The big news for the Tuesday Night Opry this week is the return of Grand Ole Opry member Keith Urban to the Opry stage. To say that Keith has been less than a stellar member would be an under statement. Keith joined the Opry on April 21, 2012. In 2012, Keith made a total of 7 Opry appearances, including several made prior to becoming a member. Since 2012, he has appeared a total of 3 times, with his last Opry appearance coming in 2014. I think it would be fair to say that perhaps Keith should have not been asked to become an Opry member.
The rest of the line-up is pretty solid with Opry members Darius Rucker, Del McCoury, Lorrie Morgan and John Conlee headlining the 2 shows.
1st show
7:00: John Conlee; Clare Dunn
7:30: Drew Baldridge; Lorrie Morgan
8:00: Del McCoury Band; Darius Rucker
8:30: Keith Urban
2nd show
9:30: John Conlee; Clare Dunn
10:00: Drew Baldridge; Lorrie Morgan
10:30: Del McCoury Band; Darius Rucker
11:00: Keith Urban
Let's hope that Keith remembers where the Opry House is or there will a lot of unhappy people.
Not to mention that Darius Rucker hasn't been much better.
ReplyDeleteKeith and Darius have their Opry membership plaques among their other "awards". And to me this is the problem. I don't know who is at fault with this, the Opry management or possibly other artists from the "Durham" era. Grand Ole Opry membership is not an award. It's a job. A commitment to one of the most respected institutions in the world. It's not a trophy case honor of the week. It should be respected. At some point throughout the years Hall of Famers, Hank Williams, DeFord Bailey, Kitty Wells, Faron Young, The Jordanaires, Ferlin Husky, Don Gibson and George Morgan were all fired from the cast; Minnie Pearl was "laid off"; Roy Acuff himself disappeared with disputes for a year; Rose Maddox was fired basically at the request of another member; artists such as Eddy Arnold, Lefty Frizzell, Webb Pierce, Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves, Slim Whitman, Carl Smith, June Carter, Jimmy Dickens, Earl Scruggs, Don Williams, all dropped membership as their personal touring out grew the Opry requirements. These new people have it in their minds once you get the "award" it's yours until death and it cannot be taken from you. And I think Garth Brooks himself pretty much openly said that. This is why the Opry shows are not the same quality. You have 40 to 50 "card carrying" members and a handful doing the real work. I think about those who had to leave the show for health reasons, Ernest Tubb, Del Reeves, Johnny Russell, Wilma Lee Cooper, Jean Shepard, and others who were so faithful, and wondered how many Saturday nights they listened and would have gave anything to be back on the stage. The Opry cast used to be a family. Sadly, today it's not.
ReplyDeleteFred, Bismarck:
ReplyDeleteThe Opry cast its lot with radio and jukebox "stars" way back in the 1940s, turning away from the more down-home talent that had "brung 'em."
Not so bad then, when the popular heroes still sang and played a semblance of country music. Today? People like Darius Rucker and Keith Urban are the stars, but I defy anybody to tell me what they have to do with country music.
As I've harped on here ad nauseam, country is still out there, performed by groups who would kill to play the Opry 52 Saturday nights a year. I listen to their CDs every night. It wouldn't hurt for the Opry to sign a small handful of them to flesh out its cast of no-show "stars."
from anonymous in Kingman:
DeleteI agree.
Fred said it right.
DeleteAM 650, WSM, constantly plays younger acts that understand what country music is all about, but somehow 'Opry management manages to ignore them.