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Date Posted: 05/17/10 11:05am
Author: Bobbe Seymour
Subject: Grand Ole Opry

Hello fellow players,

As I am composing this newsletter, we are fighting a new storm that has just hit us. We have tremendous hail with the lightning and thunder and the rain that is pouring down like Nashville last weekend. But this is what makes life interesting.

The Opry has got it’s insides stripped with the seats, chairs, couches, counters and everything it takes to put on a show, sitting outside to be possibly restored. With the rain we’re having now, it doesn’t seem like it will happen.

Many musicians have lost their instruments, however as most of you know, it’s very possible they didn’t pay for them anyway. There are many manufacturers that are offering to replace their instruments free of charge.

I’ve always kind of wondered why those that can afford to buy new instruments are the ones that get them free. I’m sure many of you have wondered about that.

Something else that’s kind of interesting is it was near impossible to buy flood insurance in Nashville because weather records show that it has been many, many years since there has ever been a flood in the area. Many insurance companies don’t even make flood insurance available. I’m sure they will from now on.

There are many folks that have gotten together to file a class action suit against the insurance companies for not making it available before our flood ten days ago. Life is a funny thing, isn’t it!

The Opry is going to be held in different places around town until October. They are using the Ryman which is the original Opry spot when they can but it has been booked out previously.

The War Memorial Auditorium near the Capitol in downtown Nashville is going to be used some and hopefully, the damage to the Opry House will be repaired soon. I have a communiqué that I got from Marty Martel that I think covers this subject extremely well and I would like to forward it on to you.

Dressing room No. 1 at the Grand Ole Opry House is the one that Roy Acuff, the “King of Country Music,” used. It’s the closest room to the stage, and on the door there’s a plaque with words that served as a mantra for Acuff.
“Ain’t Nothin Gonna Come Up Today That Me And The Lord Can’t Handle,” reads the plaque, still in fine shape since it is placed about a foot above the where the muddy waters crested on May 3 during the 2010 flood. The water rose to 46 inches throughout most of the Opry House, including over the stage.
The water is gone now from the damaged and dusty building. Hundreds of artifacts — audio and video tapes, musical instruments, photos and stage clothes — that were underwater are now being cared for away from the Opry House. The six-foot circle of pine cut from the Ryman stage and installed on the Opry House stage fared comparatively well, while the rest of the stage’s wood is a loss.

“The strength of the Ryman stage was superior to the rest of what we had in place,” said Grand Ole Opry Group president Steve Buchanan.

Outside the Opry House, chairs that once supported country music’s elite, desks and cabinets that held beloved trinkets and a dressing room mirror used by famous faces all baked in the sun: treasures to trash, courtesy of 36 hours of rain and one breached levee.
Workers have stripped most everything from the building. Anything remotely salvageable is off-campus, doctored by people who do this sort of thing for a living. A team of luthiers is working to restore stringed instruments that were in hall lockers, in dressing rooms or in the Grand Ole Opry Museum, and Acuff’s personal instrument collection is among the things the luthiers are trying to save. All lower-level benches in the auditorium have been taken out.
And what is left? Several warped pianos, some muddy electrical equipment and loads of cleanup equipment. Plenty of people, as well. It’s hard to tell the temporary, cleanup staff from the longtime employees.
“We have over 70 employees whose offices were impacted, but that hasn’t kept them from showing up for work,” Buchanan said. “Nobody is worried about job descriptions at a time like this.”
Buchanan said it’s still too early to get into damage estimates or specific timelines for reopening. Thousands of decisions must be made, many of them involving what to replace, what to renovate, what to let go. A backstage men’s room was already on the list of things to make better, so the Opry’s male performers can count on at least one new perk when the building reopens.
Most of all Buchanan is prone to mention that the Opry has often taken place at a handful of buildings over the years, and that the current performance schedule — a multi-artist show’s version of couch-hopping in which the Opry plays at the Ryman and other venues during renovation — is an unexpected reality but not a historically outrageous prospect.

The show goes on, no matter the venue. The Grand Ole Opry House spent hours underwater. The Grand Ole Opry was dry the whole time.

I’d like to say some things about Marty Martel. I met Marty thirty years ago while on tour with Billy Walker. Marty is a very strong entertainer on his own, very good musically and can work a microphone like an auctioneer.

Me being a sideman, appreciate some of the finer qualities of Marty’s entertainment work such as his deep appreciation for others who work so hard to do a good job for the music lovers that love all kinds of country music in general.

Marty has had some really tough days on the road himself. A perfect gentleman to work for and insists that everybody has a great time, audience and fellow musicians alike. Today Marty is president of many prestigious music clubs and groups in Nashville, one of the biggest being Reunion of Professional Entertainers, better known as ROPE.

So keep Marty Martel in your thoughts and what he is continually doing for country music everywhere.

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