead

 

The Wild Side of Life

Shortly after World War II a young Navy radioman returned to Waco TX after studying electrical engineering at Princeton University before being discharged. He had intended to continue those studies on the GI Bill following his discharge but decided to continue his lifelong love of music instead. Like many country stars, Henry William “Hank” Thompson took an early interest in music as a result of his adoration of his cowboy movie idol Gene Autry. [1]



Hank Thompson and his Brazos Valley Boys musical style was characterized as honky tonk Western swing, with a mixture of fiddles, electric guitar and steel guitar that featured his distinctive, smooth baritone vocals. He wanted The Brazos Valley Boys to play a "light" version of the Western swing, a sound that Bob Wills and others had made famous, emphasizing the dance beat and meticulous arrangements. [2]

1952 brought his first #1 disc, "The Wild Side of Life," which contained the memorable line "I didn't know God made honky-tonk angels"

Hank Thompson


Hank and his Boys were voted the top Country Western Band for 14 years in a row by Billboard with record sales well over 60 million internationally, Hank Thompson's career has spanned an unbelievable seven decades (from the '40's into the 21st century) of recorded music history. Thompson was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1997. [1] [2]

On November 1, 2007, Thompson canceled the rest of his 2007 "Sunset Tour" and retired from singing. Thompson's last performance had been on October 8, 2007 in Waco, Texas, his birthplace. He died a month later from lung cancer. [1]



Shortly after Hank released his smash hit “The Wild side of Life”, Paul Cohen, an executive at Decca Records, approached a relatively unknown pioneer female country vocalist by the name of Kitty Wells about doing an answer song to Hank’s smash hit. Wells was disenchanted with her career prospects and was considering retirement when Cohen approached her about doing the song "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels". She agreed to the session (at Owen Bradley’s studio on May 3, 1952) because of the $125 union scale recording payment. "I wasn't expecting to make a hit," said Wells later. "I just thought it was another song". It became the first hit single for a female vocalist in Country music history. [3]

The record's message was controversial at the time, and was banned by many radio stations. It was also temporarily banned from the Grand Ole Opry. Nevertheless, audiences couldn’t get enough of it. The single took off during the summer of 1952, and sold more than 800,000 copies in its initial release.

Kitty Wells


Wells was born Ellen Muriel Deason in 1919 in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the few country singers born in Nashville. She began singing as a child, learning guitar from her father. [4]

Wells’ success in the 1950s and 1960s was so enormous that she still ranks as the sixth most successful female vocalist in the history of the Billboard country charts behind Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Reba McEntire, Tammy Wynette, and Tanya Tucker. [3]

Wells was the third country music artist, after Roy Acuff and Hank Williams, to receive the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991, as well as being the eighth woman and first Caucasian woman to receive the honor. In 1976, she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. She is as of 2009 — at age 90 — the oldest living member of the C&W Hall of Fame. Wells' accomplishments earned her the moniker The Queen of Country Music. [3]

I realize this is somewhat out of the realm of Swing and Big Band music; however for those who love the sound of “Country Swing” these were two of the greats of the era. Next to big band and swing, this music is the closest to my heart!

Hope you enjoyed “The Wild Side of Life”!




Spencer "Wolf" Smartt
Dallas, Texas
Email Me


[1] http://www.hankthompson.com/index.htm
[2] http://www.hankthompson.com/
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Wells
[4] http://www.kittywells.com/

Welcome to the Opry Observer

Country and Western is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern and Western United States and especially the Appalachian Mountains. It has roots in traditional folk music, Celtic music, gospel music and a touch of jazz and swing for a little good taste.

In the Southwestern United States a different mix of ethnic groups created the music that became the Western music of the term country and Western. The term "country music" is used today to describe many styles and subgenres.

Immigrants to the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of the Old World along with them for nearly 300 years. The Irish fiddle, the German derived dulcimer, the Italian mandolin, the Spanish guitar, and the West African banjo were the most common musical instruments. The interactions among musicians from different ethnic groups produced music unique to this region of North America.

The purpose of this forum is to allow fans of the distinctive style of American music a place to write about the favorite stars and groups, post photographs and videos and read about what others have to say about this fabulous art form. The forum is open to all who wish to register and contribute. Articles, photos and videos must meet ordinary decorum and tastes of its fans. Articles submitted are subject to editing by the Forum Moderator and should be kept between 600 and 1200 words.

Have fun and tell about your favorite subject!