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

Introduction: The Muse of Music City

Introduction the muse of music city On the bitter cold morning of January 8, 2002, a grassy berm at the sprawling interchange of Briley Parkway and McGavock Pike in Nashville,Tennessee,became an impromptu grandstand for protesters.More than one hundred citizens waved signs,clapped their mittens,and urged passing motorists to honk in support of traditional country music.“Keep country alive!”they chanted.“Keep country alive!”Singing legend George Jones drove up to voice support from behind the wheel of his SUV. Local honky-tonk glam character Melba Toast shouted in the wind from beneath her outlandish, platinum bouffant wig. The rally pitched its message toward the seven-lane street and the depressed motel, fast food, and outlet mall development across it. But the protesters’ire was directed over their shoulders,at a huge tourism and shopping complex encompassing the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center (formerly the Opryland Hotel), the Grand Ole Opry House, Opry Mills shopping mall,and,immediately behind them,the offices and studios of 650 AM WSM, the most influential and exceptional radio station in the history of country music. They were angry because Gaylord Entertainment,the Nashville company that owned WSM and the Grand Ole Opry itself, had decided internally to drop the station’s classic country music format for an all sports/talk diet.The sounds of Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Buck Owens, and Patsy Cline were to be replaced with call-in shows about NASCAR and the city’s new professional football team, the Tennessee Titans. The Grand Ole xiii i-xx_1-286_Havi.indd 13 7/17/07 10:27:31 AM Opry,thelongest-runningshowinbroadcastinghistory,wastomoveoff WSMAM for the first time in seventy-five years and join the Saturday night lineup of WSM-FM, a station that played only new country hits. GaylordwasmakingsignificantinvestmentsintheOpry,andithadsuccessfuly renovated the Ryman Auditorium downtown, but in this third American institution,thecompany’snewCEOsawaradiostationwithratingsandprofits that were less impressive than its history. Many in the city weren’t ready for such cold calculus. News of the planned format change, which had leaked to thelocalnewspaperaroundChristmas,riledtraditionalcountrymusicfansand historically minded Nashvillians. They felt they’d seen too many icons of the city’scountrymusicpastshuttered,sold,ortorndowninrecentyears,including Opryland USA, the wooded music and amusement park Gaylord had razed in 1998 to build the enormous Opry Mills mall. Nine thousand people from around the world signed an Internet petition to “keep WSM country.” Opry starslikeVinceGillandMartyStuartpubliclyandpersonallyimploredGaylord executives not to unplug country music and bluegrass from WSM, the very origin of the music’s successes in Nashville.The daily newspaper editorialized that to do so would “seriously alter the sound and identity of Music City.” The protesters weren’t in front of WSM to harangue it.They were there to protect it, the way a family rallies around a loved one in trouble. WSM’s staff was under orders to stay inside and not talk to the media.Somebody from the Opry’s corporate office did, however, send out hot coffee for everyone. “Music City USA,” Nashville’s world-famous nickname, was coined at WSM. And country music defines Nashville to the world.But when announcer David Cobb ad-libbed the slogan on the air in 1950, he wasn’t talking about country music per se or the country music business,because there scarcely was such a thinginNashvilleatthetime.Instead,fromhisfifth-floorperchatthisSouthern radio powerhouse, Cobb surveyed a remarkable music scene. It was diverse, sophisticated, and commercially viable—underdeveloped perhaps, but rich in local talent and nationally relevant at the same time. To be sure, country music was enjoying its first great nationwide heyday, with an astonishing cast of legends and would-be legends at work,including Hank Williams at the top of his game. And a new, jazz-influenced offshoot of country that would come to be known as bluegrass was in full blaze.But Cobb would have also told you about WSM maestro Francis Craig, whose “Near You” had been the top pop record of 1947, or about Pee Wee King, a Polish American Grand Ole Opry xiv—introduction i-xx_1-286_Havi.indd 14 7/17/07 10:27:31 AM star from Milwaukee, whose song “Tennessee Waltz” would soon become a national smash for pop singer Patti Page. Cobb was even pals with the song publishers about to make a small fortune from it. Cobb’s friends and colleagues had left marks on Broadway and at the MetropolitanOpera .DinahShore,aWSMalum,hadbeenamajorstarforadecade, and...