A lot of special events will be taking place at the Grand Ole Opry in 2025 as part of the Opry's 100 celebration. One of those events will be taking place on Wednesday March 19 as Blake Shelton will be hosting a star-studded celebration of 100 years of the Grand Ole Opry. The show will air live on NBC/Peacock.
According to the latest information that I have, close to 60 Grand Ole Opry members have committed to appearing on the Wednesday night show, in some fashion.
While not all of the names have been publicly announced, here is the latest list of names that have been posted on the Opry website:
Trace Adkins
Dierks Bentley
Clint Black
Garth Brooks
Steven Curtis Chapman
Terri Clark
Vince Gill
Alan Jackson
Jamey Johnson
Alison Krauss & Union Station
Ashley McBryde
Reba McEntire
Carly Pearce
Blake Shelton
Ricky Skaggs
Marty Stuart
Randy Travis
Travis Tritt
Carrie Underwood
Trisha Yearwood
In addition, the following Opry members are listed as making a "special appearance":
Lauren Alaina
Bill Anderson
Sara Evans
Chris Janson
Dustin Lynch
Scotty McCreery
Jeannie Seely
Non-members listed include:
Yolanda Adams
Eric Church
Jelly Roll
Amy Grant
Post Malone
The War and Treaty
In addition, Brad Paisley, Luke Combs, Kelsea Ballerini, Keith Urban and Lainey Wilson will also be appearing on the special, although those performances were taped earlier at the Ryman Auditorium. In addition to those names, Barbara Mandrell and Crystal Gayle were also reportedly part of the recent Ryman taping. (and no, I would not expect Barbara to do any singing).
And before everyone gets all upset that many of the veterans that appear on the Opry on a regular basis will not be on this special, most will be in one form or another.
As far as ticketing, many of us were led to believe that the show was sold-out within minutes of the tickets going on sale. However, over the past couple of weeks, additional tickets have been released and at last check, some were still available. Of course, that does not take into account the number of tickets that have been showing up on the resale sites, with most of those at exuberant prices.
Will there be any surprises on Wednesday night? Who knows but either way, it will be an exciting show and I am fortunate enough to say that I will be there on Wednesday night to witness in person whatever takes place.
The show takes place beginning at 8:00 EDT (7:00 CDT) and is set to run for 3 hours. Looking at the lineup, and taking into account the commercial breaks, it is going to be interesting to see how the network fits it all in.
I know many will be watching what could turn out to be an historic evening.
I am surprised that this is not completely sold out to the rafters yet, but I have looked forward to very few TV specials maybe in my life as much as I’m looking forward to this one. Ez
ReplyDeleteWanted to let folks know that NBC's Today Show will be broadcasting live from the Opry House Wednesday morning. Also WSM will be airing a live special from 4-6 Central Time that will include interviews with many veteran Opry members.
ReplyDeleteLook forward to seeing you in Nashville, Byron!
And Kellie Sutton will be hosting a red carpet live stream on YouTube starting I think at like, 530 or six eastern. Ez
DeleteHistorically, the Opry does very well by some veterans on these specials and almost complete ignores others. I'm sure it will continue, and we will both praise and attack the result!
ReplyDeleteI suspect we will attack more than praise. The Opry almost certainly didn’t call the shots about who and what to feature in this special. Instead, that would have been the network, which needs young viewers in order to stay in business. No one has anything at all against the veterans; it’s just few young people are interested. Fortunately, there is a long year of celebration ahead where others can get their due.
DeleteMichael, you’ve got to remember that this is about attracting the biggest audience that they can get and this is also the biggest opportunity the Opry has to reach the most people in the country and it is the biggest opportunity it has had, maybe ever because these are some of the biggest names in the literal history of music and certainly in music right now. Byron literally says above that close to 60 members will be involved. There aren’t even that many members that will be excluded no matter who they were. So I think we will probably all be pleasantly surprised, but if we’re not remember that this is an opportunity to get a huge amount of people to watch, and to appreciate this show, and you have to feature the people that young people will actually watch. I wish that was people like Connie or Bill, it’s not. It’s Jelly Roll. I wish it was Mark Wills and Vince Gill. It’s not. It’s Blake Shelton. However, have some faith in Dan, Rogers, and with 60 people or cast members or more appearing, I think you might be pleasantly surprised. Ez
DeleteThe 2025 Country Music Hall of Fame inductees will be announced next Tuesday, March 25 and hosted by Vince Gill.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think?.
Junior Samples
DeleteRhonda Vincent is posting that she is part of the program.
ReplyDeleteGreat show for the most part. I was greatly disappointed at the end when the entire cast was on stage and the cameras did not pan over them to show the members. Was that Stu Phillips I saw fleetingly at the end next to John Conlee? He looked great. I have a feeling the show was running long and the ending was rushed.
ReplyDeleteThe songs chosen were respectful and mostly well done. My heart breaks for Alan Jackson who was clearly in pain from his illness but still gave 100% and a great performance.
Vince’s performance was great. A lot of deceased members were not shown which is unfortunate including (unless I missed it) Mr. Acuff but Deford Bailey was.
Whiskey Lullaby is such a powerful song and kudos to Brad and Allison for reminding us how well they performed it.
A very enjoyable three hours for me.
Roy Acuff was the first one shown. I was there.
DeleteThank you! I missed it on first viewing; I saw it rewatching my DVR. My apologies for the incorrect post.
DeleteWhat are the dates for Reba's appearances? They have to be slim to none. She rarely shows up.
ReplyDeleteI mean this from the bottom of my heart and my soul. Dan Rogers deserves to go into the Hall of Fame just for those three hours. The literal only thing I would have done differently. Let Mark Wills sing a song even a Ronnie song when they acknowledged him because he’s such a huge fan. There were almost no Top 40 today hit records and, the young artists proved that they can be as Stone cold country as Nashville will allow them to be. Everybody who for example, did not like Kelsey or Post Malone before should change their minds now. Ez
ReplyDeleteIt was a very good show that exceeded my expectations. I will have more to say after I get back home from Nashville later this evening.
ReplyDelete(Byron)
I taped it, watched the opening, and thought, I need to curl up with this and savor it.
ReplyDeleteComing into this conversation a bit late ... I, for one, thought it was the best danged Opry show any of us will ever see again in our lifetime! Whoever all put that show together did it right ... while I enjoyed the entire show, there are a couple of things I wish there could be a do-over or I would like to know why one of two could not happen.
ReplyDelete1) When Carrie Underwood, who sang her Randy Travis heart on his two songs, and when she walked toward the steps to go to the man floor, it was Clint Black that got up to help her down the steps to walk to Randy ... I wish, instead, and this has absolutely nothing to do with Clint Black, whom I love along with his music, I wish it would have been Don Schlitz that did the honors. Not only would that have been one of the greatest Opry moments ever, it would have brought the trio together full circle ... the songwriter who wrote Forever and Ever Amen, the recording artist, who made the songwriter a ton of mailbox money, let's face it, to the American Idol winner who was invited by Randy to become an Opry member ... BEST Opry moment ever ... and I know Don Schlitz was there as I watched the entire Red Carpet and someone said something about songwriters and they mentioned "Don Schlitz, who I just saw over there." Wherever over there was. For me, a bit of a missed opportunity, but it was still a great Opry moment for darned sure. (I then got to thinking that just maybe Don didn't want anyone to see him prior to an Opry show, because then he would have to stop saying to the audience "you don't even know who I am." ha! If they saw his face, they would know who he was because he would have been named by his name.
2) They should have timed the live show better, I was like, ugh, they are closing this Opry100 show with a Dolly song and not "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?" Well, they did close the show out with that song, only NBC stopped the camera's, that's too bad, it would have been wonderful to hear 50 people sing that song. I think if they had cut down on one song, they would have gotten it all in.
All I know is that I sat at the edge of my chair for three solid hours, it just got better and better and thank you to whose idea it was for Blake Shelton to sing "Pick-Up Man" to pay tribute to the great and very missed, Joe Diffie.
(Jeanene)
The only thing about Don is to the audience. It would’ve just been some random dude. He’s right when he says that people don’t know who he is and one of the best things ever in the world is to watch the audience go from giving him a golf clap because they have no idea who he is at all, to giving him a giant standing ovation when he’s done singing the stuff that he wrote. But that’s the thing this was a network television special. The audience would not have known at all and even if they showed his name, they still would not have known. It would’ve been like some random guy helped Carrie down the stairs. I loved loved loved how most of the new top 40 artists did nothing but classics. I’m very curious what some of our elder statesman like Jim Who for very good reasons don’t actually care for a lot of these young artists think about the fact that they proved that they can be, stone cold country if they are given the opportunity. It has a lot to do with what the Record companies want you to do not what you want to do yourself. I’ve been told that my entire life by people in the music industry. Ez
Delete
ReplyDeleteAgree Jeanene, one less song would have ensured Will the Circle Be Unbroken ending the show.