Grand Ole Opry Program - June 18, 1955

I have intentionally left the scanned program below fairly large so that it would be easily readable. I feel that this is an important piece of music history for you to look at here. Sorry but you will have to do quite a bit of scrolling to see it all. This program is from one of my many trips to the Opry back in the 50's. An old old friend - Paul Breidenbach and myself probably started going to Nashville when we were only 14 or 15 years old. Times were different back than. I had to give my folks a safe arrival call though. We traveled by Greyhound bus - about a 7 hour trip from St. Louis. We stayed at the Jefferson Davis Hotel around the corner from everything - Ryman Auditorium, Crystal Burgers, Ernest Tubb Record Shop, and just down the street from WSM. We arrived Friday afternoon in time to get settled in and something to eat before heading up to WSM for the Friday Night Frolic. I believe it went from 6:00 until 9:00 and had all of the regular Opry stars performing. The studio probably only seated about 150 people. It was free by the way. 

Saturday we bummed around downtown and hung out at the Ernest Tubb Record shop until it was time for the pre-Opry shows up the street at WSM. These shows went from 6:00 in the evening until 7:30 when the Opry started at the Ryman. At 7:30 we scooted on down to the Opry - which was only 2 or 3 blocks away. Back than the Opry wasn't split into two shows as it is today. You had a seat straight through from 7:30 to midnight. After the Opry was over at midnight we would walk around the block for more entertainment at the ET Record Shop. It was than and still is now, 50 years later - the Midnight Jamboree. Tune into to WSM (650 AM) some Saturday night if you live East of the Rockies. If you have a broadband Internet connection, you can now listen to the whole Grand Ole Opry over the Internet. At some point in time I will have some samples of this era Opry I will put in the music section on this website.