While in Nashville we definitely wanted to visit the Grand Ole Opry.  We checked the schedule and found that by extending our stay by a couple of days we could see a show featuring the Charlie Daniels band (The Devil went down to Georgia) and Brad Paisley.  We like both of these artists, so we decided to shorten our next couple of stops so we could see that show.

We were not disappointed!!  First, the Opry is no longer held in the original building which was quite small and right downtown.  The new theatre is large and outside of town which made getting there much easier!

Shows at the Grand Ole Opry are all broadcast LIVE on the radio and have been for years.  The Grand Ole Opry is the longest running live radio show ever.  And they do put on quite a show.  One aspect that is unique is that they don’t have one “BIG” name and maybe an opening band.  The Opry often has 8 or more performers.  Some are old favorites…in addition to the Charlie Daniels band we got to see Randy Owens from the group Alabama.  Some are new performers – we saw two young girls (both 19) who were performing at the Opry for the first time.  They were “Maddie and Tae”.  They also had two performers that we’d never heard of but if you watch the TV show Nashville you would recognize them.  We didn’t keep a program so I don’t know their names.

Anyway, they also have an announcer, and for a half-hour before the show starts a different announcer comes out and keeps everyone entertained.  He interacts with the audience, finding out where folks are from – Holland was the furthest that anyone came to be there specifically to attend the Grand Ole Opry.  He found out a couple was here during their honeymoon, and a couple was here to celebrate their 63rd anniversary!  He also picked a person “at random” from the audience and that person was called up on stage during the show to participate in a quiz about country music.  We both had the answer right, but the poor girl didn’t have a clue.

Another unique feature is that one band doesn’t perform for a long time.  Brad Paisley did 4 songs.  Charlie Daniels did 3.  The other performers did 2 each.  That keeps the show entertaining and short!  The show we saw was dedicated to the St. Jude’s Hospital and the Grand Ole Opry foundation supports it financially.  They had a guest announcer who was a 9 year old cancer survivor, real cute although quite shy to find herself up on stage in front of hundreds of people.

An interesting fact about the Grand Ole Opry – they invite performers to be “members” but to be a member you have to perform 20 times that first year!  After that I don’t know how often they have to perform.

By the time we bought tickets most of the good seats were gone, and we ended up in the ‘nose-bleed’ section.  But, because of the huge monitors they had we were able to see the performers pretty well, and we could see the stage pretty well to get the ‘whole picture’.  It was a great experience!

The one bad thing was that we didn’t take the camera, figuring they wouldn’t allow pictures and flash.  But they did!  So, we did get a few pictures with my phone, but they aren’t real good quality.  Darn!  But, here they are:

While in Nashville we drove a bit south to visit the Jack Daniel Distillery.  We learned a lot about whiskey and in particular Jack Daniel’s whiskey.  Jack Daniel lived in the mid-1800s and when he was 8 he left home where he didn’t get along with his stepmother and lived with a minister and his family.  The minister also owned a small store and made whiskey to sell in his store.  Jack learned the art of making whiskey from this minister.  When Jack was 14 the congregation went to the minister and said “You can either be our minister or you can make whiskey but you can’t do both”.  So, the minister sold the whiskey business to Jack.

Jack found an underground spring near the area where he lived and found the water especially clear and tasty.  He decided to use this water in his whiskey, and from 1884 until now, Jack Daniel whiskey has been made with ONLY that water.  At the entrance to the cave where the water comes from is a life-size statue of Jack Daniel, posed on some rocks.  As we snapped a picture our tour guide told us this was the only “free shot of Jack Daniels on the rocks” we would ever get!

There’s just that one distillery that has been continually in use since 1884.  And, a specific type of tree local to the area is used for the charcoal used in filtering the whiskey.  The whiskey soaks through 10 feet of charcoal, taking 5-7 days.  This part of the process is to get the oils from the barley and other ingredients out of the liquid.  Tasters continually taste the whiskey as it comes out of this process, and when they get the slightest hint of oil in the mix the charcoal is tossed out and the remaining whiskey that is soaking down through that batch is put through the filtering process again with new charcoal.

The oak barrels that hold the whiskey while it ages is also unique.  The barrels are made and then “fired” so the inside gets all blackened.  The whiskey is aged for several years in the barrel, without being moved or turned.  They have barrel warehouses all over the county to keep them separated – in case one catches on fire the others will not be burned.  There’s never been a fire, however, but there is a fire department at the distillery.

It was an informative and interesting tour.  The bottles that were on sale there were quite expensive however so we didn’t buy or taste anything.  As Jeff does like whiskey, he bought a bottle later…in a different county.  The distillery is located in Moore County which is a dry county…meaning you cannot purchase Jack Daniel whiskey anywhere around the distillery EXCEPT AT the distillery.

Here are pictures we took: