Book Talk: 100 Years of Grand Ole Opry with Craig Shelburne and Brenda Colladay
To mark the Grand Ole Opry’s 100th anniversary, the venerable country music program issued a lavish new pictorial history book, 100 Years of Grand Ole Opry, in 2025. The book is filled with dozens of interviews and hundreds of archival and recent photographs documenting the history of the world’s longest-running radio program, which began on November 28, 1925, when Nashville radio station WSM aired a performance by fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson. Inspired by the public’s enthusiastic response, the station’s program director, George D. Hay, created a weekly variety show featuring local performers, which tapped into America’s deep vein of folk music and set the stage for what would become country music’s most beloved and enduring institution. The Museum’s Paul Kingsbury will discuss the grand story of the Opry (and the new book) with the book’s author, Craig Shelburne, and project manager, Brenda Colladay. Presented in support of the exhibition Country’s Grandest Stage: The Opry at 100. Ford Theater. Included with Museum admission. Free to Museum members.
