Looking for World Piece(s) of Music
Dr K’s Opry Staycation
Black in the Mecca of Whiteness
I’d lived in Tennessee since third grade when my family moved off the nearby Ft. Campbell, Kentucky military base where my father was a career soldier who loved music. I got a magna cum laude degree in music at the local university. We loved all kinds of music from Dave Brubeck to Dinah Washington, from Beethoven to the Beatles. But none of us had ever visited the world-famous Grand Ol’ Opry, just fifty minutes down the road in Nashville.
Part of my hesitation to go to an iconic site for music history was the teeny little fact that Tennessee birthed the Klan. Yes, that Klan, the Ku Klux variety. And racism was/is still a thing in my home state.
But decades after I left home to be a college professor and professional musician, I decided to jettison my hesitation. How could I see iconic music around the world, but not in my home state? My trips to Japan found American friends who had lived there for decades, but had never been to see iconic sites for historic Noh and Kabuki musical theater. I couldn’t believe it. Yet Tokyo is the same distance from them as Nashville was from us. Time to get my house in order.
In addition to my shame at having avoided a Ryman visit all my life, I was here for two reasons: bluegrass and brothers. I’ve been listening to bluegrass all my life, enjoying the plaintive simplicity of good-sounding folks playing good music. To hear a great banjo picker Earl Scruggs playing “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” was akin to hearing pianist Andre Watts playing “La Campanella.” My younger brothers, twins diagnosed as autistic, would always turn on their TV every Saturday when hour after hour of country music serenaded us. I’d stop in and listen when the bluegrass bands came on.
Anyone who doesn’t accept race as a social construct doesn’t know anyone who is autistic or diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome. These loving individuals, who have been part of my life since their birth when I was seven-years-old, inhabit an a-racial world. They cannot conceive of choosing their friends by anything more than smiles and kindness. They can’t comprehend race or prejudice. They know who they like and who they don’t; they know who likes them and who doesn’t. The whys and wherefores don’t come into it.
So when it comes to music, my brothers like what they like. There is no black music or white music, there’s only music. Since my dad had much the same idea about music, listening to Al Green right after Sarah Vaughan or Claude Debussy, we were all on the same page, separating culture and politics from artistic sincerity. Okay for music, but I’m not autistic (more’s the pity, I sometimes think); I can comprehend the threats of society offered by descendants of the Klan who still live among us. But sometimes, sometimes you’ve got to take a leap of faith into the car and down the road a piece to downtown Nashville.
The Grand Ole Opry’s got a nice tidy schedule: Four 30-minute sets, each with a different sponsor; each a different performing host, whose performances bookend two additional acts that perform two songs apiece. The format has been working successfully for ninety-plus years, now in simultaneous live radio/TV transmission early on Saturday nights. Since this was Friday, we’d only be on the radio.
Despite the rather hefty tab for tickets, the sponsors, headed by Humana Health Insurance company, represent paradigmatic symbols of small Southern town white America: Dollar General Store, Boot Barn, and Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and Restaurant. Dollar General is perhaps the last of the old-time “five and dime” stores, with its no-frills, somewhat dilapidated, slightly grungy feel; crowded aisles with cheap goods; and good bargains on home basics from plastic laundry hampers to shoe polish. It’s the sort of store, if any, you could imagine the Beverly Hillbillies frequenting in their pre-oil well days.
Boot Barn bills itself as “America’s Largest Western & Work Store.” It has stores all over the West, of course, plus a few states in the South, including Tennessee, with its capital city of Nashville, Country Music Capital of the World (after all, Waylon, Willie, and the boys have to get their boots somewhere). This is no dude-ranch playpen, though. Boot Barn deals in work apparel, like shirts and jeans, but specializes in working boots for real-life cowboys, insulated boots for miners, steel-toed boots for loggers, muck-proof lace-ups for stable hands, slim dress boots for equestrians, and heavy-duty Gore-Tex footwear for soldiers headed toward combat. This might be where Hell’s Angels get their black, studded biker boots.
Then there’s Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel, a humongous Southern franchise making five times more money than I-HOP (International House of Pancakes), poses as a bunch of old-timey country stores fronted by rocking chairs on the porch and jam-packed inside with Southern candies, doodads, gewgaws, and thingamajigs (tchotchkes, to you Northerners). The restaurants serve the standard Southern “meat and three” (serving of fried chicken, ham, meat loaf, or catfish, plus three servings of vegetables). All very friendly and homey. Pretty much.
I’ve never had a problem with service there (but then I tend to avoid traveling in the most racist places). However, Cracker Barrel has gotten in trouble for following African-American shoppers in the country store section (a New York Barney’s-related syndrome known as “shopping while Black”) and refusing to serve them in their restaurants (eating while Black?, we cannot catch a break); not too long ago, the U.S. Justice Department settled a lawsuit against the Barrel for racial discrimination. But one halfway decent thing they continue is their support of country music’s mecca, the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville Tennessee.
The Ryman, temple of great country music for decades, looks like the sacred space that it is. Shaped like a church, complete with stained glass windows, it has pews for seats. Uncomfortable, but evocative. The stage set features a scrim depicting the back of a barn (or the front of the Ryman) with corrugated sound panels lit in variegated colors to resemble the windows. There’s a low fence upstage, similar to the red-lacquered gate in gagaku, the traditional orchestral music of Japan.
First Set
The first set featured John Conlee, longtime member of the Opry, as host. Along with Conlee, guests Joanna Smith and Jimmy C. Newman showed different sides of country music. Conlee is the traditional Country/Western singer whose prime increasingly fills our rear-view mirrors. Country audiences treat their music like they treat their politics. What seems like a fierce loyalty is often, at base, rooted in the fact that . . . They Do Not Like Change.
** Such resistance to change is a bit like autism, but I don’t think there are any antipsychotic drugs for the über-conservative version.**
Joanna Smith, on the other hand, a Vanderbilt grad from South Georgia, is an emerging singer/songwriter — one of of Rolling Stones’ “Ten New Artists You Need to Know. She’s a youthful blond whose songs have been recorded by the likes of Billy Ray Cyrus. She’s got a touch of the vocal fragility reminiscent of Dolly Parton in the early “Jolene” days. She’s even got Dolly’s giggle, but her use of an instrumental breakdown with “jungle drum” tom-toms in the middle of one of her songs makes it clear that “old versus new” is more than just a slogan for Joanna Smith: “I used to walk barefoot to my mailbox, now I bring it up on my laptop.”
Like the Beatles and their nightly gigs in Berlin, her tri-weekly gigs at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville gave her the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours of work that prepared her for a life on the road with occasional Opry trips. She’s still young enough that you can see her thrill at appearing at country’s home church warring with her professionalism.
**During the set change, the announcer reads sponsor names like an old-time auctioneer**
Jimmy C. Newman heads a Cajun band (eh-eeeeee!) with the standard accordion and drums with fiddle, bass and rhythm guitars, and French licks of language from their Acadian (root of the word “Cajun”) ancestors. They’ve been around for a while, so they’re right at that sweet spot of mature experience, before the tools start wearing out.
Second Set
The first set was all “okay” but the program started hitting my stride when we got to the second set. Connie Smith hosted Chuck Wicks and one of my favorite styles, bluegrass, played by Bobby Osborne & the Rocky Top X-Press. They’re the real deal: members of the Grand Ole Opry since 1964, inducted into the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 1994. Two of their recordings, “Rocky Top” and “Kentucky,” are official state songs of Tennessee and Kentucky, respectively.
It should be mentioned here that the Opry selects respected performers to become “members.” Only members host segments. According to Opry.com:
The Opry doesn’t simply pass out invitations to the biggest stars with the most hits. Opry management looks for a musical and a generational balance. Opry membership requires a passion for country music’s fans, a connection to the music’s history, and it requires commitment…
Icons Dolly Parton and the Oak Ridge Boys alongside other established artists like Reba McIntire and Garth Brooks, stand with newer artists Alison Krauss and Ricky Skaggs, heading to the future with young Turks like Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban. Even Darius Rucker, fortyish African-American lead singer for Hootie & the Blowfish, joins veteran seventyish Charley Pride as two lone spots of color in a cloud of unrelieved whiteness.
As the membership statement makes certain, the Opry represents every generation, right alongside every style from old school through experimental. In some ways, an invitation to join the Opry functions like the Nobel Peace Prize. It generally acknowledges past accomplishments but can also recognize future promise.
But back to Bobby (who died in 2023, may he and his mandolin rest in peach) and the X-Press. At our visit, Bobby, in his pastel Sunday suit and wide-brimmed fedora, banded with a gold-sequined hatband, leads the group with no apparent effort, but that’s standard. Like most bluegrass bands, their five-piece band stands as stiff as Egyptian mummies while their fingers fly over strings of the fiddle, mandolin, rhythm and bass guitars, and — the star of the show for me — the five-string banjo, a metal-stringed instrument related to the Renaissance cittern of Europe and the traditional halam of West Africa.
Senegalese bard playing the halam (19th-century, photo credit Wikimedia)
Were it not for the fiddler’s bow arm and Bobby’s mandolin-strumming right wrist, you’d hardly know they were alive. Even when they’re singing, their mouths open so minimally that big-headed mics cover the action. I know they love their music, but I just can’t ever get over the music/body disconnect of bluegrass musicians (although I’d swear, I really would, that I just saw the merest of toe taps from the massive bass player, Bobby’s son, Bobby Jr.). The music races like river rapids as the bodies are as still as a millpond.
They didn’t just play, though, they played my favorite bluegrass anthem, “Rocky Top,” a song about my home state of Tennessee. I have little doubt that I might not have such a good time if I wandered unaccompanied in the hills and hollows of the East Tennessee mountains, but I sure do like this song and the sour mash whiskey to which it alludes. I used to listen to Flatt & Scruggs play it in Grand Ole Opry and Porter Waggoner broadcasts as I was growing up.
For those who don’t know bluegrass, F&S were the group that performed the theme to The Beverly Hillbillies TV show. Bobby Osborne and his band, mostly family members, are holding up the banner for bluegrass, doing it proud. Their virtuosic fingers and tight clear-timbred vocal harmonies riveted me to my pew.
This time, I noticed the Opry’s increased steps toward the future. The Opry website and Facebook sites emblazoned the stage backdrop. Patriarch Bobby made a self-deprecating joke about it, saying he knew you could find the band on all these sites, including Twitter, but he didn’t know how to get to any of ’em. The audience chuckled.
Host Connie Smith, a long-time Opry member with a big voice standing at the cusp of losing its quality, wears a more traditional black Western jacket with sparkles on the shoulder plackets and a diamanté belt buckle brightly separating a black blouse from the black slacks, she opened, wailing that country standard “Once a Day.” Her conventional “Nashville” sound with a bit of Southern slide guitar twang and the abrupt-phrased, storytelling cadence of the word delivery still works, but I have to say that some of her long notes wander in pitch, and gravel enters the throat in places where it would never have gained entry in the past. But her fans hang with her in true country-loyal fashion, and I could still hear what had once been there. Yet, listening closely, the difference between the strong ovation for the Osbourne group, who are at the peak of their abilities, and the middling strong one for Connie, past that peak, made it fairly clear that, although it’s tempting to see it as mindlessness, loyalty does not mean lack of awareness.
Chuck Wicks falls into the “outlaw” category with a playboy twist; a bit of Waylon, Willie, and the boys, but without the depth of songwriting ability or the compelling world-weary, seen-it-all persona. There was a bit of clever country writing in “She’s the Whole Damn Thing,” idolizing his lady love as a “cold beer, football, red dress, bad liar.”
— Intermission —
Sitting in the pew in front of us I noticed a bleached blond with split ends, wearing fashionably faded stretch jeans, a loose plum top, spiky eyelashes, and tawdry fingernail art. She was hanging onto an apparently uninterested, baseball-capped, literally red-necked guy. The closer she leaned in, the farther he eased away. Sad.
Third Set
The third set, starting the second half of the show settled into true Country music professionals in every act. Jim Ed Brown, one of the grandees of Country, led the way for Wade Hayes and for Del McCoury’s Band. Dressed in a bolo tie, black shirt, and red Western jacket with ornate black designs on lapels, pockets, and cuffs, Jim Ed’s rich baritone voice and comfortable stage presence made me sit back in my seat and relax. He traded banter with the announcer and chatted with members of each of the acts he hosted, delivering his own confidently professional performance.
Of all the hosts, he seemed the most “at home” with the Ryman, even delivering hackneyed old weather jokes (chili today, hot tamale) with no shame at all. And that’s no surprise since he’s been there since just nigh of forever. His set-ending “I Love You Just Because,” featured a nice Floyd Cramer-style piano solo played by a musician who looked like a potential Santa stand-in (tummy, white beard and all) in a Greek fisherman’s cap.
Wade Hayes, another in the “outlaw” class, dressed casually in a V-neck sweater, jeans, and a black cowboy hat. He’s good-looking and has a smooth voice. “I’m Old Enough to Know Better, but Still Too Young to Care,” featured handy solos on guitar and fiddle. Singing old tunes is part of the respect for the past that frames country music. It’s the good part that sometimes overshadows the bad “fear of the future so let’s reject both Lil Nas X and Beyoncé” ultra-conservative part. The audience greeted Jim Ed’s release of the information that Hayes is in remission from Stage Four cancer with loud applause. As he left the stage, Hayes gave a big wave and a shout-out, “God Bless You. Thank Ya’ll!”
That’s the kind of thing that endears country music stars to their audience. There’s none of what the British would call “side” and what Black rappers would call “fronting.” Country stars tell it like it is, keeping the “down home” touch. At the Country Music Association Fest, known as “Fan Fair” held annually in Nashville, musicians sit for hours meeting, greeting, and signing autographs for fans. The big sunglasses, big attitude, ducking the fans, “I vant to be alone” type of star would be absolutely unacceptable in the country music world. I like that.
Humility and gratitude are not the only offerings expected from country stars. A sense of humor has got to be there as well. I remember another time I took my brothers to the Ryman. Little Jimmy Dickens (called “Little” because of his 4'11” height), telling a joke that surprised me a bit. As he told it, his wife came in the house from the front porch and said “Jimmy, let’s run upstairs and make love,” to which he wryly responded, “I can do one, or I can do t’other, but I cain’t do both.” The audience fell out laughing.
It was great to hear another bluegrass band, the Del McCoury Band, whose great hit was a song written by John Sebastian of the rock band Lovin’ Spoonful, “Nashville Cats” (who “play clean as country water, wild as mountain dew”).
Final Set
I was just about up to my data recharge limit on bluegrass, when the program moved to the last set of the evening, hosted by Riders in the Sky, a well-known Western band named after the famous 1948 song, “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” written by rodeo rider Stan Jones who had also written music for westerns directed by John Ford.
Dressed “dude ranch” style in 10-gallon hats, fringe, chaps, boots, and sparkly decorations on their Western shirts, The Riders joked that you could make any song Western by adding a quick cattle-moving whistle and a shouted “Yah!” They demonstrated with “O Danny Boy.”
Despite all this folderol, they’re fine musicians with nicely tuned vocal harmonies, playing fiddle, guitars, accordion, and bass fiddle. Some of their dissonant chord clusters and rhythmic play in “Ghost Riders in the Sky” reminded me of Alison Krauss and Union Station, a university-educated neo-bluegrass group that has a similar relationship to traditional bluegrass as the Dave Brubeck quartet has to traditional jazz. In both cases, clear movement toward the future still conscientiously honors the past.
The Riders hosted new and upcoming artist Elizabeth Cook, who was wearing the kind of flowing draperies and tousled dyed-blond hair Stevie Nicks made famous with Fleetwood Mac. Despite the über-feminine folkie looks, she proved she could get down and dirty with “Cash on the Barrel Head.” Its bluesy lyrics tell the story of a ne’er-do-well who’s always tripped up by the lack of cash needed for bail, one phone call in jail, and a bus ticket to get his tail home after forty days in the hole.
Next came “star of stage and screen,” as they say, Charles Esten, one of the actors on the primetime TV show Nashville. Because of the musical theme of Nashville and the reputation of Nashville (not to mention the glut of personnel choices), all the actors are more than competent musicians. I didn’t know Esten from a hole in the ground, but from the reaction from the younger part of the Ryman audience that night, he was a hit. Singing a slow bluegrass version of “What’s So Funny ‘bout Peace, Love, and Understanding” made famous by Elvis Costello and a little barroom ditty with the catchy line “Uno, dos, tres, Cuervos!,” Chip, as he’s known, piped the young folks along with him.
The most sentimental moment came when he sang with the Riders. He reminisced about listening to them on vinyl with his dad back home in Virginia. Clearly, the opportunity to sing “Water,” one of the group’s greatest hits and certainly a Western anthem, was a dream come true. The Opry culture that values emotional sincerity over any sort of glam is a place he seemed to feel right at home. The whole program ended on this pleasant note. But then it happened.
The tickets had been a Christmas gift to my brothers. I’d bought four tickets, so my eighty-something mother decided to come with us. Leaving the building to head back to the car, she immediately turned in the wrong direction with one of my brothers. I caught up with them and said, “No, it’s this way.” I turned with brother #1 who was walking quickly (it was cold), glancing back to make sure they were following us. We only had to go half a block, turn right, and the parking lot was straight ahead, easily visible. When brother #1 and I got to the car, we looked around once more. No mother, no brother. We walked back to the Ryman, searching all the way. No mother, no brother. We went back into the building and got security who helped search the ground floor. No mother, no brother.
When one security person asked me to describe my mother, I said she was in her mid-80s, was wearing a long red wool coat, and I jokingly said something to the effect that there couldn’t be many African-American women of that description around (we had been the only Black people I’d seen the whole evening; five Asians were the only other people of color there; according to the Ryman website, the auditorium seats 2,362). The security guard, an older white man got out his walkie-talkie and requested additional help to search both upstairs and outside, putting out the call for an elderly “colored lady.”
What! Colored? I hadn’t heard that term applied to a Black person since 1976. Literally, 1976. I had been spending the summer as a scholarship student playing flute at the Aspen Music Festival. One evening, after a hard day of practicing and rehearsing, I was having a conversation about race with three white guys — a pianist from California, a composer from Massachusetts, and a clarinetist from Georgia. The kind-hearted Georgia native had used the word “colored” referring with sincere fondness to kids he had played with as a child. No sooner had the “C” word left his mouth than the Bostonian jumped down his throat to chastise him about not using “Black” or “African American” or whatever we were called back then; I really can’t recall. Interestingly, the Bostonian was consistently more disrespectful to the actual Black person in our midst (that would be me) than the Georgian had ever been; I’d rehearsed with both, so I knew. Meanwhile, in this pre-Rodney King era, the Californian was presciently wondering semi-aloud whether we couldn’t all just get along.
The Ryman security guard definitely gave me that flashback, but mostly I was mildly amused; or I would have been had not my mother and brother been missing. About an hour later, the combined efforts of various Nashville police officers and I found her, and we were all reunited, ready for the 50-mile trip back home to home. My mother had apparently just kept walking forward without looking or thinking to turn, or to return, or to ask directions, or anything. Should I be worried? She’s always been easily distracted and unwilling to seek help, especially in finding her way among strangers, so this may not be related to age. But then again, it might be.
Whatever the case, the music had definitely disappeared until, on the drive home, I asked my brothers what parts of the show they had liked best. Although I had done it as a distraction from the micro-mini disaster of the untoward disappearance, the music gradually returned. It’s still here.
P.S. With the release of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album, many black folk and country musicians like Rhiannon Giddens and Tierra Kennedy, who had sprouted in the shadows are now blossoming center-stage. The music is here and it’s flourishing right here at home.
