It’s the only American radio show that’s been on the air for 100 years, an institution that launched the country music industry as we know it and a stage production that made country fans flock to Nashville in the first place – and keeps them coming for a singular experience today. “I somehow understood the weight of what I was stepping into,” says Marty Stuart of the Grand Ole Opry, specifically the first night he played in 1972 as a mandolin-playing prodigy sitting in with bluegrass star Lester Flatt’s band.
Stuart went on to become a country star, and Opry member, himself, and has now embraced the role of elder on the show: on 26 September, he along with Luke Combs, Darius Rucker, Ashley McBryde and Carly Pearce will take part in the Opry’s first-ever overseas broadcast at the Royal Albert Hall, as part of a year-long 100th birthday celebration. “A hundred years of anything, especially in show business, it’s just unheard of,” he marvels.
