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/
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