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"Local Oprys in Kentucky: The Grassroots Support of Country Music" by Amy Davis
By 8:00 o'clock Friday evening, Jim's Opry is in full swing. After a toot of a wooden train whistle and a rendition of "Ragtime Annie" from the Jim's Opry band, a parade of talented and colorful singers hold forth, leading the house band in a variety of country songs before an audience of 50 to 75 people. Although the all-volunteer talent varies from week to week, the audience can usually count on emcee Kenneth Miller to start things off with an old Ray Price or Johnny Cash song; several band members to sing their signature songs, such as "The Love Bug," "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?," or "Working Man's Blues"; "Pancho" Servidio, a retired coal miner, to play three hymns on the harmonica; and Jim's five-year-old granddaughter Samantha to sing both "Achy Breaky Heart" and "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart," complete with ear-splitting yodels. Dancers take to the floor and two-step or waltz to nearly every song. After 9:00 P.M., smartly dressed couples join them from the Senior Citizen's dance in nearby Earlington. In the back, between the last row of chairs and the concession window, both adults and teenagers practice the latest line dances.
Jim's Opry takes place in an unobtrusive metal barn nestled in a side yard on a quiet street in Nortonville, Kentucky. The opry neither advertises nor charges admission for its weekly gathering of musicians, audience, friends, and neighbors (although donations are accepted). This performance event represents a local, grassroots version of a growing number of country-music stage shows, or "oprys," that have sprung up across the Southeast and Midwest states since the mid-1980s. The growth of these shows parallels the current popularity of country music, but also harkens back to the older, once-popular radio barn dance heard across the country from the late 1920s through 1950. Many of today's stage shows use rustic names culled from the radio barn dance, such as "Jamboree," "Barn Dance," "Hayride," and "Roundup," as well as the popular "opry."
"Opry," of course, is simply the word "opera" spoken and written in a local dialect of the rural upland south. The term ties directly to the most obvious model of these stage shows, the Grand Ole Opry. Broadcast from WSM in Nashville, Tennessee, since 1925, the Grand Ole Opry was perhaps the most influential of all the radio barn dances.WSM announcer George D. Hay made the connection between "opry" and country music during a moment of inspiration in December 1927. While listening to the closing moments of the NBC network' s "NBC Music Appreciation Hour," Hay deliberately contrasted what was then called the "WSM Barn Dance" with the classical music that WSM mostly presented to its sophisticated Nashville listeners. "For the past hour we have been listening to the music taken largely from the Grand Opera," Hay announced, "but from now on we will present the Grand Ole Opry."
Kentucky has proudly contributed many chapters to country-music history, and several oprys currently in operation in the state today are significant to radio barn dance and opry history. Since its first broadcast in 1939, the Renfro Valley Barn Dance in Rockcastle County established an important link between country music and tourism when its founder John Lair created not only a radio show but a rural destination for country-music fans to visit. Similarly, the Lincoln Jamboree in Hodgenville—which has been open since 1954, but not broadcast on radio—signifies the decline of the radio barn dance and the rise of the country-music stage show as a visitor's destination. (Hodgenville attracts tourists as it is the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln.) Other oprys across the state, such as the regionally known Goldie's Opry in Owensboro, or the local Downtown Opry in Hopkinsville, have helped Kentucky's municipalities tremendously by restoring and renovating historic theaters for their performances.
There are many different circuits of oprys, ranging from nationally and regionally known theaters down to the unadvertised local oprys. Local oprys distinguish themselves from other forms of country-music making such as picking or jam sessions (which many of them grew out of) by featuring a formal stage, sound system, emcee and ample audience seating. All oprys, whether local or commercial, differ dramatically from honky-tonk taverns and clubs by prohibiting alcoholic beverages and promoting a "family" atmosphere. Beyond these criteria, there are few hard and fast rules about oprys. Local oprys especially tend to be changeable by nature and reflect the life cycles of their participants—marriage, birth, divorce, retirement, death, and the longer process of growing up and growing old.
Although clearly linked to the Grand Ole Opry, the "mother ship" of country music, many oprys today do not exclusively feature country music. Oprys often reflect a local community's traditions, talents, and musical interests, and may include country, bluegrass, or old-time music, as well as forays into gospel and early rock-and-roll. There are regional cultural variations as well: flat foot dancing, for example, is of major importance at oprys in the Appalachian mountains. At Jim's Opry, the audience greatly respects the unique thumbpicking guitar style of next-door Muhlenberg County. One night, as local guitarist Don Groves launched into the famous thumbpicking tune "Cannonball Rag," the audience cheered. This was a local tune, played in a local musical style, and the audience knew and appreciated it.
Often the performance format of each opry reflects the style of music played. For oprys featuring country music, which is song-driven, a house band usually plays the entire show, both leading their own songs and backing up guest singers. However, bluegrass shows, which feature a band-driven music, usually consist of self-contained bands alternating on stage. Other oprys have elaborate shows with a variety of acts, including comedians. Dancing styles also vary with the music played; at some oprys in rural Illinois, dancing is prohibited for religious reasons.
In many Kentucky communities today, a staged country-music show such as Jim's Opry provides excellent support and training for budding young country musicians. Local oprys are equally appropriate for musicians learning the music, for those who need to practice what they've learned, and for the more experienced, who need to stay in practice. Opry musicians "learn on their feet," absorbing important stylistic elements of the music through following others, and, above all, they learn to perform on stage in a supportive atmosphere. Elder musicians who attend mentor younger musicians and often provide an important link to the musical traditions of the region.For the opry audience, the socializing and fellowship is at least as important as the performance on stage. A good part of the opry experience includes laughing, good-natured joking, courting, eating popcorn, or sharing homemade cake. Through supporting live music in their community, opry audience members fulfill a social need not met through the passive consumption of mass culture in our society. Kenneth Miller, the emcee at Jim's Opry, speaks of playing for a simple love of the music:We're not professional. We're all just—just country folk. We're all just people that gather in and love to play music. That's what it amounts to. We all do different things during the week, and we work. . . . Come Friday night we like to go to the Opry and play music. That's what it amounts to, you know.
With an active role in their community's opry, musicians and audiences alike uplift a music that provides them with a sense of tradition and identity with their culture. At the local country-music opry, the sense of community emerges not simply from the reception of the music, but rather from a meaningful gathering of those who play the music and those who listen.While Kentucky can lay claim to a huge number of famous country and bluegrass musicians—Loretta Lynn, Ricky Skaggs, Bill Monroe, String Bean, Grandpa Jones, J.D. Crowe, the Osborne Brothers, Billy Ray Cyrus, Lily May Ledford, Cousin Emmy, and Merle Travis, just to name a few—not nearly enough recognition has been given to the countless local communities across the state who inspired, nurtured, and supported these and many other musicians in their endeavors. Current projects such as the Tourism Development Cabinet, Kentucky Historical Society, and Kentucky Arts Council's Highway 23 research will make a real difference in honoring all that has been done to promote country music in Kentucky.
Amy Davis, who has worked on numerous fieldwork projects for the Kentucky Folklife Program, received her master's degree in folklore from UNC in May 1998. Her thesis, "'When You Coming Back?': The Local Country-Music Opry Community," is a study of local oprys in both Kentucky and North Carolina.
Notes:1. These observations are from visits I made to Jim's Opry between October 1994 and May 1995. Many thanks to Jim Clayton and Kenneth Miller for their help with this project.
2. Charles K. Wolfe, The Grand Ole Opry: The Early Years, 1925—35 (London1973): 22.
3. Nina Burleigh, "A Night at the Opry," Chicago Tribune Magazine, July 8, 1990, p. 14.
4. Kenneth Miller, Personal Interview, Mortons Gap, Ky., May 10, 1995.
