Friday, October 23, 2009

Tuesday Night Opry 10/27 & Opry Country Classics 10/29

Here is the line-up for this week's Tuesday Night Opry, October 27th:
7:00: Jeannie Seely; Del McCoury Band
7:30: John Conlee; Gloriana
Intermission
8:15: Connie Smith; Jimmy Wayne
8:45: Jimmy Dickens; Martina McBride

It pains me to type in the word 'intermission' for an Opry show. That said, a very nice line-up for the Tuesday night show.

Here is the line-up for this week's final Opry Country Classics, October 29th:
7:00-9:00: This week, 'Second Generation Stars'
Host: Storme Warren
Also Appearing: Gail Davies & Chris Scruggs; Grandstaff; Georgette Jones; Opry Square Dancers; Ronnie Robbins; Jamie Lee Thurston; The Whites
Spotlight Artist: Pam Tillis

This is the final edition of Opry Country Classics for this year. It will return in March. Hopefully, they take what they learned from this first year and work at improving the show. For most of the weeks, it just did not come across as I think they planned it.

Finally, I think someone fell asleep at the switch over at Sirius radio. On Tuesday night, they have a replay of the previous week's Tuesday Night Opry show. However, after promoting it and announcing it as the Tuesday Night Opry, they instead played the Opry Country Classics show from Thursday night. Then tonight, instead of playing last week's Friday Night Opry, they are playing last week's Grand Ole Opry from Saturday night, after introducing it as the Friday Night Opry. Obviously, they got the tapes mixed up and someone was not listening. The joys of radio!!

9 comments:

  1. Surprised to see Ronny Robbins name on the show. Haven't heard from him in years. He would be around 60 now. Will be interesting to see how he sounds.

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  2. My response to the mix-up of tapes on Sirius is that if were airing live like they should be then they wouldn't be mixing tapes up. I no longer have any interest in listening to the Opry on XM since they have begun delaying it a week.

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  3. Mike Terry promoted Opry Country Classics on the Opry Warmup Show, and I don't remember him doing that before.

    I am disappointed that there aren't more second-generation artists on the show, such as Loretta Lynn's daughters and Lorrie Morgan. I agree that the Thursday night show didn't quite work, but it was a good attempt and I hope they will try it again.

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  5. I agree with the comment about Ronnie Robbins. To be honest, I did not know he was still in the business. Also, regarding Opry Country Classics: I will be interested in how they present and book the show when it returns in March. Seeing it in person twice, I did like how the show was structured and was presented. I also liked the idea of having a theme for each show. I did not like the booking that took place. There seemed to be too many no-name artists, or artists that had nothing to do with the theme of the shows. On the other hand, maybe they did try to book more well known artists and Opry members, but were turned down and had to go with the lower-level names. It might not be easy to find someone to come down on a Thursday night to sing one or two songs for minimum wage. Regardless, I hope that they give this some thought and are more successful for the 2nd season.

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  6. As for Ronny Robbins, this may be a bit like the Reunion nights they used to have (and should bring back) where people who hadn't performed for years would do so.

    Byron, I think this year marked a good effort. I believe longtime Opry members would come out for a couple of songs on a Thursday night, but that Pete Fisher didn't make enough use of them. This program would be a good way to let people perform who are rarely used on the weekend shows any more and pay tribute to them as the legends they are. They also could give more time to the "spotlight artist" if it is a big name visiting as a member or as a guest.

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  7. I agree with Michael in that I would love to see a return of the Reunion, or Homecoming nights. It would be great to see Kitty Wells again at the Opry. Or someone like Leroy Van Dyke and some of the other veteran country artists who used to perform at the Opry. And, maybe I was too harsh in my previous comment. I know that a majority of the veteran, or older Opry artists would love to be a part of the Thursday night show. It could have been a case that Pete did not want to book a bunch of the veteran Opry artists, so that the show would have a different feel, and not be like an old-timers show. Like I said, I do like the format and the theme for each show, I just think for the prices they are charging, that they need to have a stronger line-up of artists.

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  8. I remember when Ronny Robbins was a regular fixture at the Opry in the 70's and 80's. He's was always a very nice guy but I had kind of lost track of him after he got out of the music business. For several years he's been managing his father's estate and there was a rather lengthy and informative article on him in the "alternative" newspaper in Phoenix several years ago. Here's the link: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2000-06-01/music/guarding-a-legacy/

    I think this lineup comes as close to maintaining a theme all the way through as they've come up with. It would have been nice to see Lorrie Morgan on this show...but really, how many second generation acts have ever had a great deal of success in the industry? Lorrie, Pam Tillis, Justin Tubb and Hank Williams, Jr. have been among the handful that have ever been able to step out of the shadow of a famous parent. But every act on the show has a direct connection to the show's theme (even Jamie Lee Thurston's father was a band leader in Vermont...although, if you ask me, that's stretching it just a bit too thin).

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  9. Just got done listening to Ronny Robbins on the Classics show this week. He said it had been 25 years since he had last been on the Opry stage. Although I saw Marty in person on the Opry and in concert in the late 70s/early 80s, never saw Ronny perform. It was always amazing to me how much Ronny sounded like Marty though when I heard him on the Opry or saw him on TV. Granted he is not Marty(only one of him), but is there another 2nd generation artist in any genre that sounds anymore like their parent? Interesting question.

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