AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The Grand Ole Opry turns 100 this year, meaning the live country music show, not the theater currently housing it. What makes the Grand Ole Opry the Grand Ole Opry is less the stage but the many generations and styles of performers who have appeared on it. Over the past century, they have defined what we think of as country music. Here's Jewly Hight of Nashville Public Radio, backstage at the Opry with a glimpse of the yearlong celebration.
JEWLY HIGHT, BYLINE: The day of an artist's inaugural performance on the Grand Ole Opery is full of rites and rituals. That includes a warm welcome from veteran staffer Jim Schermerhorn at the security desk.
DANAE HAYS: I'm very excited about this. This is a dream come true.
JIM SCHERMERHORN: Well, we're excited to have you here with us tonight.
HAYS: Yes, sir.
HIGHT: This particular night, it's musical country comic Danae Hays making her Opry debut, the artist behind impishly off-color hooks like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RODE HARD")
HAYS: (Singing) Rode hard and put up wet.
HIGHT: That one's about a used boat.
SCHERMERHORN: Now, you're going to be in dressing room No. 4.
HAYS: Got it.
SCHERMERHORN: And No. 4 is the very first one on the left.
HIGHT: What he didn't say was that every first-timer gets dressing room four. It's tradition.
SCHERMERHORN: And while you're here, feel free to walk around and take it all in.
HAYS: Yes, sir. I sure will.
HIGHT: But it's not like this is Hays' first visit. Before an Opry debut comes a meeting with the people who run the show.
DAN ROGERS: My name's Dan Rogers. I'm the senior vice president and executive producer of the Grand Ole Opry. Many, many times, we're inviting folks to come and play for us. And that's not an audition at all, but it's a means of us...
HIGHT: Getting to know new artists - sure, Hays pushes the boundaries of country comedy a little. She blew up on TikTok, and her songs and characters don't keep it clean.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: And making her Grand Ole Opry debut, please welcome Danae Hays.
(CHEERING)
HIGHT: She ensured that her Opry set would go over by testing it out on her buttoned-up dad, who watched from the front row.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HAYS: I'd always wondered where my ancestors were from. And so I ordered an online DNA test kit. So I got an email two days later. It said, Miss Hays? We hate to inform you, but we cannot trace your family roots past Arkansas.
HIGHT: Hays closed with a musical number.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HAYS: (Singing) Mama's jawbone hit the ground that day that we found out that I had four brothers in Florida.
HIGHT: Hays was one of 100 debuts planned for the Opry's anniversary this year. Rogers says there are two main goals behind all the festivities.
ROGERS: One, to celebrate the folks on whose shoulders we stand today, to look back really in awe, and throw the doors wide open, put our hands out and welcome new artists ready to take the Opry into the next 100 years.
HIGHT: The Opry began in 1925 with a cobbled-together local cast on a radio station created to promote an insurance company. It went on to become a Saturday night smash with radio listeners and live audiences alike and catapulted its members to country stardom. But those days are long gone. Now its lineups are a mix of guest performers like Hays and the 76 current country stars, Bluegrass faves, and past hitmakers who make up the Opry's membership. One of them is John Conlee, who opened the show.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN CONLEE: This song got my whole career going, helped bring me to the Grand Ole Opry.
(Singing) These rose-colored glasses...
HIGHT: Conlee had made his name with heartily delivered sentimental balllads when he joined the Opry in the early '80s. Like many veteran Opry members, Conlee relishes performing the ceremonial act of inducting new members.
CONLEE: You know, when I joined and when I started hanging out out here, I got to rub elbows and share the stage with people like Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe and Hank Snow and Little Jimmy Dickens - all these people that I grew up listening to. All of a sudden, when I do the math, I'm part of the older generation out here now.
HIGHT: Conlee's been around long enough to see an elder's admonition come true.
CONLEE: Porter Wagoner used to say, if you take care of the Opry as you're coming up, the Opry will take care of you later on in your career.
HIGHT: Though Conlee hasn't had hits in decades, in the Opry's multigenerational lineups, he's still performing plenty, helping keep the show's traditions alive and evolving. For NPR News, I'm Jewly Hight in Nashville.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OLD SCHOOL")
CONLEE: (Singing) I can remember us cruising through town in your daddy's car with the top pulled down looking so cool. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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