by Colin Escott
Stringbean
GRANDPA JONES, Opry star:
The next morning, I was all packed for hunting and went over to pick up String. As I drove up the lane, I thought I saw a coat lying about seventy-five yards in front of the house. When I got closer, I saw it was a person. I stopped the car and went over. It was Estelle; she had been shot in the back and in the head. I felt her, and she was cold. I rushed to their little house and hollered for String. His banjo he had played the night before was sitting on its side on the little porch. I opened the screen. The other door was already open. String was lying in front of the fireplace. Shot in the chest. The phone had been pulled off the wall, so I jumped in my car, drove to my house and called the Metro Police Homicide Division.
Stringbean had come home to find the robbery in progress and entered his house shooting.
BILL HANCE, journalist, in the Nashville Banner:
Stringbean was shot once and fell dead in the living room. Police said Estelle attempted to flee but was gunned down about forty yards away, near a wooden cattle guard. The couple had lived on the farm 17 years and were extremely happy and content living the simple life. They could have had more, but didn’t want more. Stringbean never drove a car; his wife did all the driving. Roy Acuff stood staring at the little house where his longtime friend had been a shot a few hours earlier. “You know,” he said, “String would sit in that chair over there and be content for hours just to look up at the top of the mountain watching the birds, squirrels, and rabbits. I’ll tell you what the trouble is, the damn laws are too lax. The judges are too lenient with criminals, and because of this the country is unsafe.”
There had been rumors that Stringbean didn’t believe in banks and kept a large amount of cash in his home, but the thieves found nothing, nor did the police. John A. Brown and Marvin Douglas Brown were charged, and in October 1974, they were convicted of Stringbean’s and Estelle’s murders. In 1996, twenty thousand dollars in cash was discovered behind a brick in the chimney of the Akemans’ home. Marvin Brown died in jail in 2003, and John Brown was denied parole that year.
Lawlessness, civil rights, and Vietnam were just some of the issues that divided the nation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. “Women’s lib,” as it was called at the time, was another. Tammy Wynette’s 1968 hit, “Stand by Your Man,” became a polarizing record. Tammy, who had five husbands, might not have stood by her men for very long, but she certainly gave voice to those who did. When she sang her song on the Opry stage, she was speaking for millions of women who weren’t burning their bras, and for their husbands, who weren’t burning their draft cards. Even so, the Opry had to confront the issues raised by the women’s movement. Change would be subtle and measured, but it would come.
Loretta Lynn: 1962
Patsy Cline had changed the way women dressed on the show, and some of her songs hinted at a sexuality that might have shocked or surprised earlier generations of Oprygoers, but Patsy didn’t live to see her protégé, Loretta Lynn, address burning social issues head-on. Loretta not only saw a lot of changes on the Opry and in the entertainment business, but ushered in some of them. Newly signed to Decca Records in 1960, she was billed as the “Decca Doll from Kentucky,” but within a few years no one would ever be billed like that again. In 1966, at the Third Annual Conference on the Status of Women in Washington, D.C., the National Organization for Women was formed to campaign for equal rights. Two years later, protesters demonstrated in front of the Miss America pageant. Loretta, though, brought controversial issues down to a personal, nuts-and-bolts level, allowing her listeners to make up their own minds.
left: Ernest Tubb’s Midnite Jamboree would often take a chance on untested artists, such as Loretta Lynn. Loretta Lynn: “Ernest had his choice of women singers when he did a duet album, but he chose me after I’d had just a couple of hits. He said I was an ‘honest country performer who sang with heart and soul.’ ” Loretta first appeared on the Midnite Jamboree promoting her first record on September 17, 1960.
right: Ott Devine breaks the news to Loretta Lynn that she’s a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Minnie Pearl: “It was a man’s world when I came here, and it was a man’s world when Miss Kitty and Loretta came in, but Loretta battered down those barriers.”
EMMYLOU HARRIS:
Well you know she lived it, and she told it like it was. When she was upset with her husband, she’d write “Fist City.” When she was tired of having babies, she [sang] “The Pill,” and she just wrote with just such honesty, but there wasn’t any real anger. You can almost visualize her voice. Her head almost visualizes itself coming out of your car radio. There’s so much presence in her voice. Loretta and Kitty Wells may not have wanted to call themselves feminists, but I think that they were what feminists would hope to be, which is your own woman. Totally comfortable in their own skin, and not giving a hang what anybody else thinks.
LORETTA LYNN:
I wasn’t trying to change anything. I was just singing how I felt about things. I like to be on the woman’s side, but I never went out to put a man down.
Dolly Parton: January 1969
Dolly Parton left a hardscrabble life in Sevierville, Tennessee, immediately after graduation in 1964, and came to Nashville. She’d already guested on the Opry and made a few records, but her early years in Nashville would have sent anyone less resilient back home. Then, in 1967, Opry star Porter Wagoner made her a regular on his syndicated television show and got her on RCA. By the time she joined the Opry in 1969, she was portraying female sexuality in a more daring way, and getting away with it because she lampooned it at the same time. And just as Loretta augmented her exposure on the Opry with appearances on the Wilburn Brothers’ syndicated television show, so Dolly used her appearances on the Opry and Porter’s show as a springboard to success.
The number of women on the Opry grew steadily. In came Dottie West, Jan Howard, Skeeter Davis, Connie Smith, Barbara Mandrell, and Jeannie Seely. Before long, they were asking why women never hosted Opry segments.
Dolly and Porter on the Porter Wagoner Show. Dolly Parton first hit the Billboard charts with the song “Dumb Blonde,” and then proceeded to show the world she is anything but.
BARBARA MANDRELL:
When I was asked to become a member I asked the question, “What must one do to be able to host a segment of the Opry?” and I was told, “You must have gained enough status and you must be a man.”
JEANNIE SEELY:
It never made any sense to me that a woman couldn’t host a segment of the show. The first Opry manager to want to change that was Bob Whittaker. He said, “We’re wasting fifty percent of our artist pool.” I used to go up to Bob’s predecessor, Hal Durham, and I’d say, “I know you’ve told me before why women can’t host, but won’t you tell me one more time.” He’d rock from side to side and jingle his change and say, “It’s tradition, Jeannie.” I’d say, “Oh, it’s tradition. It just feels like discrimination.” Back then, they’d introduce women onstage with “Here’s a cute little girl, got on a pretty little outfit, put your hands together and make her feel welcome . . .” An introduction is when you tell the people about the person you’re introducing. Something they can relate to. They’d never mention that I’d won a Grammy. Just “Here’s a cute little girl, got on a pretty little outfit.” As far as dress goes, Patsy changed things a little. She got rid of the cotton ruffles. Dottie West hedged a little. She wore the cotton ruffles, but she put some sequins on them. I’d never seen the Opry before I appeared on it, and I came from Southern California where everyone was wearing miniskirts.
Jeannie Seely, 1968.
There were some holdouts, of course, but most men on the Opry eventually came to see that things had changed irrevocably, and embraced those changes. On the occasion of the Opry’s sixtieth birthday in 1985, a television special featured an all-woman segment, but most of the women on the Opry didn’t want all-woman segments. Just parity.
Dottie West chats with Opry manager Bu
d Wendell, 1968.
13
OPRYLAND
The generation that had grown up with the Grand Ole Opry returned to it, perhaps, as Minnie Pearl said, because it represented a refuge from the music, social unrest, and divisive politics of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Opry attendance rose, but in the years after National Life bought the Ryman Auditorium, the building’s shortcomings became increasingly apparent, especially as people became accustomed to air-conditioning. Moreover, Nashville’s downtown core was disintegrating.
The Shield News, July 22, 1970.
JACK HURST, journalist, in the Tennessean:
In 1971, for the first time, the Opry’s attendance rose above 400,000. “I’d like to remind the Chamber of Commerce that the Opry crowd is Nashville’s biggest convention of the year, and it happens every weekend,” said Bud Wendell. He said that over the past five years the Opry’s annual attendance has risen consistently at a rate of 6% a year.
The Tennessean, October 14, 1973:
Eighty-eight percent of the persons polled indicated that the Grand Ole Opry was the main reason for their coming to Nashville. 63.2 percent say that it’s “very likely” they will visit the Opry again. Asked “How would you rate the auditorium where you saw the Grand Ole Opry?” over 40 percent called the Opry House “poor” and another 31 percent said “only fair.”
BILL ANDERSON:
The area around the Ryman had gotten really seedy. It had gone downhill pretty far pretty fast. The Ryman itself was in a terrible state of repair and the porno businesses had moved into Lower Broadway. You didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time in that part of town.
BUD WENDELL:
I’ve always felt that the Johnny Cash television show [filmed at the Ryman for ABC-TV, 1969–1971] was really the start of Nashville as a tourist destination. So all of a sudden we found ourselves just inundated at the Ryman. The Opry had always had good, strong attendance, but all of a sudden it was just inundated with people wanting to come in: ticket requests, tour operators, and that whole thing. At the same time, downtown Nashville deteriorated. We were having shootings across the street. Where the convention center is now, there was a string of bars. Panhandlers harassed the people in line for the shows. The major retail businesses had left downtown and we had the same problems as many urban centers were having at that time. Well, here we are, owned by an insurance company; very sensitive to its public image. So, they said to us, “If the Opry is going to continue, we have to find a new home for it.” We sensed that there was a real opportunity for major television exposure if we had first-class television production facilities, but we also realized that we had all these people coming down to see the Opry; coming from an average of 450 miles. Well, we had to have a hotel to take care of some of these people who’ve come these great distances, because they’re going to spend the night.
Shortly after an initial decision in favor of a hotel and park, there were gasoline shortages.
BUD WENDELL:
National Life was a little timid about going ahead with plans for the hotel. They said, “If people can’t drive 450 miles they’re not going to need this hotel. We’ve already got the park, so we’re stuck with it.” We put the hotel on hold, but as those energy problems and gasoline shortage problems eased, we went ahead with our plans on the hotel and finally convinced ourselves that more people would come to the park than we anticipated, so we could build as much as a six-hundred-room hotel. I hired Jack Vaughn to develop that property. He said, “You all are going the wrong direction. You’re talking about building overnight motel accommodations. There’s an opportunity for Nashville to become a convention destination and instead of building this motel that charges $49.99 a night, we could build a major convention facility, attract organizations, build major exhibit space, and make Nashville a real convention destination.” He convinced us of that and he said, “We need to build one thousand rooms.” The insurance company, which had never been in this business before, said, “Whoa! No way are we going to build one thousand rooms, but we’ll let you build the six hundred rooms and overbuild the exhibit areas and the restaurant space, the retail area and the public areas,” so that we could eventually add the four hundred rooms. But with the six hundred rooms it got to be so successful that we had to add more ballrooms and more exhibit space, so to that extent the plan didn’t work out. Then we added another thousand rooms and then another thousand rooms. The whole plan worked very nicely because we got the Opry House built and open and we were able to utilize all of those wonderful television facilities at a time when the networks still had prime-time variety shows, entertainment shows and all of those specials. There was still wonderful exposure for the artists in Nashville, Tennessee, but it also gave us a wonderful facility for the CMA awards show.
WSM press release, July 1, 1970:
Ground was broken yesterday—with a mule and a plow—for construction of the Grand Ole Opry’s new home in the Pennington Bend area. The late Edwin Craig, longtime head of National Life and founder of the Opry [who had died on June 26, 1969], was honored at the ceremony, as were the stars of the Opry, both living and dead. The $25 million entertainment center which will occupy 369 acres along the Cumberland River is scheduled for opening in the spring of 1972. The seating in the new Opry House will be 50% bigger, increasing from 3,000 seats to 4,400.
IRVING WAUGH, WSM president:
The Opry House wound up costing fifteen million dollars instead of the five million we’d projected. If we’d known that at the beginning, we would never have done it. I’ve got this to say about National Life, though: while waves of nausea swept over [president] Bill Weaver at times, he backed us all the way.
The rides and attractions of Opryland USA opened in May 1972. In January 1974, Bud Wendell became vice president of WSM and the Grand Ole Opry and appointed former Opry announcer Hal Durham as Opry manager. Durham oversaw the move from the Ryman to the new Grand Ole Opry House on March 15 and 16, 1974.
WSM press release, January 22, 1974:
The grand opening and first performance of the Grand Ole Opry in WSM’s new $15 million Opry house will take place March 16 before a capacity audience of regular Opry fans and music industry, civic, business, and government notables from across the nation. The last Saturday evening performance of the Grand Ole Opry in the 84-year-old Ryman Auditorium, will be March 9, and the last Friday evening performance will be March 15. The new 4,400-seat air-conditioned Opry house has been under construction since November 12, 1971. It is the world’s largest broadcasting studio. It will be the first building to house the Opry that was specifically designed and built for the 48-year-old radio show. The new Opry house has the world’s most advanced acoustical and lighting systems, 12 dressing rooms, a band rehearsal room, and more than 12,000 feet of storage space. Television shows can be produced in the auditorium or in the separate television production studio that has a seating capacity of 250. The new Opry house is the centerpiece of Opryland U.S.A., National Life and Accident’s $26 million “theme” park.
The new Grand Ole Opry House, September 1974.
BASHFUL BROTHER OSWALD:
We was all hatin’ to leave. Roy Acuff figured it would be better to be out at Opryland. He said, “Boys, you’re gonna like it out there,” and they didn’t all believe him. He said it would keep growing and be bigger all the time. He said, “Opryland will draw a lot of people to the Opry.” But the Ryman had the best sound of anywhere I’ve ever played in my life. Course it didn’t have no dressin’ rooms or anything, but that was all right. Saturday nights, I couldn’t wait to get down there and see all the boys. You’d go backstage and you’d talk. Someone would say, “I didn’t make any money last week out on the road,” and someone else would say, “Now I made a little. I’ll let you have some.” They don’t do that now.
GRANT TURNER:
The Opry is like an old department store with the stuff stacked in the aisles. You can move it to a nice new building, but will the people still c
ome? Nobody goes to a building, you know.
BARBARA MANDRELL:
I’m so very thankful I became a member of the Opry just before we moved into the big, beautiful Opry House. At the Ryman, the girls had the restroom as a dressing room. Here were these huge stars . . . Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn . . . sitting on toilets and visiting. We would all be perspiring so bad; it was so hot in there. But we were full of love and passion for our music and the people who would come to see us.
left: The last night in the hot, crowded Ryman Auditorium.
right: Bashful Brother Oswald consoles Minnie Pearl after her last performance on the Ryman stage. Minnie Pearl: “I’ve tried to be so bright because I know the audience will be so happy in the new home. Then tonight I was dressing and I had the radio on, and they started talking about this being the last Saturday, and all of a sudden I was just
JEANNIE SEELY:
Oh, it was ungodly hot in the summer. One night, I guess it was August, I’d rolled my hair, fixed my makeup, and I walked down the ramp, and, with the humidity and the perspiration, I could feel my hair flattening and my makeup running. I was mad as hell. I stopped just short of the stage, and I said, “I’ve found out who you have to screw to get on the Grand Ole Opry, now who do you have to screw to get off?” But we all got to know each other. You’d bring a minimum of stuff with you ’cause there was just no room, and you’d share stuff. The bond between the Opry artists might never have been formed this closely if we hadn’t been in the Ryman. It was like a big family in a little house.