Ryman Auditorium

These pictures were taken December 2018.

The early part of  1963 a group of us went to Nashville to see the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium.

We went in my old new Volvo.  The brakes were bad so we changed them.  On our trip on the state two- lane highway just north of Chattanooga on a steep incline going down a mountain my new brakes failed, down we sped, with one of us screaming.  Thank God for truck run-a-ramps.  It probably saved our lives.  I don't know how we fixed the brakes but one of us did,.  They probably just needed an adjustment.  

In Nashville we got a room in a hotel next door to the Ryman Auditorium and went to Woolworths to eat dinner.  Our table was in the window.  While eating an old man with a dirty coat and a guitar on his shoulder stood and watched us eat.  We motioned for him to join us and we would buy him a dinner.  He quickly joined us and ordered.  He told us he and Cowboy Copas grew up together and were good friends.  Cowboy told him if he ever got to Nashville come to the Opry and he would give him a job singing.  We wished him well.

The Ryman Auditorium was built in 1892 as the Union Gospel Tabernacle.  Rev. Sam Jones of Cartersville. Georgia, was the main evangelist that preached there.  In 1943 the Grand Ole Opry took it over. 

That night we got  sat on a church pew in the balcony.  Cowboy Cobas was the M.C.  We saw many famous country and western singers.  The only one I one I can remember is Patsy Cline.  I also remember the giant cereal box on stage and the constant plug of WSM Radio broadcasting live.

During the show I saw Cowboy Copas's friend on the main level walking up the aisle with his  guitar.  I nudge my friends and we eagerly watched him.  Almost to the stage two or three men intercepted him.  They drug him away with him trying to explain his relationship to Cowboy and Cowboy did not miss a beat or even blink during the ruckus, he just played on.

Afterwards we went to  The Jungle Club Lounge.   The waitress flirted with us but warned us she had a husband and four kids waiting on her not miles north of there in Kentucky.  

Very soon after that night, Cowboy Copas and Patsy Cline died in a plain crash, March 5, 1963.