Nashville Mass Shooting Result Of NRA, Americans Must Find Spine To Stop Slaughtering Of Our Children

Time for frank writing.

The Nashville shooting is what happens in America. This is not a phenomenon that occurs in other nations.

This is the result of the NRA which buys congress, raises untold amounts of money, and pressures common sense out of the political conversation.

After every shooting, there are strong words about the need for legislation that would restrict guns in our nation. We have one more reason to grasp why it’s so important they act.

But you and I both know that action is not forthcoming as the NRA has congress shackled. The political landscape is undermined with absurd redistricting that allows for the loud NRA money to shut out the voices of the majority who know what is happening in our communities.

The NRA is thy most dangerous lobbying group in America. Until we all take a public stand and demand another way forward the carnage will continue. And the NRA wants gun violence to continue so they can use their power to leverage more gun sales for manufacturers.

The bullshit response of ‘guns don’t kill, people kill’ gags the nation like rotten eggs left in a car in mid-July. Only the most severely uneducated rube or overly blind partisan would ever make such a stupid claim.

I think the top lobbyists and promoters of the NRA should be taken to the Nashville school and have their noses rubbed in the mess that remains on the floor of the school. Let them smell the results of the deranged policies they advocate.

Make those same NRA leaders attend every single funeral for the students.

Let the NRA explain to the locals of this community why gun interests are more important than the national interest.

Better yet perhaps someone from the NRA brain trust might suggest why this all could have been avoided had the kids in the Nashville school been armed. Or their teachers. How about the custodian? Clearly, the problem is that there were not enough people with guns!

There is a great need in this nation to no longer allow the tail to wag the dog when it comes to gun control measures. There was a blood-letting in Nashville that will make the headlines, but the NRA is counting on most Americans to forget this horrible story by the time finish their third beer on the couch tonight. The NRA will not be mentioned again until another mass shooting.

And on and on it goes.

The NRA will continue to torpedo gun control legislation and threaten politicians. The NRA will use the brain-dead who repeat the crap they spew to bluster on right-wing media.

Spring will turn to summer. 2023 will turn to 2024. More guns will continue to be sold, and countless rounds of ammunition will be bought. Untold amounts will be fired. And we all know that some of those will be fired into innocent kids, like what happened in Nashville. Obliterating their bodies so they are hard to identify by their parents.

We need to find our collective spine as Americans on this issue, stand up, and demand from our legislators that they also find theirs. Our nation is too important to allow the games the NRA plays to continue.

If you think I am wrong talk to a parent of a dead child in Nashville.

97th Birthday Of Grand Ole Opry, America’s Longest-Running Radio Show

The Grand Ole Opry celebrates its 97th birthday on October 8th, (tonight).

When I was a child on many a Saturday night the radio that always rested on the wooden buffet in the dining room would not only be turned on but equally importantly physically turned in such a fashion to best be able to hear WSM radio. The Grand Ole Opry was best able to be received in the cold months in our Hancock, Wisconsin home–as anyone who understands radio signals knows. It was always getting the radio in just the right location and also using the cord placement, that worked as an antenna, which allowed the nation’s longest-running radio show to fill our home with music and laughter.

I have been pleased to post many times about the music and the stars who have played such an important part in our country and also in my life. I have commented on their triumphs and felt sadness as they left us for the biggest stage of all. I have recalled the joys of attending the Opry and also being able to see some of those same ones perform in other venues where they were always content to let anyone who wanted to get an autograph or picture to do so. After all, as I was to learn from watching Porter Wagoner, Little Jimmy Dickens, or Charlie Louvin among others, the show was not really over until everyone had a personal memory to take home. They simply do not make entertainers like that anymore. My guitar attests to the truth of that statement with many signatures.

There is a richness that I carry with me from having had Saturday nights with the often scratchy signal from Nashville coming over the radio back home. Or telling ‘Whisperin’ Bill Anderson after a show, how as a kid, I used to impersonate him by standing on our picnic table in the backyard and pretending the garden hose was the microphone. Then came puberty and my country music career ended. I still see Bill laughing at that comment.

Many memories and thoughts will flood Americans around the nation as we celebrate this slice of Americana tonight when the big red curtain goes up at the Opry House. When trying to pick one song that sums up the mood and magic of the Opry over the decades I would opt for one of my favorite entertainers and singers who stood on the famed wooden circle. Not only would Roy Acuff, “The King Of Country Music” get people to tap their feet to the music but during the commercial breaks he would do tricks for the audience at the Opry House with his fiddle bow balanced on his nose or with his famed yo-yo tricks. He felt being an entertainer meant when one is on the stage they have a role to play. He played his part at the Opry with perfection for decades.

So Happy Birthday Grand Ole Opry! I add this audio of Roy and Minnie Pearl for the feel of the radio show. Truly awesome.

My New Doty Land Podcast: Tribute To Grant Turner, Classic Country Music Stars

Doty Land, my podcast, following a long hiatus due to truly swear-worthy technical issues and the pandemic which made it most difficult to have the equipment in our home worked on, is now back ‘on the air.’

Humbly written here, but I am mighty pleased with the 16-minute multi-track production which offers my sincere tribute to WSM radio announcer Grant Turner. I also offer my thoughts as to what essential quality the classic country singers had which then allowed for them to have such faithful fans many decades later.

You can hear Doty Land and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartradio, Spotify, Castro, and many other sites. Pandora and Amazon are the next sites I am working with that will be offering my podcast for your listening enjoyment.

You can also link here and head directly to my podcast page.

From memories of Loretta Lynn,  Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton, WSM radio announcer Grant Turner and others this tribute looks at how classic country music still resonates across the land.  Heartfelt memories galore! Podcaster Gregory Humphrey takes listeners on a journey from his Hancock home to the stages of country music shows.  The fiddles are warming up, now.  

This project will not put me on the map, but it made me very happy if for no other reason than everything is working as the manufacturer of the studio equipment intended! Broadcasting and now its offshoots remains a great love of my life. Therefore, it was most rewarding to ramp up the production values for this episode. I admit to a few ‘bumps’ that perhaps my ear is more accustomed to discerning, but overall I am very content to offer this episode to the listening public.

Grandma Schwarz landed at this angle for the promo pic. As in radio days, I like to have photos of special people around as it makes for a more genuine type of conversation when recording. She seemed the one who would best connect with the topic of these recordings.

And so it goes.

Bill Anderson Celebrates 60 Years On The Grand Ole Opry

It is not all politics here at Caffeinated Politics. This blog has always been home to the wide array of interests that make life delightful. From books, space, radio, and yes, the Grand Ole Opry. As such, it is time to post about Bill Anderson’s 60th anniversary this weekend at the Grand Ole Opry.

The Grand Ole Opry starts at 7 PM Central Time on WSM Radio, and don’t forget to catch Opry Live on Circle TV starting at 8PM Central Time.

Grand Ole Opry veteran Bill Anderson performs on the famed circle of wood at the center of the stage in the Grand Ole Opry House on Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2010, in Nashville. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

I am not a fan of contemporary country music.  Too much of it is 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.

As a child, I would impersonate Bill Anderson in the backyard at the 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.  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. And this weekend he gets his night in the limelight at the world famous Grand Ole Opry.

When in the third grade my parents had tickets to see Bill Anderson and his singing partner at the time, Jan Howard, in Waupaca.  As the show date approached I came down with the stomach flu.  My mom said we probably would need to miss the concert.  Somehow, someway the flu was put aside and we all attended.  It was Jan Howard that missed the show that night for being sick!

Many decades from now someone, somewhere will be singing a Bill Anderson song.  His legacy is as much from the words he penned as the performing artist he became.  So on behalf of a grateful nation, Caffeinated Politics wants to congratulate Bill Anderson on 60 years at the World-Famous Grand Ole Opry.

So let’s go back to a time when country music had flavor and spice.  Bill Anderson as a young man in a suit that sparkled, as he sings his standard “Bright Lights And Country Music”.  At the end of each performance at the Grand Ole Opry Anderson leaves the stage with a line from this song.

This weekend will be no different.

Ryman Auditorium Gets Major News Coverage From CBS Sunday Morning

In late June, theRyman Auditorium – a Nashville landmark for more than 125 years, and one-time home to the Grand Ole Opry – reopened for tours after closing due to COVID-19. CBS Correspondent Mark Strassmann looks at the history of the Ryman, which has hosted not just country musicians but also legends of folk, rock and hip hop; and talks with some of the artists (including Sheryl Crow and Ketch Secor, of Old Crow Medicine Show) who have graced its stage.

Eddie Stubbs Retires, Voice Of WSM, Grand Ole Opry, Never To Be Forgotten

These are the types of posts that are bitter-sweet to write.  While the gem at the heart of this post was continually invited into our homes and vehicles via radio, it is now hard to close a long wonderful chapter of music and broadcasting history.

WSM broadcaster and Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs has announced his retirement.  Most of you, like me, have heard him far more than see him.  (Only once did I see Stubbs when sitting in the audience of the longest-running radio show in America.)

Stubbs began hosting WSM in 1996 and worked his way into becoming the longest-serving broadcaster in the 7 p.m. to midnight slot in WSM’s 95 years of operation.  I need to state that working in broadcasting is not easy. When it sounds relaxing and conversational that means the announcer is a top-notch professional. Such as with  Stubbs.

I mentioned this radio icon in my book Walking Up The Ramp for being a gentleman at the time my parents and I attended the Grand Ole Opry.  Mom and Dad were celebrating their 50^th wedding anniversary and from the world-famous stage he announced that a couple from Hancock, Wisconsin was in the Opry House.   I had spoken to him personally that morning to make the arrangements. I had a nice, if short chat, with the man who I had long admired.  Told him that, too.  The entire crowd applauded the milestone of my parents, which was also aired live throughout the WSM listening public that evening.

Listening to Stubbs on AM 650 meant that there was the information to be learned about classic country music, as he is nothing short of a walking encyclopedia on the stars who sang from the Ryman and made records that still resonate with a large swath of the nation.

It was the pleasure of so many to have tuned into the ‘Air Castle of the South’ over the many years and found a familiar voice.  One they never needed to wonder if his professionalism would ever slip, or something come over the airwaves that they would not want to be uttered in their home.  Stubbs was not only a broadcaster of the best kind but also a gentleman.

Not a bad way to sum up a person.  Not bad at all.  He will be missed on the airwaves.

Stubbs, is of course, far more than just the voice we all recognize when hearing it over the airwaves.  As they say in the South, “That boy can fiddle!” 

Jimmy Capps, Grand Ole Opry Member, Dead At 81

In so many performances at the Grand Ole Opry and on reunion videos, Jimmy Capps was a face that always was welcoming. 

Guitarist Jimmy Capps, a member of the Musicians Hall of Fame who played on such timeless country songs as Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler,” George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” and George Strait’s “Amarillo by Morning,” has died at 81. Capps was also a member of the Grand Ole Opry, playing lead guitar in the house band. A rep for the Opry confirmed his death.

Born May 25th, 1939, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Capps began playing guitar when he was 12. In 1958, he auditioned for the Louvin Brothers’ band and was ultimately asked to join the sibling duo by Charlie Louvin. “Thanks to Charlie…I guess I owe my whole career to him,” Capps said in his 2018 autobiography The Man in Black. “That one split-second decision that he made is the reason I am here. That decision made all the difference in my life.”

Capps made his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry stage with the Louvins, performing their murder ballad “Knoxville Girl,” and became an Opry member in 1959. He joined the Opry house band in 1967, playing lead guitar behind the radio show’s guest artists every week up until his death.

Nighttime Smiles In Dane County With Flight Of Lights!

I want to give a most appreciative shout-out to all those who made for a genuinely nice time with Flight of Lights at the Dane County Regional Airport.  James and I drove through about 10 P.M. this evening.   After another day of headlines about the pandemic, it was nice to see lights and sparkle and pace our drive so to linger in front of this or that display.

I know this post may sound perhaps ‘small town’,  But for the past many weeks we all have been mentally and emotionally battered with the headlines of virus, death, and economic despair. So whoever came up with the idea that some splash of color and lights is what we most needed should be applauded–again and again.

For all those who provided the labor to make it all look so nice at nighttime, and those who contributed funding to allow it to be such a spectacular display—THANKS!

It was also super nice to see other cars there, and also being respectful by turning off their headlights.

And for readers of this blog, it is no surprise what brought me the biggest smile……