Radio is a precarious business, as those who’ve worked in it know. Stations change ownership, formats, and DJs like pawns in a game. WSM-AM, Nashville’s iconic country music broadcaster, has defied the odds, turning 100 years old on Sunday. At a gala edition of the Grand Ole Opry, an Americana-leaning roster of country artists and a special cast of beloved radio hosts celebrated WSM’s virtually seamless connection to the station’s inception on the evening of October 5, 1925.
“I’m still overwhelmed at times like this to be part of this institution,” said Bill Cody, a veteran of more than 30 years as WSM’s morning host. As he regularly does, he called announcing the Opry his “dream job.” Similar sentiments came from a parade of announcers who took turns hosting the night’s artist segments, including alumni Keith Bilbrey, Kyle Cantrell, and Chuck Morgan, plus current hosts Mike Terry and Kelly Sutton, the Opry’s first-ever female emcee. A video presentation depicted out a centenary of podium paragons, celebrating original Opry host and founder George D. Hay, plus luminaries such as Ott Devine, Grant Turner, Ralph Emery, and Eddie Stubbs.
As for the music, the Opry felt charged up and tuned in to the past and future of authentic country music, as is its mission. They opened with bluegrass and the high, clear voices of Dailey & Vincent. With friend and legend Vince Gill casually sitting in on mandolin, the group played “Rolling In My Sweet Baby’s Arms” from the Flatt & Scruggs repertoire and “Ruby” in honor of the Osborne Brothers. Such salutes became the night’s theme.
Ketch Secor played “Old Man River” from his new solo album, a song cycle about his journey to and through Nashville and country music with his band Old Crow Medicine Show. Then he tipped his hat (literally) to Fiddlin’ Sid Harkreader, one of Opry’s early string band stars, playing “New River Train” on a fiddle that belonged to Roy Acuff. He closed with a song that gets maligned for being overplayed and over-requested by cover bands and their patrons. But “Wagon Wheel” never sounded so sweet or rousing, a genuine togetherness moment made possible by that easy-to-love anthem.
Chris Scruggs, a contemporary hero to fans of classic country music’s lore and sound, has played the Opry before, but he said that this was the first time as leader of his Stone Fox Five band, a honky tonk outfit that’s held down various residency gigs since the 2010s. He celebrated Ernest Tubb, letting fiddler Billy Contreras go to town on a hard-swinging “Nails In My Coffin.” Scruggs invited Chuck Mead out to sing a Tubb-penned song made popular by Carl Smith, “Don’t Just Stand There,” and Chuck flipped his acoustic over to reveal a big white THANKS on the back. It was an instrument owned by Tubb himself.
The first of two sets ended with a solo forest fire ignited by acoustic guitarist Tommy Emmanuel who played dazzling instrumentals.
In a few weeks, on Nov. 28, the Opry will celebrate its own centenary of the first night Uncle Jimmy Thompson played fiddle on a Saturday night show in 1925, and there are many “Opry 100” performances between now and then. But on Sunday, the focus was on the station, which launched as a public service of the National Life & Accident Insurance Company. Well funded and professionally run, it achieved landmarks one by one, such as landing on the NBC network in 1928, securing a clear-channel 50,000 watt license in 1932, and spawning Nashville’s first serious recording studio in the 1940s. The Opry audience experienced a video about the WSM tower on Concord Road, which has been in continuous use since it was installed in 1932.
The second segment was as country and as soulful as the first, with sets by Elizabeth Cook (who saluted the late Jeannie Seely with “Don’t Touch Me”) and Chuck Mead, including their nod to Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn on the suggestive 1971 song “Pickin’ Wild Mountain Berries.” Mississippi native Charlie Worsham sang “Country Boy” on behalf of Little Jimmy Dickens. And Pam Tillis closed the night with “Burning Memories” to evoke her late father Mel and her own hit “Shake The Sugar Tree” before the curtain fell.
During the day running up to the Opry, WSM held a staff alumni reunion and carried live conversations with a variety of station friends and family. I was pleased to speak for a few minutes with General Manager Eric Marcum about my book Air Castle of the South. The historic preservation-themed session also included Shannon Lynn of Little Rock, AR, who is currently digitizing hundreds of recordings from all manner of media in the WSM archives. Some of that tape, including Johnny Cash’s first appearance on the Opry in 1956, was aired throughout the day as well.
