Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain

by Grand Ole Opry

  “The Rest of Mine” went on to become one of the great country wedding anthems. Many others have since used it in nuptial ceremonies.

  As a gag, Trace had his management company send Rhonda’s parents a concert contract and a $7,500 bill for performing “The Rest of Mine” at the wedding. “I ain’t cheap, baby,” he remarked at the time. “I still haven’t been paid,” he wisecracks now.

  Trace and Rhonda have three daughters—Mackenzie, born in 1998, Brianna, born in 2001, and Trinity, born in 2004. Counting Rhonda and his two older daughters, Trace is surrounded by six females at home.

  “I was really hoping for a son, but not for the reasons everybody might think. I’d just like to have somebody that I can boss around. I’ve got a girl who just looks at me when I tell her to do something. What do you do with that? I’m 6-feet 6-inches, and I’m completely defenseless!

  “I don’t call the shots at my house. And when we go to the mall, I’m just the pack mule, there to carry the credit card and all the stuff that they’re buying. I work up a lather by the end of the shopping trip.”

  Trace wasn’t home all that much during the early years of his Nashville career. Hits such as “I Left Something Turned on at Home,” “Lonely Won’t Leave Me Alone,” and “More” led to ever-increasing concert bookings. He won the 1997 Top New Male Vocalist award from the Academy of Country Music. He picked up even more steam with raucous, party-hearty hits like “Hot Mama” (2003), “Rough and Ready” (2004), and “Ladies Love Country Boys” (2006). His macho bass-baritone is deep and sonorous enough to rattle window glass, and onstage he has the physical charisma to match it. Trace often punctuates his shows with hip-swiveling dance moves on the up-tempo numbers.

  Offstage, Trace finally confronted the fact that he had an alcohol problem. In one way or another, the bottle had been behind most of his trips to the emergency room and most of the scars on his body. Following an intervention staged by Rhonda, his manager, and others, in December 2002 he entered a treatment facility.

  “The whole first week I was there, I was like, ‘It’s come to this. I’ve been institutionalized.’ But then after about a week or so, my head cleared up.

  “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. Everything’s going so great it’s a little scary, actually. You can buy into the whole ‘one-day-at-a-time’ philosophy. It really is easier if you do it that way. You just wake up in the morning and go, ‘Well, I don’t think I’ll drink today.’ And every day is ‘today.’

  “I thought I was a smart alcoholic. I didn’t do shows plastered. I didn’t drink at music-industry functions. I was an isolationist. I would get away from everybody for two or three days.

  “Quitting was easier than I anticipated it being. And I’m not patting myself on the back, because I’ve abstained for long degrees of time in the past, just to prove to myself that I could. But it feels different now.”

  Since his sobriety, Trace Adkins has become even more popular. His shows are routinely sold out. His Dreamin’ Out Loud, Comin’ on Strong, and Greatest Hits Vol. 1 albums are now all platinum records, and Songs About Me, which contains “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” is a double-platinum disc.

  Since Trace Adkins is country music’s tallest male star, he was memorably asked to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry cast by its shortest, Jimmy Dickens. On June 14, 2003, the 4-foot 11-inch Jimmy climbed a small stepladder on the Opry stage in order to be eye-to-eye with Trace.

  “I have a very serious question for you,” said Jimmy. “Just how bad would you like to become a member of our Grand Ole Opry family?”

  Trace placed his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder and replied, “I want it bad.”

  “I asked for Ronnie Milsap to induct me,” says Trace. “He’s one of my heroes, somebody that I’ve looked up to and wanted to kind of emulate. I’ve said it jokingly many times, but it’s true, I came to Nashville to make Ronnie Milsap records. I just always loved the way Ronnie incorporated all different styles on the records he made. You get one of his records, and he hits you with this stone-country ballad. And then the next thing would be something he might do with The Pointer Sisters. You just didn’t know what was coming. What a great roller-coaster ride his records are.

  “I’ve been influenced by all kinds of music, too. And that’s kind of what I’d like to do. If I want to do an R&B tune, I’ll do it. If I want to sing the blues, I’ll sing the blues. If I want to rock, I’ll do it.”

  On August 23, 2003, Ronnie Milsap introduced Trace Adkins as the newest member of the show’s cast. “I feel like I’m king of the world tonight,” said a grateful Trace. Jimmy Dickens carried Trace’s guitar onto the stage, a reference to a remark Trace had made to a reporter that he’d be happy to do anything the Opry asked him to do, even if it meant cleaning Porter Wagoner’s dressing room or carrying Jimmy’s guitar.

  “I still see Jimmy in the Home Depot every now and then,” he chuckles. “And I’ll offer to pick him up so he can see what’s on the shelf.

  “I just love the Opry. I love the spirit of the place. I like the people out there, the camaraderie, the family atmosphere. I just like everything about it.

  “It’s kind of hard to explain. But I can tell you this: I’ve probably played the Opry seventy times, if not more. And I’ve never had a bad experience out there. It’s not the time that I spend onstage that’s the most special to me. It’s the time that I’m backstage getting to hang out with the legends and rubbing shoulders with those men and women.

  “The kids go with me quite often. That kind of worries me a little bit. I grew up listening to the Opry and then watching it on television on Saturday nights. I never would have allowed myself to dream that I would ever get to walk out on that stage. And now my kids are growing up backstage at the Opry. I’m thinking, ‘How weird are they going to be?’ They’re totally comfortable when they’re there. All kids love Jimmy, because he’s their size.”

  TRACE ISN’T THE OPRY’S only star who has been romantic on the show’s stage. In 1996, his little buddy Jimmy Dickens renewed wedding vows with his wife Mona on that same stage. The romantic gesture was in celebration of their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

  Born December 19, 1920, James Cecil Dickens was the oldest of thirteen children of a poor West Virginia farmer. Captivated by mountain music at an early age, he dreamed of becoming a country singer.

  “All my people were coal miners, but I never wanted to go into the mines,” says Jimmy. “From my childhood on, I always wanted to be an entertainer. And I set out to do that early on, while I was still in high school. I was getting on every show that I could get on or an amateur contest or whatever. I knew I wanted to be in country music some way.”

  After apprenticing on West Virginia radio stations, Jimmy began headlining on various stations in the Midwest. He credits Roy Acuff for his breakthrough in Nashville.

  “Mr. Acuff and I became friends when I was working at WLW in Cincinnati. I was doing an early-morning program there in 1945, and Mr. Acuff came to Cincinnati for a concert. I got backstage and was telling him that I was in radio. He said, ‘Would you like to do a song on the show?’ I had my guitar with me, just in case he asked. I did a number and encored, and Mr. Acuff talked about that for ages, about me stealing the show from him. But he liked what I did.

  “Then later on in 1948 I was in Saginaw, Michigan, working at WKNX, and he came there in concert. I opened the show for him that day. It was in February, and it was awfully cold. He said, ‘What are you doing in this cold country?’ I said, ‘It’s a job. I’m making a living.’ Then he mentioned if I would like to come to the Grand Ole Opry. Of course, this was a dream for me. A month or so later I got a call from WSM. I came in and did a guest spot on the Red Foley show. Went on back to my job in Michigan and a month or so later I got another call to come back and do another guest appearance.

  “The second time I came, Mr. Acuff said, ‘We are just gonna keep you here on a trial basis. I’ll use you on my program and so
forth.’ So I moved down here to Nashville. I stayed at Roy Acuff’s house for the first six months. Mr. Acuff was responsible for basically everything I ever did in country music. He was my advisor, teaching me the do’s and don’ts. I tried to do the things that Mr. Acuff taught me.”

  Jimmy Dickens became an Opry cast member on November 6, 1948. His Opry appearances led to a contract with Columbia Records, which was Roy Acuff’s label as well. “Take an Old Cold Tater and Wait” hit the charts in 1949. The energetic novelty tune set his style and led to his nickname, “Tater.” He followed it with the bouncy “Country Boy,” the first hit written by future Country Music Hall of Fame members Boudleaux and Felice Bryant.

  In addition to launching the Bryants, Jimmy Dickens is responsible for a number of other breakthroughs in country music. He was the first Opry star to sport the flashy rhinestone stage attire that gave country music its classic look. Jimmy recalls that his first such suit, designed by Nudie the Rodeo Tailor, was mustard yellow with horseshoe-shaped pockets outlined with green stitching, and his initials were embroidered on the shirt’s bib.

  The twin electric-guitar leads by his band members Jabbo Arrington and Grady Martin on his hot, brash, up-tempo hits of the 1950s made Jimmy a forerunner of the rockabilly movement. Grady later became a top Nashville session musician. Jimmy also discovered Opry star Marty Robbins. In the spring of 1964, Jimmy Dickens became the first country star to circle the globe on tour.

  “It was all American military installations, all over the world,” Jimmy recalls. “Hawaii, Tokyo, Okinawa, Tai Pai, Bangkok, Vietnam, and from there to Copenhagen, Denmark, and Istanbul, Turkey, and from there over to Germany, Italy, and Spain. It was educational for me. The greatest audiences I think I ever worked to were those people. I was in Saigon at Christmastime, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bunch of guys so happy to see an American entertainer.”

  Jimmy achieved fame way beyond country music’s audience, thanks to “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose,” a 1965 novelty tune that crossed over to the pop-music hit parade.

  “Boy, I have never been so surprised by a hit record,” says Jimmy of his most famous number. “I just thought it would be a good piece for my stage show. [Neal Merritt] had put a melody to an old comic poem. Hap Wilson and I had been friends for years. He brought the tape to the studio and asked me to take five minutes to listen to it. We went back in the studio and ran it down. On the first take, we got it.

  “Johnny Carson had been kicking that phrase around on The Tonight Show. So I wound up singing ‘May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose’ on the Carson show.

  “I got branded with that novelty material after ‘Old Cold Tater.’ But I did a lot of ballads that kind of got lost. In my shows, I’d always do both.”

  In fact, his most requested number is his 1970 tear-jerking, lump-in-throat recitation “Raggedy Ann.” Jimmy also introduced such serious evergreens as “Life Turned Her That Way,” “We Could,” “Farewell Party,” “The Violet and the Rose,” and “Take Me as I Am.”

  Jimmy Dickens entered the Country Music Hall of Fame on October 10, 1983. He retired from the concert trail on November 29, 1997, after a performance in Columbia, South Carolina. He celebrated his fiftieth anniversary as an Opry star on November 7, 1998.

  “I’d play the Opry for free,” says Jimmy Dickens with a chuckle, “and in the beginning, it was as close to playing for free as you can get!”

  18

  Small-Town Gals

  Every marriage is a partnership, but Martina McBride’s is something more.

  Martina’s husband John McBride is her sound engineer, both in the studio and on the road. He also comanages his wife’s career (along with the Canadian Bruce Allen). He is her constant companion and biggest cheerleader. They live together, work together, raise children together, and tour together.

  “We’ve always had a relationship where we have been able to relate on a lot of different levels,” comments Martina. “I think it surprises a lot of people. I don’t think a lot of people really understand it until they see us together.

  “John and I have a great sense of respect for each other. I really respect his talent, and he respects my talent. We have different talents, but they complement each other. We spend every day together in the studio making a record, and we go home. We’re just together a lot.

  “He’s the one person I can trust to be really honest with me. He doesn’t try to butter me up or pat me on the back. I mean, he gives me praise when things are good, but I need somebody to give me the bottom line.

  “He’s my favorite person in the world to be with. He has such great instincts. Really, he’s just amazingly talented. . . . He’s wonderful.

  “John is actually probably a bigger music lover than I am,” Martina adds. “I like quiet. I’m like, ‘Turn that radio off. Let’s have some peace and quiet around here.’ He just lives, eats, and breathes music. He approaches it from a real heartfelt place. Whereas I’m probably a little more clinical when it comes to my producing. So it’s a really great combination.

  “His enthusiasm is priceless. He just immerses himself in everything he does. That’s the way he is. So we are very different, but it ends up working out.”

  “It’s interesting,” agrees John McBride. “Martina and I work together, and we spend a lot of time together. I hope I can give her a comfort level in the studio, do a great job for her that makes her happy, so that she doesn’t have to think about anything except making music.

  “She is the best friend and the best partner I could ever have. No question about it. She’s the most stable, rational person I’ve ever met in my life, which drives me insane. I’m a wreck, normally. I’m a passionate guy, and I burn a little hot.

  “Martina’s not nearly as competitive as I am. She doesn’t worry about awards and how many records she sells. She just loves music. She loves singing and performing, and that’s why she does this. I am the more competitive one. I worry about it more than she does.

  “The longer we’re together, I’m thinking I’m getting a little more like her, and she’s getting a little more like me. We’re able to do this work together.”

  John is eight years older than his wife. In the beginning of their relationship, he was the “big-city sophisticate” living in Wichita, Kansas, a town of 300,000. Martina, by contrast, hails from tiny Sharon, Kansas, population 250. Her high school graduating class contained ten of the town’s residents.

  “We grew up on a farm. There was nothing to do. We had three channels on the TV, one of which was fuzzy, so we had two channels. No video games. No running down to the Quick Trip or the convenience store. No playing with neighborhood kids. It was just us, really. We’d come home from school, and we were isolated on the farm. So we always had musical instruments. Our playtime was sitting around making music and singing and playing together.

  “The Shiffters were a band that my dad had ever since I can remember. There was always rehearsing in the living room and music around us all the time. I started singing in the band when I was about seven years old. We would play wedding dances, VFWs, American Legion halls, and things like that.

  “It was our family thing to do. My mom ran the soundboard. My dad played guitar and sang. I played keyboard. My brother played guitar. We worked our way up to where we were playing four-hour dances every Saturday night. It was just a lot of fun. I did that all through, until I graduated from high school.

  “I was singing Reba McEntire, Juice Newton, Patsy Cline, Jeanne Pruett, Connie Smith. My dad would teach me the [country] standards, and then I would pick up whatever song was on the radio. Linda Ronstadt—I was a big fan of hers. The area where I’m from is pretty rural, so country music wasn’t uncool at all.

  “I was always encouraged, had a real optimistic outlook and always believed this could happen if I was in the right place at the right time. I was raised to believe in myself. It was pretty ideal.”

  There was never any question in Martina
’s mind that she wanted to make music her profession. After graduating high school, she moved to Wichita, where she sang in a rock band called The Penetrators. Martina was so innocent, she didn’t grasp the sexual innuendo of the group’s name.

  “I was pretty naïve. I went to a big city and realized that you can’t trust everybody. You have to lock your doors, and everybody isn’t always what they say they are. It was real new for me, because where I was from, everybody knew everybody. Everything was so down to earth. So I guess we were real sheltered.

  “Most of what I remember about those days is traveling around in a van with a hole in the floor and having no money. I’d go into these little dives and scream my head off singing Pat Benatar. It was a good experience, but I don’t miss it at all.”

  She formed a second band called Lotus, driving them around in a converted ambulance.

  “She was trying to put together a band to travel around,” recalls John McBride. “That’s when we met. I had a rehearsal hall, and she rented it. Of course, she didn’t pay me, so I had to track her down.”

  She didn’t pay because she couldn’t. The band was falling apart. Martina began telling her troubles to John, who was living in the warehouse rehearsal hall. To her shock, she realized she was falling in love with him.

  “Here I was, crying on his shoulder about my band not coming together, and I thought, ‘I’m in love with this guy. This is crazy. He lives in a warehouse.’”

  After taking time off to heal her rock-ravaged vocal chords, Martina returned to singing country music. She and John married on May 15, 1988. Their romance began the couple’s round-the-clock togetherness.

  “Actually, I can’t imagine it being any other way,” says Martina. “I mean, for us it’s real natural. We both live, eat, and breathe the music business. For a long time, I never thought I would get married, because I didn’t think I could ever find anybody that was so involved and supportive, and could understand what this business is all about, all the traveling and everything. But when I found John, it just clicked. We’re just like a really great team.