Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City

7 One of Our Boys Shoots the Moon

121 seven One of Our Boys Shoots the Moon By 1943 troops nearly outnumbered civilians in greater Nashville,and the city was frequently overrun with soldiers in training or in transit. They filled the hotels, the bars, the theaters, and the streets. Sometimes, when space simply ranout,theysleptinparksoronthestepsofthepostofficeonBroadway.Many of them loved the Grand Ole Opry, and olive uniforms became as common in War Memorial Auditorium as dresses and overalls. The only problem was they were punishing the governor’s beautiful theater,and Harry Stone had to answer for it. “By now I had developed a sort of sixth sense and I felt it coming ,” he wrote. “I believe it set country music back ten years when I listened to this committee spell out all the reasons why we should not only be put out, but put in jail. But it sure was a nice place.” His next target—his only target—was the big,Gothic,red-brick tabernacle just off Broadway.“I had a heavy heart that day when I set out to see Mrs.Naff, then manager of the Ryman Auditorium,” Stone said. “I knew if she turned me down, we had no other place to go.” Lula Naff,then over sixty-five years old,had run the Ryman like the Carne­ gieHalloftheSouthforfourdecades,andapproachingherwasnosmallmatter. Even in the 1940s, the Ryman was among the most venerated and symbolic public spaces in Nashville,having been an ecumenical church and an eclectic i-xx_1-286_Havi.indd 121 7/17/07 10:27:57 AM 122—air castle of the south concert hall in the heart of downtown. Its origins make for one of the most repeated stories in the city’s history. One evening in 1885,riverboat magnate Tom Ryman found salvation in the wordsofatentevangelistnamedSamJones.HepromisedJonesthathe’dbuild him a grand tabernacle, and fourteen years of fund-raising and construction later, he delivered. Jones named the building the Ryman Auditorium while preaching at Ryman’s funeral.In the years that followed,the hall rang like the inside of a grand piano, first with fire and brimstone, then with choirs and hymns.Symphonies and opera companies followed,as did vocal recitals,ballet dancers, theatrical spectacles, political rallies, fiddlers, and banjo pickers. The building seemed to have been mortared with music and designed with performance in mind. Stone seems to have made his case,and perhaps after years of depression and war, Naff was glad to land a regular Saturday night show with such a large following. The fifty-two-week lease, at $100 per week, was more rent than National Life had ever paid. But with 3,500 seats, the venerable hall let more than a thousand additional patrons see the Opry each Saturday night. And still, lines more than a block long began to form outside the theater for every show.WSM improved the house with a radio control room,rudimentary dressing rooms, a public address system, and new lighting. It hired a crew of off-duty police and firemen for security, plus ticket sellers, stage hands, and electricians.Jim Denny’s concession business expanded.And the Grand Ole Opry had found a comfortable home—a little bit secular, a little bit sacred. Some golden ages really do begin on a date certain. June 5, 1943, launched the Ryman Opry. That fall, Jack Stapp and Harry Stone pulled off a coup by doubling the number of NBC stations carrying the Prince Albert Opry,from 66 to 129.The price for this success was that the network portion grew more regimented. The Esty advertising agency,which handled the Prince Albert account,sent a man down to sit in on “rehearsals,”which puzzled the Opry artists,since they knew not of rehearsals.“You mean you don’t rehearse a network radio show?” the Esty man asked in the presence of Minnie Pearl. “You should have seen the look on that man’s face,”she related.“He was horrified.He went straight to the WSM officials.” Roy Acuff was assigned to mollify him. “‘I’ll tell you how we handle it,’ he said. ‘We have a fiddle chaser. If we run short, we just let the fiddler play ’til time’s up. If we run long, we don’t use the fiddler.’ “Well, this guy just went to pieces,” Minnie continued. “‘You will have a rehearsal,’ he ordered.’” This caused all sorts of problems. The Saturday i-xx_1-286_Havi.indd 122 7/17/07 10:27:57 AM [3.128.94.171] Project MUSE (2024...