The Mother Church of Country Music

Beth and me on stage at The RYMAN AUDITORIUM!

The Ryman Auditorium – or as we call it down here “The Mother Church of Country Music” and ancestral home to the Grand Ol’ Opry.

What was once begun as a hellfire and damnation church to preach against the evils of a society in decay has grown to become an icon of the music that defines a region, a people and a way of life.

Though the right reverend and traveling evangelist Sam Jones had hoped the tabernacle built in 1892 would serve as a Nashville point of salvation, it became something greater in the hearts of those who were served and saved by not only the gospel but the music of the country in which it was born and raised. Intended to be the Union Gospel Tabernacle built for Sam Jones by the newly converted riverboat Captain Thomas G. Ryman, it grew and even expanded during an 1897 Confederate Reunion to add an expansive balcony to the original theatre in the round design to accommodate the crowd that had come to honor the soldiers who fought in the “Late, Great Unpleasantness”.

Years of use and then eventual neglect created changes to the now (thankfully!) restored and stately old building. The theatre in the round is no more. Country music and WSM radio changed the face of the Ryman from a gospel shouter’s paradise and into a mother church of the music that defined a segment of the population. Country music, bluegrass, homespun comedy and an environment where kids, adults and the aged could all come and join in the fun and rich emotion that drives home the lyrics of each song crooned into the microphone of the Grand Ol’ Opry.

Growing up listening to all kinds of music, I remember many times listening to the songs coming from the radio broadcasts of WSM in Nashville. They played the current, the old and the favorite gospel songs that were like mother’s milk to the ears of people needing to feel like someone else shared their cares, their woes, their load and lot in life. From the hallowed and almost reverent stage of the Ryman, those broadcasts shared with the eager ears emotion for emotion.

Gaining not only a reputation for the music of the people, but also for the voraciously sought worldwide acts and productions that brought culture to the masses, the Ryman was quick to be compared to the boards of the famed theaters in Damnyankee country and was even tagged as being “the Carnegie Hall of the South”.

Lines to attend the productions and live radio shows surrounded the block as hunger for more than the day to day filled the souls of people who were enriched by the music and the emotion of the Ryman. It was indeed a version of life’s blood to all those who entered the hallowed halls and sat reverentially on the worn pews that created the audience portion of the theatre and balcony.

Even now, you can feel that presence of being in a Tabernacle, one that has the acoustics second only to that OTHER famed Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah. Both have stories that only the past can tell and both have futures that are, even now, unfolding before our very eyes and ears.

Visiting the Ryman was not what I was expecting. Frankly, I don’t know what I was expecting. Theatre, church, or both… who knows? I admit to being deeply awed, amazed and thrilled to know that where I was walking had graced the presence of “Country Royalty” past and present. I couldn’t stop smiling! Displays of the lives of the voices that I have heard on my radio filled the atmosphere with a heady presence of the living embodiement of what it is to 'be country'.

Walking from display to display to read about the people that inhabit the country world, I was singing along with Johnny Cash word for word and feeling the songs as if I had lived it.

Then, came the coup de grace!

Beth and I had the opportunity to ascend to the very stage and to the microphone stand that countless performers of Opry legend had occupied! It felt almost sacriligious. How could I possibly be counted worthy to step into the place where my musical heroes had once inhabited? It was a heady sensation. The photo op was just that… a chance to be immortalized in print as ‘being at the Ryman’.

Then, came the unexpected. Oh, joy! The photographer said "there's a couple of guitars up there, if you know how to play 'em". I picked one up and strummed a bit and picked out a quick giblet of a song. He laughed and said "Well, I guess you CAN play!"

The photographer then asked if we sang. Beth, who lied through her teeth, pointed to me and said, “I don’t, but she does”. Beth sings. I have heard her sing at lots of country concerts. I’ve also heard her scream herself hoarse at them, but I digress.

Chicken-hearted I am not, so I belted out a few lines of what felt was appropriate. I sang “Precious Lord”. It was, after all, a Tabernacle turned icon. Overwhelmed by both the atmosphere and the reality of where I was standing, I choked up a bit and just took it all in. My Grandpa Mitchell had been the bass in the old Athens Quartet and sung for recordings and radio broadcasts from back in the day when the Opry was just a regional suggestion. I hope he saw his granddaughter on the stage at the Ryman singing a tidbit of a gospel song. I think it would have made him smile.

When I talked to Kari about it later, she was jealous. I laughed. I WANTED her to be jealous. I want to go back and slip into the recording booth there at the Ryman with my sisters and record a gospel song in harmonies to give to Daddy. A record we’ll make at the Ryman.

I like to think that will honor both the Tabernacle that is the Mother Church of Country Music, and the Grandfather known as “Singin’ Sam”, the man who’s heart was filled with country music and gospel fervor whom we never really knew.

The Ryman – part auditorium, part church, all country.

Thanks, Beth! This was a road trip I will NEVER forget. I don’t think I will ever be the same.