Grand Ole Opry Celebrates 100 Years: A Century of Saturday Nights
Illustration
On November 28, 1925, the Nashville radio station WSM put a 77-year-old fiddle player named Uncle Jimmy Thompson in front of its microphone. The program was called the WSM Barn Dance. A century later it is the Grand Ole Opry, which bills itself as the world's longest-running radio show; Guinness World Records lists it as the longest-running weekly music radio programme.
How it got its name
The new name came about two years in. In December 1927, the Barn Dance followed an NBC broadcast of Walter Damrosch's Music Appreciation Hour, a program of classical music. When WSM's announcer, George D. Hay, came on the air, he told listeners that from then on they would be presenting the "Grand Ole Opry." The name stuck.
Six homes
The show outgrew room after room. It started in WSM's studio in the National Life building (1925 to 1934), then moved to the Hillsboro Theatre (1934 to 1936), the Dixie Tabernacle (1936 to 1939) and the War Memorial Auditorium (1939 to 1943). In June 1943 it settled into the Ryman Auditorium downtown, which would be its home for more than 30 years.
The Opry played its last Friday show at the Ryman on March 15, 1974. The next night, Roy Acuff opened the first show in the new 4,440-seat Grand Ole Opry House. The move did not leave the past behind: in January 1974, a section of the Ryman's stage was cut out and set into the new stage as a six-foot circle of wood, the spot where performers still stand today.
A circle of wood from the Ryman stage still sits at the centre of the Opry House. Every generation stands on it.
The flood
In May 2010, a historic flood hit Nashville and the Opry House took 46 inches of water on its stage. The building was closed for five months, and the show made its return to the restored Opry House on September 28, 2010.
Opry 100
The 100th anniversary was celebrated across 2025. On March 19, NBC and Peacock carried Opry 100: A Live Celebration, a three-hour live special hosted by Blake Shelton. The lineup included Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, Carrie Underwood, Post Malone, Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, Eric Church, Lainey Wilson and Luke Combs, with Dolly Parton appearing by video.
On September 26, 2025, the Opry broadcast live from the Royal Albert Hall in London, its first live broadcast from outside the United States. And on November 28, 2025, exactly 100 years after Uncle Jimmy Thompson's first tune, the Opry marked the date with two shows, at 7 and 10 p.m. Central, featuring more than 20 Opry members and streamed live around the world on its social channels.
Today's generation
The Opry has always been about the handoff from one generation to the next. Membership is by invitation, and the invitations still make news: in May 2024, Reba McEntire invited Lainey Wilson to join on live television, and Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood inducted her that June. Our feature on Lainey Wilson tells her side of that story.
From Roy Acuff opening the Opry House in 1974 to the artists stepping into the circle now, the show that began with one fiddler on a Saturday night in 1925 is still on the air.