We told you we would get around to talking about and playing some country music. The Grand Ole Opry just celebrated its 100th anniversary, a culmination of a year’s worth of festivities honoring the radio show and cultural landmark that helped enshrine Nashville as a hub of country music.
According to coverage in the New York Times, the question that lingered over the night was: “How will the Opry balance its traditions with the changes of the next generation?”
“The Opry has always been a reflection of Nashville,” said Dan Rogers, the Opry’s executive producer. “There’s a lot of forward progress, but we’re always going be here to also say, let’s remember the place from which we came.”
The Opry once catapulted musicians to stardom, as it brought its barn-dance style programming into homes across the country with its powerful radio transmitter and high antenna.
Long gone are the days of families gathering around the radio listening to the jokes and the music. But it’s cultural legacy lives on, if not for everyone.
The show’s history of unwavering rules and reluctance to permanently bring newer, diverse voices into its cast — only three Black musicians have been inducted in a century — has led to pushback over the years. And some of its most devoted fans still bristle at a performer perceived as too removed from they consider “authentic” country music.
Though its current building in the outskirts of Nashville can feel more like a tourist draw than a spot for locals, most musicians still step through the doors with a genuine air of reverence. Nearly two dozen members of the Opry — the rotating cast of devotees inducted over the years — performed.
“It has brought the gospel, it has brought joy, it has brought comedy — it has brought all the things that people need in tough times,” said Ricky Skaggs, a bluegrass musician who became an Opry member in 1982. “There’s not another entity that I know of that does that.”
It was Mr. Skaggs who opened the evening by playing the chestnut-hued fiddle believed to have belonged to Uncle Jimmy Thompson, the inaugural Opry fiddle player in 1925. Mr. Skaggs said he scoured through pictures to find a period-appropriate dress shirt, complete with armbands, to wear for the night.
“If I care that much about the look for this occasion, I care that much about the music that we make,” he said.
Many of the performances on Friday focused on the fundamental strains of traditional country, bluegrass and gospel that helped shape what began as the WSM Barn Dance in 1925.
“The Opry’s an idea, just like America’s an idea,” said Pam Tillis, an Opry member who recalled watching her father, Mel Tillis, perform onstage. “People have to show up for that idea and hold it.”
The members onstage — Vince Gill, Scotty McCreery, Kathy Mattea among them — for the two Friday concerts mostly reflected an older cohort of country music artists. They chose familiar songs or the songs that defined their own histories of Opry performance, sharing memories of musicians long gone.
“It feels like home,” said Marcia Campbell, 53, her cheeks flushed after performing with the Opry Square Dancers and jingle taps still clacking with each step she took. She just celebrated four decades as a dancer at the show and said that over the years, “There’s been something for everybody.”
The crowd rose to its feet when Whisperin’ Bill Anderson, the longest-serving member of the Opry, with more than six decades of performances, stepped on the stage. His eyes filled with tears as he blew a kiss to the worn wood under his feet — the circle of floorboard cut from the Opry’s home for decades at the Ryman Auditorium.
He led the cast in the unofficial Opry anthem, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken,” made famous by the Carter family.
On Friday, November 28, 2025, during the Opry’s official 100th anniversary, Opry star Vince Gill revealed and performed “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” the iconic George Jones classic that was voted by fans as the number-one favorite country song of all time.