I had the unbelievable opportunity to play on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. This all started about a year ago when my boss at Country Financial and I wrote some funny lyrics to a Jim Croce song and I performed it at a department meeting. Well, 6 months later we did another one and this time it was taped. The tape made its way to the CEO of Country who decided it would be fun if we wrote something special for a speech he was giving at a big company meeting. We thought about what song to use and we settled on, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. The song was supposed to be about the “Corporate Vision,” which is made up of lots of catch phrases and acronyms—we figured we could string them together in a pretty clever way to make it meaningful and funny at the same time. A week before the meetings the CEO wanted a private performance of the song. I think he wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to be embarrassed by my performance. At this point, this was probably the most unusual gig I had ever played. There I was, bringing my guitar to work at 8:00 on a Monday morning heading to the executive conference room to give a private concert for the top 3 executives of Country Financial.

After they heard it, they called in the VP of Marketing and had me play it again. The VP heard the song and said,”That’s my speech for the National Sales Convention!” They decided right there that they wanted me to go to Nashville where Country was holding the annual National Sales Convention and perform it for our agents. What I didn't know at the time was that I would be performing this on stage at the Grand Ole Opry, and not by myself but with the Gatlin Brothers, who had been booked to play at the main event of the convention. All this seemed pretty unreal until Steve Smith, a 30-year member of the Gatlin Brothers band called me to discuss the song! This was surely an event of a lifetime.

Rehearsal

We went to the Opry Tuesday morning where I was scheduled to rehearse with the band. We walked in through the backstage entrance and there we were – backstage at the Grand Ole Opry! Steve Smith looked over and figured since I was the only awkward looking unknown guy holding a guitar case, I must be Jim. He came over and said hello, and we went into a dressing room to walk through the song. He made me feel completely at ease and we started to work through the song. Steve was going to play bass for me. Pretty soon the drummer walked in. His name was George Perilli. I didn’t know it at the time but George has quite a list of credits to his name including recording and touring with Michael McDonald. I’m sure they both had that same feeling we used to get in the wedding band I was in when someone from the wedding party would come up and say, “I have this cousin who can sing and play guitar and we want him to play a song with you … oh great, this ought to be good!” Well, we ran the song a couple of times and I think they started to think it was pretty cool. After a while a guy with a headset and a clipboard called us to come out on stage where we were to run through the song. What a moment that was when I first stepped up to the mike and strummed my guitar and heard it echo through the hall. Well I started the tune, and then the bass and drums kicked in – WOW! What a thrill. Since this whole Opry thing happened after we had the song put together, it felt a little weird to be playing a Billy Joel tune at the Opry so I had put together a new ending where we kicked into a country 2-step beat and I improvised on the melody a bit. The guys thought that was a cool idea and just tore into it at the end of the tune. After that I couldn’t wait for the show.

The Show

On Wednesday morning we arrived at the Opry at 7:30 and went backstage. The Gatlins had just arrived and we said hello to all of them. They were very nice, approachable and down to earth. They seemed fairly amused at what I was doing and were very gracious about letting me perform with their band. The audience consisted of about 2000 Country insurance agents. The Gatlins opened the show, did a few songs and sounded just great. After that, there was about an hour of speeches. While that was going on I was backstage warming up my voice and just waiting. About twenty minutes before I was scheduled to go on I was standing in the hall holding my guitar when Larry walks by points his finger at me and says, “Don’t mess up.”

“Ok, I won’t”

As I was standing in the wings waiting to go on, Larry asks me, “Are you nervous?” I said, “I think I’m more excited than nervous”. He then says, “Good. If you’re nervous you’ll mess up, if you’re excited you’ll do good.” Right then they called me out on stage.

So there I was, Teleprompters every which way I looked, monitors, lights, the famous Opry mike stand cover, big screen TV above the stage… and …the circle, wood from the original Ryman Theater where the Opry started. After a few prepared lines of banter with the VP, I started the song, the band kicked in, and I stepped into the circle starting to sing. What a feeling. The song was cooking, we hit all the breaks and we had the whole audience on their feet when we hit the first ending. I then counted us into the country jam part and the place went up for grabs – everyone clapping along and cheering. We nailed the ending and walked off stage to a standing ovation.

As I walked by Larry Gatlin, he just looked at me with a "What the hell just happened?" look on his face, slapped me on the back and said "Good job, boy!” He then walked out on stage, looked at the audience and said "We're members of the Grand Ole Opry. We've played at Carnegie Hall...been on the Tonight Show... and the insurance salesman gets the standing ovation?!?...Now we're gonna play a few more songs and when were done, y'all better do the right thing!" Of course the audience roared with that (Larry’s quite a funny guy). They then played a few more songs to a now very appreciative audience. We hung around backstage for about an hour just soaking it all in.

As we were walking out, 87 year-old Little Jimmy Dickens, who had just performed after the Gatlins in the show, was heading out for a smoke. As we walked by he said to me, “We watched you on the monitor, you did a good job.”

What an incredible experience.