The six-foot circle of oak at the center of the Grand Ole Opry House stage appears modest, yet it's actually a prominent piece of country music lore. The small circle is a physical link to the earliest days of the genre, when Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Roy Acuff and others sang to the nation via radio while performing for a live audience at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, home to the Opry show from 1943 to 1974. When the show moved to its current digs in the Grand Ole Opry House at the Gaylord Opryland Resort, organizers brought along a piece of the Ryman stage floor. But tragedy struck Nashville, The Music City, this past May; the Cumberland River overflowed its banks, crippling parts of the city and forcing the closure of the resort. For a time, the music stopped, and two feet of water covered the Opry stage. When the water receded, Opry organizers, along with the whole of Nashville, picked up the pieces. In September, Opry members Little Jimmy Dickens and Brad Paisley opened the next chapter of the show by placing the refurbished circle back into the floor during a small ceremony. "I've always said that the circle still contains the dust from Hank Williams' cowboy boots," Paisley said. "Well, now it contains that dust, but also the heart and soul of this town and all the people who have worked to rise above this spring's flood.
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The six-foot circle of oak at the center of the Grand Ole Opry House stage appears modest, yet it's actually a prominent piece of country music lore. The small circle is a physical link to the earliest days of the genre, when Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Roy Acuff and others sang to the nation via radio while performing for a live audience at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, home to the Opry show from 1943 to 1974. When the show moved to its current digs in the Grand Ole Opry House at the Gaylord Opryland Resort, organizers brought along a piece of the Ryman stage floor. But tragedy struck Nashville, The Music City, this past May; the Cumberland River overflowed its banks, crippling parts of the city and forcing the closure of the resort. For a time, the music stopped, and two feet of water covered the Opry stage. When the water receded, Opry organizers, along with the whole of Nashville, picked up the pieces. In September, Opry members Little Jimmy Dickens and Brad Paisley opened the next chapter of the show by placing the refurbished circle back into the floor during a small ceremony. "I've always said that the circle still contains the dust from Hank Williams' cowboy boots," Paisley said. "Well, now it contains that dust, but also the heart and soul of this town and all the people who have worked to rise above this spring's flood.
Read the coverage of the wood floor circle being re-installed in the Opry at country music website The Boot:
www.theboot.com/2010/08/25/grand-ole-opry-reopening/
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