Grand Ole Opry - Photo credit: John Kosiewicz

On Friday, April 20, 2018, Front Row Music News made the nearly 500-mile road trip from Chicago, IL to Nashville, TN.  Of course, you can’t go to the “music city” without seeing a show at the Grand Ole Opry. As the slogan goes, The Grand Ole Opry is “the show that made country music famous.” The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country-music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee.  On November 28, 1925, it was founded by George D. Hay as a one-hour radio “barn dance” on WSM and is the longest-running radio broadcast in US history.  The Grand Ole Opry is a 92-year experience which I can now check off life list.  Exiting the venue, we were reminding that “Other music has fans, country music has family” and we were now a part of their family.

Unlike a typical concert, the Opry generally presents eight or more artists on each show, giving the audience a glimpse of new stars, superstars, and legends of country music. For this particular night, the show included 11 artists with a wide range of country music, along with a sprinkling of comedy.  The headline artist was Old Crow Medicine Show, along with Joshua Hedley, Dick Hardwick, Chuck Wicks, Connie Smith, Gene Watson, Terri Clark, Jeannie Seely, Bobby Osborne & The Rocky Top X-Press, Lindi Ortega and Riders in the Sky.

Although the entire evening was filled with great moments, here are a few highlights of the night.

• Chuck Wicks performed “Whole Damn Thing” and “Stealing Cinderella”
• Gene Watson covered “When A Man Can’t Get A Woman Off His Mind” by Bill Anderson, along with “Sometimes I Get Lucky and Forget”
• Terri Clark performed “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” 
• Dick Hardwich, comedian from Greencastle, Indiana, brought some jokes, fun, entertainment, and free things locked in your head. He also introduced us all to a little instrument called, “tasmanian ‎garochi phone” which allowed him to a project a star studded extravaganza of theatrical splendor by performing a song he wrote for Allen Wilson called, “Grits”
• Joshua Hedley: With the release his first full-length album, “Mr. Jukebox,” via Third Man Records, country singer, Joshua Hedley made his debut performance the same night. Earlier that week, during the Route 650 show, the 33-year-old Hedley was surprised when Cory Younts of Old Crow Medicine Show, Opry Dan Rogers and Eric Marcum invited him to make his Grand Ole Opry debut! As he steped into the Circle, Hedley said, “It is truly a dream come true. I can’t even believe it.”  For his debut Opry performance, he played, “I Never (Shed a Tear),” then followed it up by his album’s title track, “Mr. Jukebox.”
• Old Medicine Show is an up to date, old time string band sound with the sound of the fiddle.  they were introduced to the Opry on September 17, 2013.  Tonight’s performance included “Shout Mountain” along with their new song, ““Dixie Avenue” of their album which was released that same day, called Volunteers, on Columbia Record label.  Dedicating their final song for the night to Roy Acuff, who said, “When you come up to the Opry stage, you got to sing the song that got you there in the first place.” Closing the night with their smash hit, “Wagon Wheel.” 

Here’s the entire line-up for April 20, 2018.

7:00 – 7:30
Riders in the Sky
Lindi Ortega
Bobby Osborne & The Rocky Top X-Press

7:30 – 8:00
Jeannie Seely
Terri Clark
Gene Watson

8:15 – 8:45
Connie Smith
Chuck Wicks
Dick Hardwick

8:45 – 9:15
Joshua Hedley
Old Crow Medicine Show