Advertisement Pretty soon, you’re moving your fingers in time to the music, too, and maybe nodding your head. If it’s not the steel guitar that has you in its grip, it’s the soft drum or the fiddle that’s got you.
And it all started with, as Loretta Lynn says, a “patting foot” because you love country music. Some of your best memories are of listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio or watching it on television. Now, keep those feet moving and take a step back to re-live those moments with your favorite stars in the new book “Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain”
by Robert K. Oermann (c.2008, Center Street $23.99, 403 pages, includes notes).
For going on 100 years, the Grand Ole Opry has been home to dozens of talented country music performers. Becoming a member is by invitation only, and while it might seem as if they’re joining a double-secret club, the truth is that new inductees are being enfolded into a family.
Everybody in the Opry, it seems, is somehow connected to everybody else there. When Hawkshaw Hawkins, Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and Randy Hughes were killed in a now-legendary airplane crash, Opry members flocked to the victims’ families to lend support. Hughes’ wife was Copas’ daughter. Patsy Cline, in particular, was a “big sister” to many up-and-coming performers, including Loretta Lynn, who credits Cline with teaching her to look good on stage and off.
Opry members have watched out for their brethren for as long as the Opry has been around. Friends tried to save Faron Young from himself, though they couldn’t help in the end. Young stood up for Charlie Pride, once telling a radio station that if they threw out the African-American singer’s records, they may as well throw out Young’s, too. Pride nurtured the careers of others, including Ronnie Milsap. Roger Miller was given a leg-up by several Opry stars, and he passed that forward once he was inducted.
But that doesn’t mean everything was smooth in Opryland. There were busted duos and busted hearts, divorce and drinking, and too much living large. In this book, you’ll learn about the stories, scandals, smiles and songs.
“Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain” is one of those delicious tell-all books that will (mostly) please you with goodness in the end. Each chapter spotlights an Opry star but also includes the people who made that star’s life better. Oermann will surprise you (who knew there was such a preponderance of car crashes among Opry members?), tell you things you didn’t know (Charlie Pride was not the Opry’s first African-American member), and he discusses a few ongoing mysteries (when, exactly, did Hank Williams die?).
“Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain” is an easy-to-read, enjoyable presentation of stars then and now, and it’ll have you humming songs you haven’t thought about in years. If you love country music, this book needs to be on your bookshelf.
Terri Schlichenmeyer lives in the La Crosse area and reviews books as The Bookworm. Send her messages via realtime@lacrossetribune.com.
