Dreaming Out Loud

by Bruce Feiler

  When Wynonna opened her mouth, though, the voice that came was not the powerful vibrato she had been using for much of the previous hour. There was none of the lustiness of Aretha or the purity of Dolly. There wasn’t even a hint of Elvis. Instead there was only a shadow of a former self, a whimper, a painful reminder of Wynonna’s browbeaten past. Daughter Wy, not Mama Wy. As if to fill this breach, Bette immediately started talking when the song was finished. Unlike Wynonna, she was confident, brash, and eminently in control. “Wynonna’s supposed to chat with me,” she said. “Go ahead, Wynonna. Chat. I dare you.”

  “I dare you,” Wynonna repeated meekly.

  “The sign does say ‘Chat,’” Bette continued. “So what should we chat about? How about children? I hear you’re going to have another. My advice is breast-feed as long as possible.” The pace of this so-called chat was almost overwhelming. Bette didn’t stop talking. She didn’t wait for answers. She just kept going. Line after line. Punch after punch. “Well, what are we supposed to do now…? I can’t remember…I’ve been in that trailer so fucking long I’ve forgot what I’m doing…And don’t go tell the papers I swore in front of you…” Eventually she proposed that Wynonna play the ukulele. Wy didn’t want to. “Come on,” Bette said. “I’ll teach you how to do the hula.”

  “No,” Wy said meekly, “I’ve been down this road before.”

  But Bette persisted, just like Mother, and Wy relented, just like in the past. Bette started singing “Ukulele Ladies,” surely one of the hokiest songs ever written, then started doing the hula. Eventually the two women were kicking up their heels right next to each other in the middle of a soundstage, on the west side of Nashville, in front of television cameras that would beam this cornpone scene, as if straight from “Hee Haw,” to sweeps-month televisions around the country.

  Until she blew.

  Four steps into the dance, Wynonna had finally had enough. “I’m not going to do it anymore,” she said. “I had to do this stuff for ten years with my mother and I’m not going to do it again.”

  “Why don’t I sing my solo now?” Bette suggested.

  “You’re the boss,” Wynonna replied and headed off the stage, more in regret than disgust. “This was supposed to be my show,” she said. “I had so many things 1 wanted to do. I had so much I was going to say.”

  VERSE I

  ONE

  THE OPRY

  The sheets of rain were falling so hard and the rush of headlights was so expectant that it was easy to miss the cloverleaf exit that banks hard to the east off Briley Parkway and deposits the driver right into the heart of what the neon hails as MUSIC VALLEY, U.S.A. Turn here for Shoney’s. There for Cracker Barrel. You don’t even have to turn at all to veer into the WORLD-FAMOUS NASHVILLE PALACE, which appears to be a Denny’s with an overly ambitious Vegas Strip sign attached. All these establishments, with their blinkety beacons and boppity billboards promising extra-fluffy biscuits and the BEST CATFISH ANYWHERE!, are to the east off McGavock Pike, which itself is ten miles east of downtown Music City, not far from the blue-collar outposts of town, and just up the road from the real countryside. In short, in the middle of nowhere. A fine place to recreate a small corner of Everywhere, circa Anytime At All.

  WELCOME TO OPRYLAND, U.S.A.

  TURN RIGHT FOR THE MAGNOLIA LOBBY.

  LEFT FOR OLD HICKORY LOUNGE.

  Unlike the ones across the street, these signs are written in soothing script. They are painted in white on handsome red boards that remind you of fairy-tale wholesomeness. And they unfold before the driver’s eyes on a faux country tableau of fluffy green grass, a white picket fence, and dozens of sculpted storybook trees wrapped in thousands of twinkling lights. On this night, uncommonly cold and rainy, the normally idyllic entrance to the Opryland Hotel, with its churchlike steeples, plantationlike columns, and county courthouselike red brick grandeur, has been overtaken by an even more idyllic constellation of candy cane light poles and plush fir wreaths in a holiday vision out of Currier and Ives. Even the guardhouse has been rebaked as a two-story peach-colored gingerbread house complete with giant plastic gumdrops and bouncing marshmallow ladies who wave at every car that makes it through the valley and into the parking lot of Gaylord’s fantasy: WELCOME TO A COUNTRY CHRISTMAS. ALL SELF PARKING $4.00

  Gaylord, in this instance, is Edward Gaylord, the Walt Disney of Southern culture and the aging, legendarily frugal proprietor of Gaylord Entertainment Co., which controls the dominant institutions in country music, the Opryland Hotel, Opryland Theme Park, CMT, TNN, and the gemstone in this hillbilly tiara, the Grand Ole Opry itself. All of these he has gathered in a 406-acre entertainment complex that draws visitors to an undistinguished plot of land not far from the airport with the paradoxical promise of unimagined wonder and old-fashioned small-town wholesomeness. Ironically, the hotel alone is larger than many small towns. With ’2,870 rooms—the seventh-largest in the country and the largest outside Las Vegas—the hotel is an air-conditioned biosphere-cum-theme park complete with giant murals, dancing fountains, and a 6-acre, glass-covered interiorscape with over ten thousand tropical plants. The newest extension, known as “The Delta,” has a fifteen-story-high glass dome covering 4.5 acres and featuring a 110-foot-wide waterfall and a quarter-mile-long “river.” Move over, Mickey Mouse. Tom Sawyer is the new American icon here, and he has gone uptown.

  Driving around the facility (24 MPH SPEED LIMIT), past the Conservatory, alongside the Cascades, under several neo-Georgian overhangs, I finally arrive ten minutes later at the backdoor entrance to a modest, unornate, redbrick theater that since 1974 has been home to America’s most beloved radio show, the Holy See of Country Music, the Grand Ole Opry.

  “Hi. May I have your name please, sir…?” The officer retrieves a portable stop sign that has blown over in the wind.

  “And who are you here with…?” He starts flipping through his clipboard.

  “Ah, well, Mr. Brooks is expecting you. He’s not here yet. Just drive up to the canopy and park wherever you can. The show starts in about an hour.”

  The Grand Ole Opry is as old as country music itself and is one of the few institutions in American life to survive the transition from radio to television to global satellite intimacy. Begun in November 1925 as one of a burgeoning breed of down-home variety shows popping up on newly formed commercial radio stations, the “WSM Barn Dance” was simply a marketing tool for the National Life and Accident Insurance Company to sell products to rural listeners. Broadcast from the studios of clear-channel WSM-AM (an acronym for the company’s slogan, “We Shield Millions”), the show mixed banjos, fiddles, harmonicas, and string bands, along with homespun advertisements and a flamboyant host, George D. Hay, the “Solemn Old Judge.” It was Hay, in 1927, who gave the show its indelible name when he followed a network broadcast of opera classics by saying, “You’ve been up in the clouds with Grand Opera, now get down to earth with us in a performance of Grand Ole Opry.” It’s never missed a weekend since, moving to the legendary Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville in 1943, and then decamping to its current suburban roost in 1974.

  Since moving to the suburbs, though, the Opry has lost much of its clout. Garth Brooks, like many new stars, may identify his induction into the elite cast of seventy-five performing Opry “members” as the highlight of his career (a position that is wise marketing, if nothing else), but his career no longer depends on the Opry. Simply put, he has outgrown it. As a result, it was something of a surprise that Garth chose the Opry this night—just a month after the much-heralded release of his new album, Fresh Horses and still a month before his gaff at the American Music Awards—to break his year-long hiatus from public view. Under the circumstances, it was clearly designed to send a message. Having flirted with rock ‘n’ roll for years, Garth had long been viewed with suspicion among some traditional country fans. “MORE POSSUM [George Jones],” one station in St. Louis had announced on a billboard, “LESS GARTH.” Those fears had only intensified in rec
ent weeks after he released his new single, a manic version of Aerosmith’s heavy metal song “The Fever” that tanked on the radio after only a month and became his lowest-charting single. Suddenly, it seemed, the fans were sending him a message: Don’t get too high above your raisin’.

  “I just don’t understand it,” he told me. “I thought radio would jump all over that song. That’s why I released it. Nobody else wanted to. Not the label. Not anybody. Maybe I should start listening to the people around me.” In particular the episode added to his growing fears that the public was tiring of him. Maybe he was losing his Midas touch. Maybe his forthcoming tour, slated for the spring, would also flop. As odd as this anxiety seemed for a man who had so completely rewritten the history of popular music, it was fast becoming the defining question Garth Brooks carried around in his head: “What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO…?”

  If they don’t love you anymore.

  Once inside the building, I gave my name to a woman sitting underneath a blue and green acrylic painting of Minnie Pearl, Hank Snow, and Porter Wagoner (“The Grand Ole Opry is as simple as sunshine,” the painting quoted George Hay as saying), and she gestured me backstage. Instantly I was lost. The manicured opulence and carefully ordered charm of the hotel grounds gave way at once to casual pandemonium and random misdirection. People of all size, shape, and accent were milling about the halls with what appeared to be nothing better to do than gossip with their neighbors and nibble on deviled eggs. Three men with cowboy boots held fiddles above their toupees as they edged through the crowd. A woman with balloons of blonde hair and Wal-Mart crystal heels wiggled past some ogling teenagers. A group of high school tap dancers wearing lime green gingham skirts went clickety-clacketing toward the ladies’ room. Were they performers, background singers, or waitresses? The whole atmosphere reminded me of a small-town watermelon festival, except it was being held not outdoors in front of the hotel in what would be an ideal setting for such an event, but inside a cramped, fluorescent maze of hallways with linoleum floors and orange ventilated metal lockers that looked as if they came right out of the backdrop of “Harper Valley P.T.A.” The Mother Church of Country Music may have had stained glass and maple in its original downtown cathedral, but its current suburban cathedral-lite was decorated with vinyl burlap on the walls backstage and peanut-butter-cracker orange carpeting on the three stories of mock church pews out front.

  No sooner had I paused to orient myself than the bustling crowd suddenly parted like two halves of a backlot sea, and a navy blue raincoat and black cowboy hat came shuffling through what appeared to be a cheerleading funnel. At first I mistook the body for a prop, but then I realized that the person was very much alive, shaking hands, and, even though I could not see his face, drawing considerable respect from the crowd. He pivoted back and forth with each step forward, shook the hand of each admirer, and mumbled something indistinguishable under his brim. I watched the scene with great admiration—(A secret Opry ritual perhaps?) until I realized that this tradition was heading rapidly in my direction and that I would have to do my part to keep the whole spectacle moving. The shaking went on—back and forth, left then right—and I surveyed the movements with nervous anticipation. Surely there was no way I would recognize this person. The Opry has dozens of elder luminaries, most of whose names I didn’t know, and most of whose faces I couldn’t recognize. Just the other day I had sat in a crowded room with the greatest songwriter in Nashville history—a retiring man with no pretense at all—and didn’t know it until he had left.

  Still, like a test, the moment arrived. The shuffling body advanced through the line and finally reached where I was standing. All eyes were following his every step. People around me were snapping pictures. I stepped back to let him pass. Instead of moving on, though, the daunting vintage hat slowly lifted to reveal a set of shocking white sideburns, a gentle nose, and the most benign, almost luminous face that I had ever seen. It was the face of peace, of total consolation, of a man who had lived a life of such exalted dreams that he floated above the worldliness around him. He knew who he was. He knew where he came from. And he inhabited his status as lightly, and as comfortably, as any luminary could.

  “Good night,” he said, raising his hand first.

  “Good night,” I repeated. We shook hands.

  Though I had been coming to Nashville for several years, though I had met plenty of superstar artists before, it was not until that moment—on that dreary night in winter—that I truly understood the almost spiritual effect that country music artists can have on their fans. I had been at the Grand Ole Opry for five minutes. I had just met the “Father of Bluegrass,” Mr. Bill Monroe.

  By the time Mr. Garth Brooks, the “Father of New Country,” arrived backstage, the broadcast was already under way. Seventy years after it debuted, the Grand Ole Opry is still, at its essence, a radio show, performed live before up to 4,400 fans and broadcast simultaneously over dozens of AM stations to a listenership estimated at 3.3 million people. There are two shows on Saturday nights and, depending on the season, one or two on Fridays as well. (On this Friday night, there was only one.) Each show lasts three to four hours and is divided into half-hour segments. As in the old days, each segment has a sponsor, whose advertisements are performed live from the Opry stage. The props these advertisers use all litter the offstage areas and look, quite frankly, like ramshackle props from an elementary school production of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” To the right was a yellow ranch bell on wheels for Cracker Barrel restaurants and to the left a gray signboard several feet tall painted to look like a bag of Goo Goo Clusters, the signature candy item of the Grand Ole Opry, a cloyingly sweet yet irresistibly chewy hamburger-sized concoction of marshmallow, milk chocolate, and peanuts. (Though the name of this candy mimics the acronymous nickname of the Grand Ole Opry, GOO, the Standard Candy Company insists that it’s only a coincidence.) To a newcomer, what was most remarkable about these props is that most of them represented companies I thought no longer existed: Dollar General Store, Martha White Flour, Goody’s Headache Powder. One segment was even sponsored by a product called Jogging in a Jug, a mystery elixir that reminded me of stories I had read about miracle unguents and shady cure-all balms that advertised on early Opry broadcasts. The only difference now is that every advertisement for Jogging in a Jug began and ended with a grave caveat: “There is no scientific evidence to support medical claims of Jogging in a Jug.”

  Garth Brooks, making his first appearance at the Opry all year, was scheduled to be in the fifth segment, sponsored by Dollar General Store. Like other members of the Opry “family,” he is technically required to perform at least twelve times a year (it had been as high as twenty-six times a year), though he, like other newer stars, rarely meets that obligation. As a result, most weekly shows at the Opry seem like the Seniors Tour in Country Music, with long-forgotten stars singing once-begotten hits for mostly octogenarian audiences. (Bill Monroe, at eighty-four the oldest member of the Opry, was inducted in 1939.) Garth (1990) was scheduled to appear during his segment along with Jean Shepherd (1955), the fiery traditionalist from Oklahoma, and Hank Snow (1950), the legendary Canadian crooner known for his flashy suits and squirrelish toupees. Appearing in the same segment, however, does not require coordination. In fact, by the time Garth strolled into the backstage area a little after nine o’clock, he had no idea of the schedule, nor what his band would play. If anything, he was more interested in boasting about the Christmas present he had just received from his wife: a brand-new, six-wheel 4x4 Chevy truck. Its color, he bragged, was autumn wood.

  “Did you see that baby?” Garth cooed to the band, several members of his staff, and the manager of the Opry, all of whom had gathered in a private office to discuss Garth’s set for the night. “It’s a dualie, with lights on top and this great stereo. Man! I slipped in a CD of George Strait, and I was happy as could be.”

  Garth was wearing blue Wranglers and one of his
freshly pressed navy blue and cardinal Mo Betta cowboy shirts that he helps design. His Stetson was tan tonight.

  “Why not wait until Christmas?” someone asked.

  “We couldn’t hide it,” Sandy said. “My mother drove it over this afternoon.”

  “It has that extended cab,” Garth continued. “Real nice seats.”

  “With three kids we’re going to need the extra room,” Sandy said as she sat down on the sofa. Two days earlier, Garth had hinted on “CBS This Morning” that Sandy might be pregnant with their third child.

  “Three kids!” Garth exclaimed. “What are you talking about?” He walked over and started massaging her neck. “I want seven.”

  Everybody laughed…except Sandy, who dropped her head.

  “I’ve already been pregnant every year this decade,” she said. “I don’t want to go into next decade, too.”

  “Mr. Brooks…” The call came from just outside the door. “Mr. Brooks, you’re on in five minutes.”

  As soon as the call came, Garth snapped into work mode. The members of the band started hurrying to the stage as Garth hooked his guitar across his shoulder. Sandy got up and started fidgeting with the collar of her husband’s shirt. She looked nervous, as did he. He started licking his lips. She gave him a quick kiss and headed through the door. “I don’t know what to do,” he said, partly to himself, partly to the room, which was empty now except for me. “It’s traditional at the Opry, if you’ve been away for a while, to play your next single and the one that got you here in the first place.”