Fans Fall To Pieces At Rumor That Opry To Lose Radio Home

Fans Fall To Pieces At Rumor That Opry To Lose Radio Home

By: Anne Michaud and D.F. Weyermann
Globe Correspondents

NASHVILLE - The protests are pouring in, even before any official word that WSM-AM will switch its 76-year-old country music format to sports talk and sever its ties with the Grand Ole Opry.

Station owner Gaylord Entertainment Co. has set up a special comment line to handle the calls, and 3,568 people from New Jersey to Washington state have signed an online petition to preserve the weekly live broadcasts of the Grand Ole Opry, which can be heard in 38 states and Canada.

While market forces are changing radio stations everywhere, WSM-AM is more an institution than a radio station. It first broadcast the Opry in October 1925 and has since given national exposure to such country greats as Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, and Loretta Lynn.

Changing the tradition "would be akin to snuffing out the Statue of Liberty's torch, dynamiting Mount Rushmore, or burning down the White House," wrote petition signer Charlie Hansen.

At Nashville's Ernest Tubb Record Shop on Broadway, one of the premier country music stores in the United States, mail order representative Wade Settle said: "I really think it's tampering with tradition. They're turning something away from the history of Nashville and country music. We have more than enough sports stations."

Gaylord Entertainment, a Nashville-based entertainment and hospitality conglomerate, said it is looking at ways to make each of its divisions more successful, but no decisions have been made. "We've tried to explain that we're looking at a lot of scenarios, but at this point, we're not sure what's going to happen," said Beth Peden, a Gaylord spokeswoman.

However, leaks from inside the organization have convinced prominent Nashvillians that a deal with ESPN to program sports talk is in the offing. "I think they will do it, although they're officially still weighing that decision," said Ed Benson, executive director of the Country Music Association, the industry's largest trade association. ESPN declined to comment.

Gaylord is said to be considering moving classic country music, along with the Grand Ole Opry broadcasts, to its weaker-signal FM station and syndicating the Friday and Saturday night Opry shows.

That could be good for country music, some say.

"I've said for several years that the Opry would do much better on syndicated radio," Benson said. "The exposure and the number of people that can hear it on a given weekend will increase dramatically.

"But it's a very emotional issue for this city," he said. "People here will bemoan the loss. That was always the station you could turn to and hear traditional country music."

Country music historian Robert K. Oermann said there is nothing good about the proposed change. "I think it's very wrong," he said, "650 WSM-AM is what everybody knows as the home of the Grand Ole Opry, and that's been true since 1925. There are some things more important than the bottom line, and America's culture is one of them."

Nashville would have no place in country music, he said, if it had not been for the Opry. The station was owned in 1925 by the National Life & Accident Insurance Co., and its call letters were said to stand for "We Shield Millions." At first, the programming was pop and classical music, but an unscheduled, two-hour appearance by fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson proved wildly popular, and "Barn Dance" was born. Two years later, the show was renamed the Grand Ole Opry.

Initially, the show was broadcast from National Life's fifth-floor studio downtown. As the crowds grew, the Opry moved to larger venues, until it settled into the new Grand Ole Opry House in 1974.

In 1932, WSM went from a regional broadcast to national reach with a new, 50,000-watt tower. For three generations, the Opry launched the careers of musicians, as well as radio personalities such as Minnie Pearl and Eddie Arnold, earning the nickname the Mother Church of Country Music.

Shortly after 1950, the Opry became WSM's last remaining live broadcast, and it remains the longest-running live radio show in history.

Stars moved to Nashville to be near the Opry, and recording companies followed: Arista Records, United Artists, MCA, Curb Records, and RCA's Studio B, where Elvis Presley recorded more than 200 songs.

Even today, stars who make a name elsewhere - Clint Black, Travis Tritt, Trisha Yearwood, Vince Gill, Garth Brooks - sign up for membership to be part of the tradition.

"They don't need to play the Opry," said Oermann. "They're all multimillionaires; they can play anywhere they please. If you're an actor, you go to Hollywood or Broadway. If you're a country singer, you come to Nashville."

But as radio listeners rely less and less on AM stations for music, WSM-AM is the last clear-channel station not to carry news, talk, or sports.

Gaylord Entertainment - originally Oklahoma Publishing Co., which produced the Daily Oklahoman - bought Opryland USA in 1983, an acquisition that included several Nashville properties. Gaylord has launched the Nashville Network and bought a majority interest in Country Music Television. The company continued buying hotel and entertainment properties until the late 1990s. In 1998, in the face of declining attendance, it closed the Opryland theme park.

Peden cited cost-cutting as the reason for examining all Gaylord's holdings, including WSM-AM.

Part of the outcry over a format change is resentment over changes in the country music industry.

"It's driven by greed," said Jeannie Johnson, publisher of the Nashville Newsletter, which circulates within the music industry. "The music has been homogenized to the point where you might as well be listening to Muzak in a dentist's chair."

But Johnson is predicting a resurgence, partly because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "People have a need of comfort," she said. "Something homey and down-home are what people are reaching for now."

Originally Published In the Boston Globe In January 2002