Grand Ole Opry

Someone said to James, “Well, that’s one you can cross off your bucket list, right?”

And James thought for a second and said, “Uh… not really. I didn’t even know it was a thing. Didn’t know it was a possibility. So how could it be on my bucket list?”

I second that emotion, James.

But there we were. Sitting in our dressing room at the Grand Ole Opry. Yeah—that Opry. The place with the famous circle of wood on the stage—cut straight out of the original house. James and I were there to play some songs backed by the house band.

When the gig offer first came in, I didn’t think much of it. Seemed a little odd, to be honest. I figured the Opry had turned into something like an amusement park by now. But I didn’t hesitate. I was like, “Sure, sounds fun.”

“You’ll love it!”

“That’s the deal real, man!”

My old friend Dawn Holliday reached out and said she wanted to come. Going on about the scene backstage and the whole vibe.

Someone even suggested we swing by the Cheesecake Factory when we get to Opryland. They said, make sure you have the carrot cake.

Okay, maybe I made that last part up.

I started thinking there might be something to this Opry thing. I was getting genuinely excited about it. James was game to come along and play guitar too. They asked me to pick a couple of songs so they could chart them out.

This is as good as any time to mention that Nashville players are ridiculously good. Not like virtuosic or flashy good, but total assassins all the same. They can jump feet first into any song, any key, any old mess of chords and combinations of notes and just kill. They intuitively understand the shape of a song. They just get it.

Sometimes I tell this story about how Dan Stuart and I—in the Green On Red days—were recording in Nashville at the Sound Emporium. This was years ago. Al Kooper was producing us. But he had some prior obligation to be part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony, or something along those lines, and he left us alone in the studio to have at it.

We’d written a song at the Holiday Inn where we were staying. A song called Little Things in Life. A little ditty of a song, really. But we were determined to record it right then and there. I’m not sure who suggested it—it might’ve been engineer Gary Laney, who incidentally I just ran into after all these years. He’s now up in Tulsa running the old Leon Russell studio – The Church Studio. Anyways, if not Gary, somebody had the bright idea of grabbing a couple musicians from the bigger room at the Sound Emporium—where, I’m pretty sure, they were cutting a Dolly Parton record at the time. The players were all standing around on a break, smoking.

Danny and I had what we liked to call a “Chicago roll” of cash, and we may have showed it to them – told them we’d make it worth their while. Session legends drummer Eddie Bayers and bass player Michael Rhodes were game. And maybe a little amused by us and where it was all going.

They came over to the other room at the Sound Emporium where we were camped out. The four of us formed a circle on the studio floor. Gary had suggested a makeshift drum kit. He put a mic down at Eddie Bayers’ feet to capture the tapping. And in what was a pretty ingenious move, he put a tambourine inside a two-inch tape box. Eddie balanced the box on his knees and played brushes on it.

With a little EQ and liberal amounts of compression, within just 5 minutes or so, we had a sound.

I started running the song on acoustic. Danny singing. The four of us falling in together and grooving along. And I swear, halfway through the second verse, something happened that I’ve never forgotten. Eddie Bayers came to a dead stop and asked, “How does this thing end?” He’d pretty much mapped the song out in his head by then. A kind of I-get-it-so-let’s-just-fast-forward through the next couple verses and agree how it ends.

Efficiency monsters!

I was like, ah… good question! I hadn’t really thought about it. Hadn’t gotten that far. So I played a kind of ding ding, diggity dum dum a ditty figure on the acoustic, and he seemed satisfied with that. We cut the song in one take.

When Al Kooper got back from New York, we played it for him. He dug it. Smiled and gave us an “A-plus, gentlemen.”

But we all agreed the track was missing something. It needed a little sparkle on top.

After what seemed like half a day of sitting around talking nonsense, Al suggested a glockenspiel, kind of like the one on Buddy Holly’s “Everyday.” 1 Someone produced a glockenspiel and Al played it pulling a great melody out of the air. We loved it.

Done!

Fast-forward to the present.

On the afternoon of the Opry gig, my manager Daniel and I were tooling around town in our rental car in search of pho when my phone lit up. The screen said “Wanda,” and it was a 615 number. So I answered, figuring it had something to do with Nashville business.

Sure enough, it was Wanda from the Grand Ole Opry Staff Band. She’s a multi-instrumentalist and wanted to know about a sound on the record. On the song “First Came the Thunder.”

She asked, “Is that a bouzouki?”

The bouzouki is a Greek instrument, to the best of my knowledge, and for a second I was like, “Huh?” But then it dawned on me and I said, “Oh no, that’s a bajo sexto.”

Not exactly My Big Fat Greek Wedding. More El Mariachi.

And Wanda said, “A hwat?”

And I said a little louder, “A bajo sexto.”

Then, hearing myself say it out loud, I added, “Errr… never mind.”

She suggested maybe trying a nylon-string guitar instead. I thought about Marty Robbins, thought about El Paso, and said, “Sure. Yeah. Let’s take it to El Paso. Sounds good”.

After our pho, we headed back to the hotel to change strings and maybe lay down. Glenn Dicker, the man behind the man behind the man at all things Yep Roc, swung by later and picked us up and took us to Opryland. We enjoyed a coffee at the Cheesecake Factory [When in Rome!] And I ordered the carrot cake. (You know I did.)

We circled around the lot looking for the artist entrance until we came to a sign:

We were escorted in and settled into our dressing room.

Someone ducked his head in the door and said, “Hey there, my name’s Eddie Bayers. I’ll be playing drums with you today.” I looked up and was like, “Oh, I know you”.

I reminded him about that session at the Sound Emporium with Green On Red. He looked at me kind of quizzical, so I said, “You played brushes on a tape box with a tambourine inside it.”

Took him a second. But you could see the light come on. At least I think that’s what I saw.

Full circle.

Eventually someone came around and led us to the stage where the Opry house band was already set up and running songs. The musical director—who told me later that he’d spent eight years playing with Roger Miller and grew up in Lake Arrowhead, CA—came strolling over wearing an accordion. Beaming. I think he was digging the chance to get it out of its case.

We ran the songs down with the band. When one of the players played those cool fills on a nylon string, I smiled and nodded to Wanda back there. It was all good. Like butter.

Then we ran “Summertime Thing.” It had been so long since I’d heard the record, I’d forgotten a couple of the twists and turns in the road and may have added some GBU’s here and there—but the band followed me just fine. James covered the pedal steel licks on slide. And the girls were singing:

“Summer, summer, summer, summertime…
Summer, summer, summer, summertime…”

To end it, I cued the band with my headstock.

Next!

Then it was time for some backstage Southern food and a breather before the show.

They came and got us and led us to the stage to hang in the musicians bullpen stage side.

We were introduced and walked out. We played the first song. And when it ended I started fumbling with my capo and into the mic said, “Thank you. This next song features a capo on the 5^th fret.” Not sure what else I said.

We launched into Summertime Thing, James peeled out a solo and got some big applause.

After the set, walking off, I did an interview with Kelly Sutton, the host. She said something about me taking the long way to get to the Opry. And how did that feel? I don’t remember what I said… but I do remember hoping she didn’t look down and see my geriatric shoes with all the support. Which I’ve been wearing on stage lately (don’t ask!) We talked a while longer. She asked what was going through my head up there. And I said, I was thinking: I sure hope we get through our set before they figure out that we aren’t supposed to be there. Only half kidding.

The show itself went by in a blur—a parade of singers, every one of them lighting it up.

Highlights: Paul Cauthen. Unfakably weird—in the best possible way. Up to no good out there, singing like nobody else. He didn’t perform his hit song Cocaine Country Dancing—the one that rhymes “It’s a quarter to four” with “do we have any more?”—but he rolled out some killer new numbers like Ain’t No Crime and Texas Swagger. And there was a cool gospel tune he did solo that we didn’t quite catch the name of.

John Conlee was on the show too. Stone cold classic singer. For his final song he pulls pink glasses out of his pocket—puts them on and the crowd goes bananas. “Rose Colored Glasses” don’t you know?

It all goes by in a blur. But James and I agreed we won’t be forgetting that gig anytime soon.

And like that, it was back to the hotel to rest our eyes, and set that wake up call for the airport to zero dark 30.

And now we’re heading down the road in the Econoline stopping for a Fuji Apple Salad at Panera.

That’s show business, friends. Glamour with a plastic fork.

Onwards,

-CP