Grand Ole Opry Celebrates 100 Years with Star-Studded Special

by Julian Spivey

Photo: NBC

The Grand Ole Opry, the most famous institution in country music, celebrated its 100th birthday with a three-hour special on NBC on Wednesday, March 19, featuring some of the biggest and most legendary names in the genre’s history and modern-day highlighting some of the greats of the genre’s past.

Reba McEntire, a legend of the genre and current star of NBC’s sitcom “Happy’s Place” (have to have that synergy, right?), opened the show with a snippet of Patsy Cline’s “Sweet Dreams (Of You)” before doing a fantastic rendition of Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough.” McEntire cited Cline and Lynn as two of her major influences. She was then joined on the stage at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville by Trisha Yearwood for a duet on McEntire’s 1992 song “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.” They did a good job, but I would’ve preferred “Fancy” or something else.

Blake Shelton, longtime coach on NBC’s “The Voice” (y’all see how this works), helped usher the evening along as emcee. Later in the evening, he would pay tribute to the late Joe Diffie by performing Diffie’s 1995 No. 1 hit “Pickup Man.” This came during a segment in which Clint Black and Trace Adkins also performed hits from the ‘90s with “Nothin’ but the Tailights” and “(This Ain’t) No Thinkin’ Thing,” respectively.

During the telecast, I was happy to see the show show small snippets of Grand Ole Opry history. I was concerned it might just be a series of performances over the evening, which it mostly was. That’s what we mostly want as viewers, but it was necessary to also tell the story of the Opry’s century of music.

The Grand Ole Opry is an important institution in country music, but I think some would be surprised to know that it isn’t a complete history of the genre. Some of the biggest names in the genre's history, like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and George Strait, were never members.

My favorite aspects of the celebration were the stars of today paying tribute to the legends of the past, like Garth Brooks and Yearwood paying tribute to George Jones and Tammy Wynette. Brooks performed Jones’s “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” Yearwood performed Wynette’s “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad,” and then they dueted on the classic Jones/Wynette collaboration “Golden Ring.”

Lainey Wilson got one of the biggest surprises of the evening when Marty Stuart let her borrow Hank Williams’ actual guitar for a supreme performance of “Lost Highway.” Luke Combs did an admirable job on Jones’s incredibly sad “The Grand Tour,” though with Brooks and Yearwood coming beforehand, another Opry legend could have been feted instead.

Dierks Bentley, Jamey Johnson and Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show also did a fantastic job paying tribute to the late Charlie Daniels with “Drinkin’ My Baby Goodbye” and “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

Among my favorite performances from more modern artists were Alison Krauss and Union Station, featuring Jerry Douglas, doing their excellent “Let Me Touch You for A While,” and Krauss later joining Brad Paisley for “Whiskey Lullaby.” Ashley McBryde gave a touching performance of her song “Girl Going Nowhere” with Terri Clark, and Alan Jackson put on a show with his classic “Chattahoochee.”

There weren’t any bad performances over the three-hour show, but a few head-scratchers. It was mostly a night of Opry members playing their songs or paying tribute to other Opry legends, but there was also mainstream Nashville’s continuing to shove Post Malone down our throats as he joined Travis Tritt for a performance of “T-R-O-U-B-L-E” and later McBryde for a Johnny Cash/June Carter tribute with “Jackson.” By the way, Cash and Hank Willams, who was tributed earlier in the show, were fired from the Opry – neither one of those firings was mentioned on the show.

Tributing Charley Pride was a must, but getting pop/R&B singer Aloe Blacc to do it with “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” was strange, given that Darius Rucker is a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Maybe Rucker wasn’t available, as he does live overseas now. But there were black country singers in the Opry audience, like Breland and Chapel Hart, who could’ve done the job and kept it in the genre. Blacc did a superb job, though.

Dolly Parton wasn’t at the show in person, still grieving the recent death of her husband, Carl Dean, but did send in a video congratulating the Opry on its 100th birthday. Carly Pearce did a lovely version of “Jolene” in tribute to Parton, and the show ended with an all-star cast of all of the Opry members in attendance doing “I Will Always Love You” with Lady A, McEntire and Carrie Underwood leading the way.