Country's Grandest Stage: The Opry at 100

Country's Grandest Stage: The Opry at 100 is open at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in downtown Nashville, and it's staying put through March 2027. It's a big look at the Grand Ole Opry, the longest-running radio show in the world and one of the most important programs in broadcasting history.

To get where it is now, you have to go back to November 28, 1925, when Nashville radio station WSM aired a performance by 78-year-old fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson. From there, program director George D. Hay built a weekly barn dance that grew into country music's most enduring institution. The show went national in October 1939 with the Prince Albert Show, a half-hour segment that debuted on NBC, and by the 1940s it was launching the careers of Hall of Fame members Roy Acuff, Eddy Arnold, Minnie Pearl, Bill Monroe, and Ernest Tubb.

By 1985, when weekly television broadcasts began on The Nashville Network, induction into the Opry cast had become a recognized honor. The exhibit traces that lineage through the years, including recent firsts like Don Schlitz, the first songwriter to join, and Henry Cho, the first Asian American and first comedian in fifty years to be named a member. It's a long stretch of names, from DeFord Bailey to Lainey Wilson, and the show has stayed on the air through floods and a pandemic.

Admission to the exhibition is included with museum admission, and it's free for members. The museum is in downtown Nashville, and the exhibit runs until March 2027.