When I was much younger I would watch the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday nights. I clearly remember the banjos and fiddles and Minnie Pearl on stage with her “Howwwwwdeeeeeeee!”
I spent the weekend in Nashville learning about the history of the Grand Ole Opry which marked its debut in 1925.
Zig Ziglar used to say, “you can be a wandering generality or a meaningful specific”, and the meaningful specific is the one you want to be.
The Opry encompasses all of what a meaningful specific is, and Nashville became what it is today because of the Opry. Nashville boasts $6 billion dollars in revenue from the music business.
Why?
Because the Opry was built for country music and the people who worked their hearts out to bring their music to the rest of us. The Opry didn’t cater to pop culture or rock and roll. It became the place to be for people who love country music to gather together, become a family, and honour the art and each other.
There is no other genre of music that has its own home, and Nashville became the gathering place because of it.
This is more than a business niche. This is a Mecca for the people who don’t want a watered down version. This is building a community, a family, and a place for country music to live, and it has lived on for almost 100 years.
Turns out Zig Ziglar knew what he was talking about.
For those of you who used to watch the Grand Ole Opry, I leave you with a nostalgic clip of Minnie Pearl (Sarah Canon) who was the mother figure of the Opry and worth $75 million when she passed away in 1996. She donated the majority of her money to build 2 cancer Center’s in Nashville as she never had family of her own to leave her fortune to.