Then Grand Ole Opry
Thursday Karen said she was feeling better but would spend another day in the hotel resting up. She certainly was not up to walking around the Nashville Zoo which had been planned for that day. I wasn’t happy with it but she sent me out again on my own.
First stop was at the Opryland Gaylord Resort to find the WSM 650 AM studio. I had tried to find it in 2022 near the Opry House, which is where Google and iMaps told me it was located. I had since found it was now at the Gaylord, about 5 minutes away.
Pulling up in the parking lot I found I had 20 minutes, after which I would be charged $37 for parking. A quick visit indeed.
The walk to the Gaylord Magnolia entrance took 5 minutes, meaning I had just 10 minutes to find the radio studio. I turned right as I entered and about 30 yards down the hallway I found the studio. It was in a small mall outlet in the Gaylord complex, with the studios visible behind a glass wall. Talk about a fishbowl.
I could see Bill Cody, Charlie Mateos and Kelly Sutton from the Coffee, Cody and Country show at work through the glass. A quick photo and it was time to leave.
Nest stop was the Opry House. I had tried to book VIP backstage tickets the week before we left home, and the transaction would not go through, probably as there was no facility for an overseas address outside the U.S. in the booking office I was told that I would have to book online or phone the ticket office.
I had actually tried to phone the booking office from home and had gotten no-where, just an endless loop of phone options to press. But outside again I was successful.
Pulling up in the carpark I had phoned Karen to check she was okay with my going on the backstage tour. “it’s quite a bit of money” I told her, without telling her just how much the tickets were, close to $750. I had actually been putting some extra money aside for the last few month to pay for the tickets and she said I should go.
Back in the car I phoned the Country Music Hall of Fame. I wanted to take the RCA Studio B tour, but could not book it on its own, it could only be bought in combination with a HoF ticket. I booked the RCA tour for 2.30 and the HoF ticket for 3.00 pm.
I found a Walmart in the vicinity of our hotel and headed that way to pick up a few things. Water, some antiseptic wipes as Karen had left them outnof her suitcase while packing thinking I had them, and some cold and flu medication. I was hoping that it would ease her coughing and loosen up any flem she was developing in her lungs.
Back at the hotel I took some more water and the wipes up to Karen, made her coffee and ensured she was comfortable. After changing from my tee shirt, shorts and sandals into jeans, short sleeved button down shirt and running shoes, I made my way downtown to the HoF. On the way I noticed the price of gas, which had gone up just over .10 cents a gallon earlier in the week had now dropped again by over .20 cents. Even so it took $25 to fill the Explorer from around 2/3 of a tank.
The studio tour was interesting, but rather short when compared to the Sun Studio one in Memphis. Back at the HoF I spent a short time wandering through. The California country rock exhibit we had missed by only a few days in 2022 was still in place, so that was a bonus.
Getting back to the parked car I paid the parking ($40) then made my way to the recording studio to pick up my “gold disc”, before it was back to the Opry House. Before the tour began I went through the gift shop buying a poster of the nights performers, a tee shirt for Karen, and nice silvery top for her and an embroidered heavy long sleeved shirt that I could have trimmed up into a lightnjacket for myself.
There were a total of 7 of us on the tour, although two, a father and daughter, were quite late in getting there and caught us up half way through the tour.
In the Family room we encountered Mr Larry Gatlin, the nights host. It was his birthday and he invited us into his dressing room for some birthday cake and spent 10-15 minutes just chatting with us.
Back In “our” dressing room for the evening there was some light refreshments and we were joined by Jennie Sealey for autographed posters and some selfies. We made our way up to the circle room for drinks and more nibbles. It was pretty full and Jeanie Sealey addressed the whole room.She had us all laughing at some of her stories.
Back to the backstage area and we took our east at the rear of the stage for the first half of the show. The pick for me was Twitty and Lynn, Conway Twitty’s grandson Trey and Lorretta’s granddaughter Tayla. The sang “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man”, then Trey performed “Hello, Darlin’” with Tayla performing “You Ain’t Woman Enough to Take My Man”.
At intermission it was backup to the circle room for so,Elmore refreshments before we were taken to our seats in the main floor for the rest of the show. Highlight for this half was Avery Ana who had the audience on their feet with Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You”.
With the show over it was back to the hotel for our last night in Nashville.
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View from down under
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