What does one do when blizzard-like conditions and biting cold take hold outside? I recorded a 50-minute Saturday Night fantasy Grand Ole Opry ‘radio broadcast’, that mimics the tone and sound of what was heard each weekend in my teenage years growing up in Hancock. I loved working in radio broadcasting as my first job as an adult and I have constructed a studio in my Madison home. Another love is the classic country sound that my Dad and Mom always listened to and which was featured on Saturday nights at the Waushara County Fair when I was a kid. A long way of saying my heart can be found in this production. It will be available on the link below for 90 days starting Jan. 14, 2024. I trust this makes a smile. Listen here below or head to my linked podcasting page.
My podcast, Doty Land, has a little victory to note. If you want to sample what I do in my third-floor recording studio here is an example, with a Tribute To Classic Country Music, WSM Radio, Grant Turner, And More!. I have fun using these decades later what I learned from my radio broadcasting days. That large soundboard that I worked behind with a studio microphone at WDOR is now a computer application on my laptop, a computer dedicated solely to podcasting. But, with downsizing due to technology, I do get to keep the microphones!
I am a bit late on this post with photos, but with some time today, I am getting caught up on some items on my desk. Long-time readers know this page is not only focused on politics but also posts about the Grand Ole Opry, Elvis, radio, science, and books. The Grand Ole Opry is the longest-running radio show in the United States and I lift my hat in salute to a most noteworthy event that occurred just a couple of weeks ago live on WSM radio, the Air Castle of the South, which has been airing the Opry since it started almost 100 years ago. (98 years this fall if you want to be precise.)
Bill Anderson was honored for being the longest-serving member of the Opry in the show’s history. He has sung on the famed stage for 62 years!! Jeannie Seely and Vince Gill stood on either side of Whisperin’ Bill backstage at the Opry that night of the show as he was honored with a plaque. Bill is also a well-known songwriter in Nashville. On stage, among other songs he performed, was a duet with Jeannie Seeley as they took the audience by storm with “When Two Worlds Collide”. The Opry the way it was meant to sound, and be heard.
Those who know me are well aware I am not a fan of contemporary country music. Too much of it is red-neck and struggling to be more than just country, while in search of a broader audience. For me, the classic country sound of many decades ago is where the tire meets the road. It is one of the musical types I often gravitate to when putting music on the stereo. And when it comes to Anderson, well, the two us go waayyyy back, but only one of us recalls that fact.
As a child, I would impersonate Anderson in the backyard at the Hancock family home. The garden hose would be my microphone, and the picnic table the stage. Aunt Evie who lived next door smiled about those ‘shows’ decades after the last one was performed. The thing is, as I always told her, I still knew all the words to those old songs. (I still do.) They are just as fresh in my mind now as when they were played endlessly on my mom’s record player. The fact is that I have found it easy to sing much like ‘Whispering Bill’ all my life. In my late 20s and 30s, I had given up the picnic table circuit for karaoke shows, however. But that now, too, is in the rearview mirror.
I have been able to meet and talk with Bill Anderson on several occasions both in Wisconsin and in Nashville. He is one of the Opry legends who have signed my guitar. He remains a powerful writer of songs and a connection to classic country music that was so much a part of my years of growing up. It is the only music to be found in my earbuds as I putter around outside with flowers and shrubs.
(Caffeinated Politics always has a place for posts about the best of the Grand Ole Opry.)
On July 22, 2023, ‘Whispering’ Bill Anderson will celebrate 62 years as a member of the world-famous Grand Ole Opry, the longest-running radio show in the world. In fact, Anderson’s anniversary is on July 12, meaning that he will have been an Opry member longer than any other performer in the almost 100-year history of the show.
Statisticians on the Opry report that there was an old-time string band on the Opry for years known as The Crook Brothers, and Herman Crook was a member of that group for 61-years, 11-months, and 17-days. He came close, but no artist, male, female, or group, has made it all the way to 62 consecutive years. Might I say, Bill Anderson certainly deserves the honor.
It was in the summer of 1953 when Anderson’s parents took the 15-year-old teenager to his first Opry visit, and it was on that famed stage at the Ryman Auditorium on July 12, 1961, when at the age of just 23 Anderson became an Opry member.
Those who know me are well aware I am not a fan of contemporary country music. Too much of it is red-neck and struggling to be more than just country, while in search of a broader audience. For me, the classic country sound of many decades ago is where the tire meets the road. It is one of the musical types I often gravitate to when putting music on the stereo. And when it comes to Anderson, well, the two us go waayyyy back, but only one of us recalls that fact.
As a child, I would impersonate Anderson in the backyard at the Hancock family home. The garden hose would be my microphone, and the picnic table the stage. Aunt Evie who lived next door smiled about those ‘shows’ decades after the last one was performed. The thing is, as I always told her, I still knew all the words to those old songs. (I still do.) They are just as fresh in my mind now as when they were played endlessly on my mom’s record player. The fact is that I have found it easy to sing much like ‘Whispering Bill’ all my life. In my late 20s and 30s, I had given up the picnic table circuit for karaoke shows, however. But that now, too, is in the rearview mirror.
I have been able to meet and talk with Bill Anderson on several occasions both in Wisconsin and in Nashville. He is one of the Opry legends who have signed my guitar. He remains a powerful writer of songs and a connection to classic country music that was so much a part of my years of growing up. It is the only music to be found in my earbuds as I putter around outside with flowers and shrubs.
One of his most powerful performances came with a song that featured the essential voice of country music, Roy Acuff. The song was released in 1983 and was Acuff’s last single.
There are many singers across the land, countless records pressed and sold, stories of kindness between the concert stage and the audience, and all are remarkable to hear and learn. But when all those musical accounts are told and all the songs are played by artists young and old, one fact remains. There is only one Loretta Lynn.
Today the classic country music legend died in Tennessee at the age of 90. Her music was among the first voices I heard on our record player as a boy. There was Jones and Haggard and Smith, of course, but there was always just one Loretta. Mom would remark that Lynn wrote songs about what she knew and the hurts she felt along the path of life. Such sentiments found their way into her penned lines again and again. Country music fans responded by requesting the music be played on country radio stations and then headed off to buy their own copy at stores like Woolworths. There was always a sense that Loretta was just like her fans, a person who made her mark by never forgetting her past.
Last year, I recorded a 17-minute podcast that in part pays tribute to Lorretta Lynn. She is the first person treated with my thanks when I call out the best concerts I was privileged to attend. From memories of Loretta, Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton, along with WSM radio announcer Grant Turner and others this tribute looks at how classic country music still resonates across the land. Heartfelt memories galore! I take listeners on a journey to the stages of country music shows. The fiddles are warming up, now.
Loretta started her life in Kentucky’s coal fields and grew as a powerful female singer to know she resided in the hearts of millions. Simply a remarkable life, creating music that will never cease to be played.
I ran across an interesting obituary that lands in the Caffeinated Politics Grand Ole Opry file. Best of all it connects with Bill Anderson, a decades-long favorite of your blogger.
Stewart was a lifelong educator, journalist, and campaign strategist, known as a trailblazer for women.
Connie worked at WSB-TV, married newscaster Don Stewart, and had one daughter, Sheri Lyn. She taught in Atlanta public schools and was faculty and Dir. of Orientation at UGA where she achieved racial diversity among the student Orientation Leaders. She was even the inspiration for the hit love song Still, as confirmed by country music writer/singer Bill Anderson.
Most folks who have a broad sense concerning the evolution of radio in our country know of George D. Hay. He was affectionately known as the “The Solemn Old Judge”. He started the radio program WSM Barn Dance and shortly thereafter uttered a sentence that was a major step in creating the famed and deeply-loved Grand Ole Opry.
His one line has been repeated often in the annals of American broadcasting.
“For the past hour, we have been listening to music taken largely from Grand Opera. From now on we will present the Grand Ole Opry.
That was in 1927.
On Saturday night, October 30, 2021, the longest continuously running radio show on WSM will air the 5000th broadcast of the Opry! What a remarkable history has been recorded over those decades.
George D. Hay and his steamboat whistle that started each Saturday night’s radio broadcast.
We need to make sure this weekend Hay is remembered. I know the Opry will be front and center with his importance, and here is why.
Initially, he had been a newspaperman, on The Memphis Commercial Appeal. It was there that he earned his nickname, the Solemn Old Judge, covering jury trials and where he was first attracted to mountain music while attending a country hoedown in Mineral Springs, Ark. That gave Hay the inspiration for a “radio barn dance” after he became a radio announcer, first in Memphis and later at Chicago’s WLS, where he helped create “The National Barn Dance.”
Hay’s initial “WSM Barn Dance,” on Nov. 28, 1925, turned a lot of heads in Nashville; some people were horrified that the new prestige station of the National Life & Accident Insurance Company was allowing “those dreadful hillbillies” on its airwaves. In fact, Hay often had to fight the station moguls to keep the show on the air until it was noticed that “The Barn Dance” was selling an awful lot of insurance policies through its rural salesmen.
At 7 PM CST, nearly 96 years to the week the show made its debut, the Opry will take to the airwaves for the 5,000th time! The tradition continues!
The country music legend celebrated 60 years on the Grand Ole Opry Saturday night. I wrote how I sang his songs as a boy while using the picnic table as a stage back home. And how my Aunt Evie, who lived next door, smiled about those ‘shows’ decades after the last one was performed.
Tonight, I can say the picture below from Bill Anderson’s website tickles me completely and means more than money. After all, this has been a six-decade journey with smiles and memories still being made.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 