Grand Ole Opry 1/3 & 1/4

2020 is beginning much like 2019 ended at the Grand Ole Opry. I say that, as I look at the line-up for the shows this weekend, because it is once again the veteran members of the Grand Ole Opry who will be carrying the load this weekend. But hopefully better days are ahead. As I look at the list of those who are scheduled to appear in the near future, it includes members Dailey & Vincent, Mark Wills and Joe Diffie next weekend, with later January appearances by Alan Jackson, Ricky Skaggs, Chris Young and Terri Clark. Chris Janson is set for February, along with Luke Combs and the Oak Ridge Boys. Hopefully 2020 will be the year that many of the long-lost missing Opry members return to the Opry stage and new members are added.

As to this weekend, there is one show each night. Opry members scheduled to appear both nights include Jeannie Seely, Mike Snider, Connie Smith, Riders In The Sky and The Whites, with Bobby Osborne scheduled to appear on Saturday night. Yes, the veterans.

Guesting on the Friday Night Opry are Tenille Arts, Rhett Akins, Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers, Levon, Jim Lauderdale, Dillon Carmichael and The McCrary Sisters. Guesting on Saturday night are Clare Bowen, Blackie & The Rodeo Kings, Charles Esten, and making his Opry debut, Killer Beaz. Also on the schedule is John Oates, who along with Daryl Hall, is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Friday January 3
7:00: Jeannie Seely (host); Tenille Arts; The Whites
7:30: Mike Snider (host); Rhett Akins; Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers
Intermission
8:15: Connie Smith (host); Levon; Jim Lauderdale
8:45: Riders In The Sky (host); Dillon Carmichael; The McCrary Sisters

Saturday January 4
7:00: Jeannie Seely (host); Mike Snider; Clare Bowen
7:30: Connie Smith (host); Bobby Osborne & The Rocky Top X-Press; Blackie & The Rodeo Kings
Intermission
8:15: The Whites (host); Killer Beaz; Opry Square Dancers
8:45: Riders In The Sky (host); John Oates; Charles Esten

Nice to see a full line-up to start off the new year.

The Ernest Tubb Midnight Jamboree will be hosted by Roni Stoneman, after which the Jamboree will run archived shows for the rest of January. It is nice to see on the website that there are quite a few shows already booked and scheduled for the upcoming year.

As mentioned, this will be the Grand Ole Opry debut for Killer Beaz.

To say Killer Beaz grew up different is an understatement!  At the age of four, he lived in a funeral home, where he learned that he could make the “sad people” he saw, laugh and smile.  At the tender age of 10, Beaz began an eight year run as a competition pistol shooter.  By the time he was 17, he was running 911 calls in an emergency ambulance, as well as being an apprentice embalmer.  On his 21st birthday, he took up blues guitar, drawn to the emotional content of the art form.  “I believe musicians can be the greatest communicators, because they touch our hearts without the restraints of language, or visual effects”.

Beaz, as his friends call him, played lead guitar.  One night, while playing a solo, someone shouted- “that was Killer, Beaz!” THE NAME STUCK!  When he made the move to the comedy stage, he took the name with him. During his first 317 performances on what he calls the “Chitlin Circuit”, Beaz’s KILLER stage presence was quite obvious.  After years of “trial by fire” in the worst stand-up environments on the planet, Beaz traveled to Chicago, where he saw his first live comedian, Jay Leno.  While Leno’s performance was awesome, Beaz was equally thrilled to discover that there were places people came for the sole purpose of seeing stand-up comedy!  Within months, Beaz had relocated to Nashville, Tennessee.

Killer Beaz is currently guest starring in his third season of the Discovery Channel’s hit series, “Moonshiners”,  touring the country, performing on the high seas, and about to release an upcoming video series of clean comedy, “Killer Beaz PRESENTS” featuring the standup of Beaz and outstanding comics handpicked from all over the country.
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And now, here is the line-up from 25 years ago, Saturday January 7, 1995:

1st show
6:30: Bill Monroe (host); Wilma Lee Cooper
6:45: Grandpa Jones (host); Charlie Louvin
7:00: Porter Wagoner (host); Bill Carlisle; Jan Howard; Jimmy Dickens
7:30: Ricky Skaggs (host); John Conlee; Crossmen Quartet; The Isaacs
8:00: Bill Anderson (host); Jack Greene; The Whites; Opry Square Dance Band; The Melvin Sloan Dancers
8:30: Hank Snow (host); Jim Ed Brown; Jeannie Seely; Mike Snider

2nd show
9:30: Porter Wagoner (host); Jim and Jesse; Brother Oswald; Stu Phillips; Ricky Skaggs
10:00: Bill Monroe (host); Roy Drusky
10:15: Grandpa Jones (host); The Isaacs
10:30: Jimmy Dickens (host); Mike Snider
10:45: Bill Anderson (host); Jack Greene; Opry Square Dance Band; The Melvin Sloan Dancers
11:00: Hank Snow (host); Charlie Walker; Stonewall Jackson; Jeannie Seely
11:30: Billy Walker (host); John Conlee; Johnny Russell

From 50 years ago, Saturday January 3, 1970:

7:30: Bill Anderson (host); Charlie Louvin; George Hamilton IV; Jean Shepard; Jimmy C Newman; Ernie Ashworth; The Four Guys
8:00: Roy Drusky (host); Dottie West; Mel Tillis; Jim and Jesse; Stringbean; Crook Brothers; Stu Phillips; Del Wood
8:30: Bill Monroe (host); Del Reeves; Wilma Lee Cooper; Charlie Walker; Margie Bowes; Stonewall Jackson
9:00: Ernest Tubb (host); Wilburn Brothers; Loretta Lynn; Earl Scruggs Revue; Billy Walker; Archie Campbell; Fruit Jar Drinkers; Lonzo and Oscar
9:30: Hank Snow (host); Willis Brothers; Jim Ed Brown; Jack Greene; Jeannie Seely; Bill Carlisle; Osborne Brothers
10:00: Bill Anderson (host); Jean Shepard; Mel Tillis; Ernie Ashworth; Del Wood
10:15: Bill Monroe (host); Dottie West; Charlie Louvin; The Four Guys; Jimmy C Newman; Archie Campbell
10:30: Wilburn Brothers (host); Loretta Lynn; Jim and Jesse; Del Reeves; Stringbean; Lonzo and Oscar
10:45: Ernest Tubb (host); Billy Walker; Earl Scruggs Revue; Wilma Lee Cooper; Crook Brothers
11:00: Hank Snow (host): Jim Ed Brown; Willis Brothers; Stu Phillips; Margie Bowes; Sam McGee
11:30: Marty Robbins (host); George Hamilton IV: Bill Carlisle; Jack Greene; Jeannie Seely; Charlie Walker

I dare for anyone to complain about the line-up from that night 50 years ago.
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Looking back into the history of the Grand Ole Opry, it was 22 years ago, Saturday January 3, 1998 that Grandpa Jones performed on the Opry for the final time.

Best known to the general public for his exuberant banjo playing, for his singing of novelty songs like “Rattler” and “Mountain Dew,” and for his infectious verbal comedy on shows like Hee Haw, Grandpa Jones was also one of country music’s most dedicated champions of old-time music. Not only did he keep banjo playing alive during times when it had fallen into disfavor with most professional musicians, but he also helped to keep alive the songs of pioneers like Jimmie Rodgers, Bradley Kincaid, Lulu Belle & Scotty, and the Delmore Brothers.

A serious fan of southern gospel music, Grandpa Jones also helped maintain the old gospel quartet tradition in groups like the Brown’s Ferry Four and the Hee Haw Gospel Quartet. Though not an acoustic purist in the strict sense—he generally used an electric guitar in his act and on his records—his devotion to “keeping it country” won him fans nationwide for seven decades, as well as a long-time tenure on the Grand Ole Opry and election to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1978.

Louis Marshall Jones grew up in northwestern Kentucky, just a few miles from the Ohio River. By the time he was in high school, the family was living in Akron, Ohio, and young Marshall (as he was called by his folks) was copying Jimmie Rodgers songs and was appearing on local station WJW as “The Young Singer of Old Songs.” After a stint on the popular Lum and Abner radio show (as part of the show’s stringband) he and friend Joe Troyan (“Harmonica Joe”) met a man who was to have an immense impact on Jones’s career—singer Bradley Kincaid. In 1935 they were working with Kincaid over WBZ in Boston when Kincaid gave him the nickname Grandpa because he sounded old and grouchy on the early morning show. Kincaid had him outfitted with a vaudeville costume—including fake mustache—and at age twenty-two Marshall Jones became Grandpa Jones.

By 1937 he struck out on his own, playing stations in West Virginia and Cincinnati; along the way he met boisterous entertainer Cousin Emmy, who taught him how to play clawhammer banjo. At WLW he joined forces with the Delmore Brothers and Merle Travis to form the Brown’s Ferry Four, one of country’s first and most popular gospel quartets. In the fall of 1943 he and Travis were asked to make their first records, for a new, locally based label to be called King; their disc, released under the pseudonym the Shepherd Brothers, was the first King release. Throughout the rest of the 1940s, recorded regularly for King, racking up hits like “It’s Raining Here This Morning,” “Eight More Miles to Louisville,” and “Mountain Dew.”

In October 1946 Jones married Ramona Riggins, a talented fiddler and singer he had met at WLW, and the two moved to Nashville, where Grandpa joined the Grand Ole Opry. Throughout the 1950s, the pair made brief stays at Arlington and Richmond, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.; and recorded for RCA and Decca. By 1959 they had settled permanently on the Opry, and a few years later started a family that would include Mark, Alisa, and Marsha (a fourth child, Eloise, came from an earlier marriage in West Virginia.) In the early 1960s Grandpa began recording for Fred Foster’s new label, Monument, producing a series of albums that Jones considered the best work he did. They also produced two of his biggest hits, a version of Jimmie Rodgers’s “Blue Yodel (T for Texas)” (1963) and the seasonal narration “The Christmas Guest” (1969).

In 1969 Jones joined the cast of Hee Haw, where he perfected his comedy with routines such as “What’s for Supper,” and where he worked with greats such as Minnie Pearl and his close friend David “Stringbean” Akeman. In 1976, Jones and his wife started a series of albums for CMH, which included remakes of many of his early hits and which gave their talented children a chance to perform with their parents. In 1984 he wrote (with Charles Wolfe) a detailed autobiography, Everybody’s Grandpa, and was still going strong when the Opry management helped him celebrate his fiftieth anniversary on the show in 1997. Grandpa had a severe stroke moments after his second show Opry performance on January 3, 1998, and he died February 19.

And now, here is the running order from Saturday January 3, 1998, the final night that Grandpa Jones appeared on the Grand Ole Opry:

1st show
6:30: GHS Strings
Grandpa Jones (host): Banjo Sam
Wilma Lee Cooper: Wedding Bells
Grandpa Jones: My Little Old Home Down in New Orleans

6:45: Joggin' In A Jug
John Conlee (host): As Long As I'm Rockin' With You
Bill Carlisle: Elvira
John Conlee: Domestic Life

7:00: Shoney's
Porter Wagoner (host): Y'All Come
Brother Oswald: Prairie Queen
Jimmy C Newman: Gumbo Song
Osborne Brothers: World of Forgotten People/Rocky Top
Porter Wagoner: Green, Green Grass of Home
Porter Wagoner and Christie Lynn: Milwaukee, Here I Come

7:30: Standard Candy
Johnny Russell (host): Someday I'll Sober Up
Ricochet: Connected at the Heart
Del Reeves: I Would Like to See You Again
Tracy Byrd: Don't Take Her, She's All I Got
Riders In The Sky: Always Drink Upstream from the Herd
Johnny Russell: Act Naturally

8:00: Martha White
Bill Anderson (host): Southern Fried
Jodle Birge: A Day at Disneyland
Ricky Skaggs: Dim Light, Thick Smoke
Vince Gill: The Key to Life
Opry Square Dance Band and The Melvin Sloan Dancers: Cherokee Shuffle

8:30: Clifty Farms
Jimmy Dickens (host): Take an Old Cold Tater
Mike Snider: Foggy Mountain Breakdown
The Whites: Pins and Needles
Billy Walker: You Gave Me a Mountain
The Four Guys: I'm Bound for Higher Ground
Jimmy Dickens: Another Bridge to Burn

2nd show
9:30: Dollar General
Porter Wagoner (host): Ol' Slewfoot
John Conlee: Rose Colored Glasses
Riders In The Sky: Where the Bloom is on the Sage
Ricochet: A Lot to Be Desired
Christie Lynn: Walk Softly on My Heart
Porter Wagoner and Christie Lynn: Forty Miles from Poplar Bluff

10:00: Opry Book
Grandpa Jones (host): Stop That Ticklin' Me
Tracy Byrd: Roly Poly/Watermelon Crawl
Grandpa Jones: Any Old Time

10:15: Banquet
Jimmy Dickens (host): Out Behind the Barn
Jack Greene: There Goes My Everything
Jimmy Dickens: Mountain Dew

10:30: Purnell's
Bill Anderson (host): But You Know I Love You
Osborne Brothers: Beneath Still Waters
Bill Anderson: A World of Make Believe

10:45: MTD
Ricky Skaggs (host): Hold What 'Cha Got
Jean Shepard: A Phone Call Away
Opry Square Dance Band and The Melvin Sloan Dancers: Durang's Hornpipe
Ricky Skaggs: I'm Lost and I'll Never Find the Way

11:00: Coca Cola
Mike Snider (host): The Whole World Smiles With You
Del Reeves: A Lover's Question
The Whites: Swing Down Chariot
Vince Gill: A River Like You/The Key to Life
Tom Brantley: Wheel Hoss

11:30: Opry Book
Johnny Russell (host): Got No Reason Now for Going Home
The Four Guys: Moments to Remember
Charlie Walker: Who'll Buy the Wine
Stu Phillips: Dust in My Eyes
Johnny Russell: Ain't You Even Gonna Cry

Grandpa Jones is another of the legendary stars of the Grand Ole Opry who is still missed today.

Don't forget that the new Circle network is now on the air. In looking at the schedule, there seems to be a good amount of achieved Opry programming including the Opry's 50th anniversary special from 1975, which is now airing. Other shows on the schedule include Hee Haw, Backstage at the Opry, along with F Troup (I'm sure us old timers remember that show), Dailey & Vincent and a simulcast of Bill Cody's WSM morning show. Currently, there is no dedicated cable or satellite channel as it is being distributed on local sub-channels. Luckily, I am in one of the markets that can receive it and looking forward to checking it out.

There you have it for this week as we welcome in 2020. I hope it is a great year for all of you and a great year for those at the Grand Ole Opry. As always, my thanks for reading and commenting and I hope everyone enjoys the Opry this weekend.