Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain

by Grand Ole Opry

  “He started his sound-system business with two speakers and a mixing board and two microphones. He built it up from there and was trying to run it out of Kansas, which is not exactly the musical center of the universe. It was kind of hard, but we both looked at each other one day and said, ‘If we really want to pursue this in a big way, we really need to move [to Nashville]. So three months later [in 1990], we packed up everything in a long trailer and moved.

  “I always knew John would do well. He moved here with nothing and has really built up a huge company.”

  In Kansas, John had toured with such rock bands as Steppenwolf and Bad Company. In Nashville, he found work at once as a sound man and went on the road with Charlie Daniels, Ricky Van Shelton, and other country stars. Martina waited tables and bided her time. John soon built up his sound company to one of the most prominent in the U.S. touring industry, with his gear on the road with dozens of top stars. When John became Garth Brooks’s production manager on a 1991 tour, Martina went along to sell T-shirts.

  “It was an easy job,” she recalls with a chuckle. “I’m telling you what, when people hit that door, they were ready to BUY T-shirts and hats and all that stuff.”

  Back at home, John continued to badger Music Row and local clubs about his wife’s singing talent. Finally, he struck pay dirt.

  “I heard that they were looking for a new female artist at RCA,” recalls Martina. “I went and bought a big, bright purple envelope and put in the tape and a bio and a picture. At RCA they have this sign that says ‘No unsolicited material.’ That means that they don’t take anything that they haven’t requested. So—actually this was John’s idea—he took a big pen and wrote ‘Requested material’ on the envelope and dropped it off. And it got through! They called us about three weeks later, and then we did a live showcase for them.”

  RCA Records introduced her in 1992 with the singles “The Time Has Come,” “That’s Me,” and the devastating anti-alcohol ballad “Cheap Whiskey.” Martina sang its chilling lyrics with incendiary force. Her harmony vocalist was Garth Brooks, and when she went out on Garth’s 1992 tour, she graduated from merchandising to being the superstar’s opening act. Her powerful voice and striking song choices impressed more than a million fans on the road that year.

  “I get people in interviews who ask me all the time, ‘So they let you pick your own songs?’ I didn’t really know how things were done, so I just kind of barged in and said, ‘These are the songs I want to do.’ Maybe that kind of helped me.”

  “Martina picked those songs,” says her proud husband. “No one else picked them. She made all the decisions, because she’s got such a strong sense of what she wants.”

  “I was so concerned about being taken seriously,” Martina explains. “I didn’t want to be a fluffy ‘girl singer.’ I think the material that I pick is very strong-woman material.”

  Many of her hits have reflected her happy private life—1995’s “Safe in the Arms of Love” and “Wild Angels,” 1997’s “Valentine,” 1998’s “Happy Girl,” 1999’s “I Love You,” and 2001’s “Blessed.” But many others have striking, socially conscious lyrics, such as the 2002 anti–child abuse song “Concrete Angels,” “Anyway,” which Martina co-wrote, and her powerful anthems against domestic violence: “A Broken Wing” (1997) and, unforgettably, “Independence Day” (1994).

  “I love lyrics that ring true and that are honest. Something that kind of opens your eyes and opens your heart and makes you want to do something to make a difference. I think the songs I sing should stand for what I believe. I like to sing songs that portray people, and especially women, with dignity, strength, and respect.”

  Most of these songs were accompanied by striking videos. Martina’s luminous, ice-blue eyes and chestnut hair are highly photogenic. And everyone was struck by the larger-than-life voice coming from that petite 5-foot 4-inch, 100-pound frame. By 1993–1994, she was a star.

  The transition did not come easily for her. Offstage, Martina is a shy woman who doesn’t make small talk easily. Onstage, she gradually warmed to her audiences and began to relax. One recurring gag in the early days came when she’d introduce the guitar player in her band: “This guy and I slept together for about four years,” she’d say. “Then we got rooms of our own.” It was, of course, brother Marty Schiff, who remains in his sister’s band to this day.

  “I don’t feel comfortable talking about myself,” Martina comments about her reserved, introverted nature. “John is much more of a people person. We get in a cab, and I just sit back and look around. John’s like, ‘So how long have you been driving a cab? What’s going on?’ By the time we get to the hotel, he’s made fast friends with the cab driver. It’s amazing.

  “Sometimes we’ll go to a business dinner, and he’s kind of my secret weapon. He takes a lot of the pressure off of me.”

  On October 14, 1995, Martina was invited to be on the Grand Ole Opry on the night the show celebrated its seventieth birthday. No one told her that her time onstage was to be brief. She sang too long, which meant that the cast’s “Happy Birthday” singing couldn’t air on the televised portion of the show. When other stars criticized her, she burst into tears. Backstage, she was comforted by Jeanne Pruett.

  Nevertheless, Martina was invited to become a member of the Opry cast. On November 30, 1995, she was inducted by the legendary Loretta Lynn. Loretta has subsequently “adopted” Martina and taken her under her wing.

  “I love her,” says Martina of Loretta. “She’s amazing to me. What she’s done is opened herself up to me. I’ll find myself in a corner with her, and her just telling me all this stuff. Does she do this to everybody? I’ve got to remember it all. It’s unbelievable.

  “Becoming an Opry member was the most thrilling moment of my career. I’ll try to make the Opry proud and do my best to continue the tradition of country music and the tradition of the Opry.”

  Despite her increasing stardom, Martina retained her humility and stuck to her small-town values. Motherhood, not her career, is her main focus. Martina schedules her tours and her promotional appearances around her daughters’—Delaney, Emma, and Ava Rose—schooling and schedules.

  “That just seems to make the most sense to me. Being a good mom, that’s important, definitely. As long as you have that priority set, then it all just kind of takes care of itself. I feel like I’m successful and I’m happy. I don’t have a desire to be the world’s biggest superstar. I’m happy with my life just the way it is. I want to be able to go to the grocery store. I want to be able to raise my kids in a way that’s sane and normal.

  “I really wouldn’t want to have this immediate kind of superstardom that so many acts have. You’d have to put everything in your life aside, and I can’t do that. I have a family that I adore. I won’t make those sacrifices. I don’t care enough about being a big star to do that. I can’t imagine these people who can’t even walk down the street. I don’t have the desire to be on the cover of every magazine. Maybe I’m just lazy.”

  John disagrees. He says his wife’s career has been the result of determination, a solid work ethic, and a continuous drive for self-improvement. In 2005, Martina began producing her own records, a rarity for a woman in country music.

  “Martina is very, very hands-on,” says John. “Starting with her second album, she received a coproducer credit, and she took that very seriously. She did at least 50 percent of the work. Her ears are incredible. She hears better than anyone I know. She knows what she wants, and she’ll work and work and work until she gets what she wants.

  “Martina has really built her career the old-fashioned way. She came out with her first album, which did okay but not great overall. The second album, she had a little more radio success and a few more hits. The third album, she finally got her first number one. She’s really had to fight every inch of the way.

  “The first time that Martina received the Female Vocalist of the Year award [in 1999] was a magical, magical night. Of course, I fe
lt like she should have gotten it the previous five years in a row. As a matter of fact, I think I threatened that if she didn’t win, I was going to light myself on fire and run out of the auditorium. Thank God that never happened.”

  Martina was also named the Country Music Association (CMA) Female Vocalist of the Year in 2002, 2003, and 2004. She and her idol Reba McEntire are the only stars who have won this award four times. The two women costarred in the landmark, all-female country tour Girls’ Night Out in 2001, alongside Sara Evans, Jamie O’Neal, and Carolyn Dawn Johnson. It came about because of Martina’s experience on the road with female pop stars in the 1998 Lilith Fair tour. She approached Reba about creating something similar for country music’s women.

  “That Lilith Fair experience was life-changing for me,” says Martina. “I never knew a tour could be like that, with all that camaraderie. The whole vibe was really cool.” Girls’ Night Out was just as much fun, she reports.

  Behind the scenes, John’s star was rising just like his wife’s. He built Blackbird Studio and an accompanying equipment-rental business in Nashville. The facility is now one of the top studios in America, hosting sessions for country and pop stars alike. The complex also houses the McBrides’ song-publishing business. Naturally, Martina records there, with John engineering by her side.

  “My husband doesn’t do anything halfway,” says Martina. “He is passionate about audio. Blackbird Studio has a great vibe. It’s got a great energy about it that everybody comments on when they come to work here. It’s really palpable. You can just feel it when you walk in.”

  “They built a paradise where we all get to hang out and make music,” comments producer/guitarist Paul Worley. “John is there to help Martina and support her on the roller-coaster ride of being an artist. And she has been there for him as he’s built his own dream, this wonderful, wonderful studio. Kudos to them.

  “John and Martina, they’ve got the most wonderful relationship of any man and woman together I’ve ever seen. They both have huge dreams and huge lives. They pursue their dreams, and they don’t get in each other’s way. I hope it goes on forever.”

  “It’s an unconditional kind of love,” says Martina McBride. “It’s really rare. I feel lucky that I found it.”

  COINCIDENTALLY, THE OTHER MAJOR Opry star whose career is managed by her husband is Martina’s idol, Reba McEntire. And like John McBride, Reba’s husband, Narvel Blackstock, is an empire builder. The couple’s business interests have included real estate, song publishing, transportation, concert promotion, a clothing line, racehorses, and recording studios.

  Also like Martina, Reba is a product of small-town America, growing up near Chockie, Oklahoma. The community (population 754) is so small, it doesn’t even have a post office. Reba was raised on a 7,100-acre ranch to herd cattle and compete in rodeos. She was discovered singing at a rodeo and was signed to a Nashville recording contract in 1975, at age twenty.

  She married rodeo champion Charlie Battles in 1976, the year her first major-label single hit the charts. It took four long years of hard work before she scored her first top-ten hit and two more beyond that before she got her first number-one record.

  “I didn’t know absolutely anything when I came to Nashville,” says Reba. “I didn’t know what the music business was like. All I’d ever been associated with was ranchin’ and rodeoin’.”

  Reba listened and learned. In 1987–1988, she moved from Oklahoma to Nashville, fired her manager, divorced Charlie Battles, and took charge of her career. Steel guitarist and road manager Narvel Blackstock divorced his wife shortly afterward. He and Reba married on June 3, 1989. Son Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock was born on February 23, 1990.

  By then, Reba seemed to be at the top of her game. The CMA had voted her its Female Vocalist of the Year in 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1987. In 1986, she was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry and received the CMA’s Entertainer of the Year award. Reba’s Opry induction date was January 17, 1986.

  She was just beginning. Reba released a white-hot streak of hits in the 1990s. Her road show became one of the flashiest in country music, incorporating costume changes, choreography, elaborate sets, lighting effects, and video screens. She emoted powerfully in her music videos, which led to film and television acting roles.

  But tragedy struck on March 16, 1991. Reba’s band was killed when her leased jet crashed on takeoff after a concert in San Diego. Believing that work was the best healer, Reba sang on the Oscar telecast nine days later and resumed touring two weeks after the accident. She took roles in more feature films and television shows. By the end of the decade, she was said to be the most successful female artist in country-music history.

  Reba freely admits to being enterprising, determined, and devoted to her career: “I’m always greedy. I want to do more. I’m very competitive, very ambitious.”

  In 2001, the multimillion-selling redhead earned critics’ raves in the role of Annie Oakley in the Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun. She became a TV ratings champ, starring in her own situation comedy Reba in 2001–2007. Her return-to-music Reba Duets album of 2007 became yet another major success for her.

  “My one essential rule for survival is work hard,” says Reba McEntire. “When you’re done, continue to work hard. When you’re done with that, keep working hard.”

  19

  It Takes Two

  Grand Ole Opry hit maker Patty Loveless says her music isn’t hers alone.

  “I feel that the music I have done, Emory Gordy is as much a part of that music as I am,” states Patty. “That’s just the way I feel. He wouldn’t put it that way.”

  Emory Gordy Jr. is Patty Loveless’s producer. He is also the husband she kept secret from the public for nearly two years after they married. He is twelve years her senior and has a wealth of show-business experience and expertise. Emory was a member of Elvis Presley’s TCB band; toured with Emmylou Harris, Neil Diamond, and Rodney Crowell; produced successful records for dozens of stars; and is a former Music Row record-label executive.

  Emory plays bass, guitar, accordion, mandolin, piano, percussion, and organ and is also a string and/or horn arranger. He has performed as a studio instrumentalist for a staggering number of stars, ranging from Reba McEntire to John Denver to Billy Joel. Also an accomplished songwriter, he cowrote Martina McBride’s “Cheap Whiskey” and Wynonna’s “When I Reach the Place I’m Going,” among others, as well as 1969’s pop standard “Traces,” which has been recorded by more than fifty artists.

  Patty, born Patricia Lee Ramey in Pikeville, Kentucky, on January 4, 1957, began writing songs and performing locally as a young girl. At fourteen, she and her older brother Roger came to Nashville and were befriended by Opry great Porter Wagoner. Patty has fond memories of riding in the superstar’s tour bus and singing songs with him and his duet partner Dolly Parton. The three would gather on Dolly’s bed in her room in the back of the bus.

  “I’m probably the only guy in the world who spent the night in a bed with Dolly Parton and Patty Loveless,” laughed Porter. “Of course nothing happened. We just sang until we fell asleep.”

  The Opry duo The Wilburn Brothers also took an interest in Patty, signing her to their song-publishing company and taking her on the road as the female vocalist in their troupe. She replaced Loretta Lynn, who is her distant cousin. Patty worked for the Wilburns during her last three years of high school. She was sixteen years old when she first saw the man with whom she would eventually share her life and music.

  “I was working in a record store called Music Mart USA—Doyle Wilburn was a part owner of the business,” recalls Patty. “It used to be across the street from the Ryman Auditorium, on Fifth Avenue. I worked there part-time. Anyhow, through the store, I managed to get tickets to an Elvis concert. This was the first time I had gotten to see Elvis. I was really into Elvis, so I was very excited about seeing the concert.

  “I have to say that I did notice the musicians in the band. I noticed that they all dres
sed alike, in these jumpsuits. I thought the band was just awesome, and I was just really into the music. I do recall seeing Emory playing bass. But all that I remember is that his hair was shoulder length and that he was the bass player. That’s really all I noticed about him at the time. I also took notice of all the other artists who were there—directly behind me was Brenda Lee.”

  Emory Gordy was unaware that his future bride was in the audience at Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium on July 1, 1973. But he was delighted to learn that his schoolboy crush was in the crowd.

  “Brenda and I are the same age,” says Emory. “I grew up in Atlanta, and I can remember seeing her on TV Ranch on WAGA. I was only eight years old at the time, and I’ll never forget my mother saying, ‘You ought to marry that girl.’ Isn’t that something?”

  “He has mentioned that to me many times,” chuckles Patty. “And, actually, Brenda Lee and I have talked many times about it. I love her.”

  Emory’s “Traces” was recorded by Brenda Lee on her Johnny One Time LP in 1969, and he wound up coproducing Brenda’s superb Feels So Right album in 1984.

  While Emory was building his career as a songwriter, producer, and instrumentalist, Patty was taking a detour. Instead of pursuing her Grand Ole Opry contacts, she went in an opposite direction. After her high school graduation, she married a drummer and moved to North Carolina. For the next eight years, she fronted rock bands.

  Around 1983, she resumed writing country songs. In 1985, brother Roger took a tape of her tunes to producer Tony Brown.

  “Roger convinced Tony Brown that he had the best girl singer in the whole town of Nashville,” laughs Patty. “Roger can sell ice to the Eskimos.

  “So I was going to my meeting with Tony. I was going to go in and sing a couple of songs that I had written. I was on my way to his office in the elevator. Emory was in the elevator, and he was dressed very casually, in a pair of white overalls. He was looking at me, and I was looking at him. His thoughts were, ‘That mousy little thing is an artist?’ I was looking at him, going, ‘This is a producer?’ I still have those white overalls! They’re pretty messed up, but I have them.