Last month, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Grand Ole Opry as our Artist of the Month. We dove into the history of the world’s longest running radio show, we celebrated the music made on its hallowed stages, and we spoke to author Craig Shelburne about undertaking the gargantuan task of squeezing all of that rich history into a book, 100 Years of Grand Ole Opry. That coffee-table-ready tome is 350+ pages of photos, stories, interviews, and Opry lore.
Now, imagine the same task for Opry employee, archivist and content manager Emily Frans – but squeezed into a children’s book. The new title, Howdy! Welcome to the Grand Ole Opry!does just that. One hundred years of history, illustrated gorgeously and fantastically by Susanna Chapman alongside words and story by Frans, it distills the magic of the Grand Ole Opry for its tiniest audience members and fans. With a foreword by Lainey Wilson and stories from Dolly Parton, Lauren Alaina, and more, it’s an Opry 100 celebration that can be appreciated by country music fans of any/all ages.
Whether a gift for the holidays, an everyday present for the youngsters in your life, or pro-country-music propaganda (which we can always get behind), the new kids’ book is certain to inspire oncoming generations of would-be stars, pickers, and songwriters, seeding dreams of someday stepping into that hallowed circle on the Opry House stage. We spoke to author Emily Frans about the project and the special balance of telling a complete Opry history that engages, inspires, and stokes the imagination of children all around the world.
It must have been a difficult enough task for your colleagues to write the 350+ page 100 Years of Grand Ole Opry book that distills the immense history of the Opry into a single volume — it’s hard to imagine condensing all of that history, all of those stories, and all of that music into an even smaller space, a kids’ book! How did you go about it?
Emily Frans: You’re right! After pouring so much time into artist interviews, research, and trying to cover 100 years of history in as much detail and photography that a 350+ page book will allow, shifting gears into a children’s book was a completely different challenge. The biggest task was figuring out what not to include.
With kids, it’s all about clarity, pacing, and imagination, so I asked myself: What moments spark imagination? Which people feel larger than life? What stories can light a fire in a young mind? I tried to frame the story as kind of an adventure that kids could really imagine themselves experiencing while still including historical facts and details that they could learn from.
What do you see as the essential “nuts and bolts” of the Opry story that could – or should – be translated to country fans of all ages? What is the central idea or mission here, as far as putting this incredible, respected show in front of its youngest audience?
As a parent to young daughters, I realize how important it is for the youngest generation to understand not just what the Opry is, but why it matters. This book was written to bridge that gap and to spark wonder, inspiration, and to continue cultivating the tradition that we all cherish. In an age where attention spans are short and kids can choose their entertainment with a swipe of a screen, creating a book to share the Opry with children felt more important than ever.
The Opry is different than any other stage because of the way it connects people – artists to fans, parents to kids, and one generation of country music to the next. That emotional connection is the heartbeat of the Opry, and why, at 100 years old, it continues to thrive. I wrote this book with the goal of sparking that connection with our youngest generation.
The book has a foreword by Lainey Wilson and includes Opry stories from folks like Lauren Alaina, Dolly Parton, Kelsea Ballerini, and more. Country artists often have very special, down-to-earth relationships with their younger fans — these artists especially. Can you talk about curating the artist stories for the book and what Lainey Wilson brought to it with her foreword?
The artists featured in the book all share a genuine connection to the Opry and a real heart for their younger fans. I wanted to include messages that would almost feel like a little spark of mentorship coming straight from the stage, conveying the gravity of being asked to perform on the Opry while also making it sound achievable.
Lainey Wilson embodies that spirit so naturally. Her message is all about believing in yourself and honoring the roots that helped shape you. When she talks about stepping into the circle, she makes it sound magical, but also achievable. That tone set the stage for the rest of the book beautifully.
The book was illustrated by Susanna Chapman — the Grand Ole Opry and its history, especially its visuals, branding, costumes, and pageantry, are simply perfect for a children’s book like this, aren’t they?
Absolutely. The Opry has always been visually rich – from stage lights to rhinestone suits to the red barn set, it was practically begging to be illustrated! Susanna Chapman did an incredible job and brought a wonderful balance of authenticity and imagination. She captured the physical space of the Opry and infused her illustrations with movement, color, and emotion.
In fact, she spent time with one of my daughters during an Opry show trying to understand which elements of the sights, sounds, and even smells stood out to her so that she could create illustrations that really make the reader feel like they were there. The words are important, but it is the visuals that really draw kids to a book and Susanna knocked it out of the park.
So many kids have made appearances on the Grand Ole Opry — Sierra Hull, Wyatt Ellis, Charlie Worsham, Vassar McCoury, and many others — do you think this book will birth a new generation of youngsters itching to step into the circle?
I really hope so. One of my goals with this book was to show kids that the circle isn’t just for legends, it’s for dreamers, too. The Opry encompasses the past and present of country music, but also its future. If even one child reads this book and thinks, “Maybe that could be me someday,” whether they imagine themselves on stage or in a seat, then it’s done its job.
Why do you think the Grand Ole Opry has such broad appeal — across identities, geography, genres, communities, and age groups?
I think the Opry continues to thrive because it offers authenticity, tradition, and genuine connection all while continuing to evolve. On any given night, you can see legends, today’s hitmakers, and up-and-coming artists sharing the same stage. That blend of past, present, and future gives the Opry a real uniqueness and, unlike a typical concert, provides a platform for guests to discover music they may have otherwise missed out on. And the emotional connection is what brings both artists and fans back night after night. When an artist steps into the circle for the first time, guests can feel it. They can sense the history, the honor, and the gratitude and that the artists are there because it matters to them. That kind of sincerity creates a powerful bond between the stage and the seats.
All images courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties, illustrations by Susanna Chapman.
The sheer variety and singularity of the Grand Ole Opry – whether in just one of its shows or in just one of its many eras – would be paralyzing enough, if tasked with telling its complete, unabridged story to a broad audience. The assignment of taking the entire century-long history of the world’s longest running radio show and condensing it between the covers of a book would have to be heart-stopping. How could one ever take such a complex story full of twists, turns – and plenty of the idiosyncrasies found in human beings who make and love country music – put it down in 350+ pages?
It’s hard to imagine, but that’s exactly what writer Craig Shelburne, historian Brenda Colladay, and a host of Opry members have done with the brand new book, 100 Years of Grand Ole Opry. Shelburne – a BGS contributor and former managing editor for our website – worked with Colladay to penetrate the vast, lush archives of the Grand Ole Opry to posit its history decade by decade, chapter by chapter in the new hefty, coffee-table-ready tome. They completed dozens and dozens of interviews with Opry members, artists, musicians, employees, executives, and broadcasters and, as a result, the history book feels remarkably alive and vibrant – just like the show itself.
The book, released in April of 2025, demonstrates and reiterates time and again that the Grand Ole Opry isn’t a relic – nor has it ever been. It’s a living, breathing, adaptive being that’s enacted by a strong community of stakeholders not only from across the company that owns the brand, Ryman Hospitality, but the music industry as a whole, too. 100 Years of Grand Ole Opry showcases a country and cultural icon not waning or winding down after a century of triumphs (and trials and bumps and scrapes, too). No, instead, this book finds the Opry, beloved by all of us, merely at its next transition point, moving purposefully from the last 100 years to the next 100 years.
We sat down with Craig Shelburne on the phone to chat about the immense undertaking of writing this book, the surprises found and lessons learned along the way, and what makes the Grand Ole Opry so special, all for our Artist of the Month celebration of Opry 100.
This is such a gargantuan task, staring down the entire 100-year history of the Opry and being asked to turn it into a book. Where do you even begin? How did you take that first bite? What did it feel like to you to enter this process of creating a book?
Craig Shelburne: Yeah, 100 years is a massive undertaking and we – my co-writer Brenda Colladay and I – spent some time at Frothy Monkey in East Nashville sketching out some of the important Opry milestones in those eras when things really seemed to be shifting. As we did that, we realized that we could probably have each chapter be roughly a decade. At one point, we realized we wanted to have some breakout sections, but we didn’t know how to do that.
I wanted the book to be very readable, [without] a whole bunch of sidebars. So instead of designing sidebars, we have these pages that are interludes in between the decades, in between the chapters. You have the history of bluegrass, or the ways that the Opry has been on television, or what the Opry looked like when it went into the 21st century and a new era of technology. [That] was our chance to expand on one particular theme, rather than try to weave [those themes] into the narrative or take away from the narrative. It could be distracting if you dropped [a sidebar] into the manuscript every time the Opry was on television. Those interludes also gave us a chance to use some of these magnificent color photos [from the Opry archives] just because they’re beautiful photos. We didn’t have to necessarily set them up within the text. …
It was intimidating for a while until one night, late at night, I was writing and I realized that the main character of the story is the Opry itself. There are so many people that have passed across the stage, from Roy Acuff and Minnie Pearl up to the modern era. I wanted the artists and the cast members to be represented well, but really the main figure throughout this 100 years is the show itself. And it’s a show. It’s not a stage, it’s not a building. It’s a show.
Once I could get my head around the fact that this was the leading character in a 100-year story, the narrative started to fall into place. That was a breakthrough for me.
I also love how that format parallels the structure of the show itself. That you have segments, sets of artists performing, you have commercials and announcers and little games with sponsors, and you have talk-back sessions from artists. When you go to a show, it’s not just one thing from start to finish, it’s a bunch of different things – and there are obviously lots of interludes built in. So there’s something about the structure of the book that parallels the show in a nice way.
And telling the story of how the segmented portions of the Opry came to be was one of my favorite parts of writing the book. Basically, the Opry hired their music librarian – who was a very organized individual – to try to reign in some of the chaos from when the Opry was at what is now the Belcourt Theater [in the 1930s]. I think back then it was called the Hillsboro Theater. His name was Vito Pellettieri and he realized if he could wrangle three or four artists within the same timeframe, then these performers would now have a rough idea of when they needed to be standing side stage, instead of disappearing as musicians might have been wont to do.
Then of course, being the Opry, owned by an insurance company, the business people sensed an opportunity there and thought, “Let’s sell those segments to sponsors and advertisers.” And so that’s how the 30-minute segments came to be. Whether it was dog food or condensed milk or tobacco, if there was a sponsor for each segment, the Opry made more money that way, too. The Opry has been pretty creative in how it positions itself and how it can take advantage of good ideas quickly.
I know you spoke to dozens of artists, stakeholders, musicians, executives, broadcasters, and announcers. You and your co-writer Brenda Colladay must have done hours and hours of interviews for this book. Can you tell us a bit about that process and who you most enjoyed or were most excited to sit down with?
On one hand, the general narrative crafting you’re talking about sounds like really grueling work, but on the other hand, it sounds like doing that through these interviews was probably the most fun part of this process.
I would say the interviews were the most fun. I agree with you on that. I have the Opry show schedule as a shortcut on my smartphone now, because I would always try to figure out who was playing and who we needed to talk to.
As it should be, we started our interview series with the one and only Jeannie Seely. We felt like she needed to be first, and she deserved that. She only got about halfway through what she wanted to say [during our first meeting], so we set up another interview. It was wonderful to talk to her. Both of those afternoons were great, because with Jeannie, she’ll tell you the way it actually was. Some of it was very positive and some of it was critical, but it’s her perspective. And she was there! I didn’t get to see the Opry in the ‘60s or ‘70s, and she did. Getting to hear it directly from her was fantastic. She was also hilarious, when you got to sit down and joke around with her a little bit.
It was really important to talk to people firsthand and to go deeper than just, “Hey, what do you think of the Opry? Why is it important?” So the Opry opened up its entire archive to me, which was videos, books, newspaper clippings – pretty much anything that I wanted to look at, read, or watch. When I knew I had an interview coming up, I would spend several hours reading clippings and reading stories in order to come up with questions specific to their Opry experience. Rather than just, “Tell me about when you moved to Nashville. Tell me about this. Tell me about that.” Those aren’t questions, those are just prompts. When the people came in to talk to us, we were usually in pretty much a supply closet for camera equipment. It was a really small room. We didn’t have any cameras. We wanted everybody to be casual and comfortable and not worry about makeup and hair.
Then it became a very comfortable conversation. We started every interview with the same question, which was, “What is going through your mind in those moments before the curtain comes up?” Everybody had a different answer. That put them in the frame of mind of talking about the Opry, I think, more than talking about themselves. They went pretty deep, back in their memories, of how they discovered the Opry and what it’s meant to them. Quite a few of those artists went to the Opry as kids. So then they started talking about their family and what the Opry meant to their family, there were a lot of emotions.
I think some of those artists expected it to be like a 10 or 15 minute interview to grab that [sound] bite that says, “I sure do love the Opry.” But we went really deep and spent more than an hour talking with some of these artists. You don’t get to put everything like that into the book, but suddenly now we have an oral history from these modern contemporary performers that will live forever. When somebody writes about the Opry in 50 years from now, they have it straight from the artists, [speaking] about their path to that stage.
I think that’s one of the best accomplishments of this book, that it tells the story in such a rich, full way that isn’t just the mythology and isn’t just the good parts and the glitzy parts. It sounds like part of how you were able to accomplish that is by having these interviews set up in such a way that you could build trust with folks, so they didn’t feel like they were just giving you that marketing sound bite. They could really tell you those full stories.
I think a lot of that came from the Opry headquarters. They wanted us to tell [it] the way it happened. A woman named Jenn Tressler, she handles a lot of the talent requests there and I think she primed most of these artists about what the interviews would be like and what the goal was. Just [so they would] be comfortable and [know] no topic is off limits. Artists were asked some pretty sensitive questions sometimes about the relationship with the entertainment industry in general, including the Opry and the artists rose to the occasion.
We wanted to tell the actual story. I’ve often felt that nobody wants to read a book where everybody’s happy and there’s no conflict. There’s conflict in this one.
From your interviews or from writing this book, what was a story or two about the Opry that stuck out to you or surprised you? Or, that brought you to learning something new that maybe you wouldn’t have tripped over into if you hadn’t done this book? Is there a story or two that stand out to you?
The first one would be just how young everybody was when they got involved with the Opry. George D. Hay was a young man; Harry Stone, who was one of the early program directors, had just turned 30 when he took on that role. The artists were [in their] 20s and 30s. You had a very young Bill Monroe, Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl, coming on the stage and changing the game for country music.
Sometimes the Opry is perceived as the elder statesman of country music – and that’s true and they’ll always have a place there, it’s wonderful. But a lot of the shake-ups at the Opry and a lot of the progress that’s been made was because of these young, innovative perspectives. That happened over and over. I think without that viewpoint from people who were younger, the Opry would’ve struggled through the last hundred years. There would’ve been times somebody might’ve said, “I want it to stay the same way, ’cause this is how we’ve always done it.” It’s never the right answer, to do it just because it’s always been done that way. I think that was pretty fascinating to me.
The other thing I didn’t realize was that it was not until I believe 1978 that the Opry was ever aired on television. It was a PBS special. If you wanted to see the Opry, you had to come to Nashville for the first 53 years. After that one night on the PBS special, it didn’t happen again until the following year. Being able to see the Opry, you had to come to Nashville, and I think executives at that time feared that if you put it on television, people would stay away from the show and they wouldn’t sell tickets anymore. But time has proven just the opposite. People saw it on television, how exciting it was and they felt like they needed to be there, myself included. I watched it growing up in Nebraska as a teenager and I just was fascinated by it. By that time, of course, it was on TNN.
I watched it many a Saturday night with my grandparents and I didn’t always know who those legendary figures were that were sharing the stage with Alan Jackson or Clint Black or Alison Krauss. But because of the Opry, I got a country music education as a teenager before I moved to Nashville in 1994. By the time I got here, I feel like I had a leg up on other people who wanted to write about country music that were my age.
You’re pointing out another fact that we often forget about country music, hillbilly music, these traditions that made these musics. It’s that all of them are constantly changing and growing, morphing and adapting to the future – and responding to the present.
Like, the reason the Opry became what it is today was because of technology, because of the “Air Castle of the South.” Because of radio, because there wasn’t a lot of competition on the literal bandwidth, and because the tower was so tall it could reach so many people all across the country. To think that, nowadays, when we view “tradition” in 2025, we think that means not changing something.
Wrong!
But the Opry has always been changing and always been using cutting edge technology to do that. And country wouldn’t exist without technology, without the railroad, without industrialization, without radio, without recording technology becoming portable and handheld.
Oh, absolutely. Well said. It has to change, and the Opry does figure out a way to reach new listeners and engage with people that have never been there. Obviously, when you go to the Grand Ole Opry House for a show now, the emcee will say, “Who’s never been to the Opry before?” And a lot of hands go up. They’re constantly marketing the show – as they should be. They want people to have a seat in the Ryman or the Opry House to see how special the world’s longest running radio show is. I give them a lot of credit for always trying to reach new people and not just looking for what they’ve done already in the past. They take a lot of pride in the fact that no two shows have ever been the same.
I was just listening the other night [on the radio] and I was able to catch the Opry debut of Grupo Frontera. I thought it was such a perfect example of what you’re talking about, that a Spanish-speaking, Spanish first language group that makes country. Of course, it’s Mexican folk and Tejano and Latin folk and all these other things as well – but it’s certainly country & western. [They were] making their debut and you could hear the building shaking through the radio. It felt like one of those iconic ovations we hear about from the old days, with everybody stamping their feet in the balcony of the Ryman. The Opry is still doing that. And not only are they doing it, but this year for Opry 100, they’re doing it over and over again where they’re having these shows with these special moments, reaching new audiences.
And it was a brilliant move, because those fans now have a general idea of what the Grand Ole Opry is, how it is performed, and they got to hear some music from people they maybe hadn’t heard of. I know Frank Ray was on the show that night, he might’ve gained some fans from those who came to see Grupo Frontera. It’s a win for everybody when an artist of that caliber plays the Opry.
There was a great moment, after doing some digging, where I found the full performance of when Porter Wagoner invited James Brown to come play the Opry. It was like a 20-minute segment – there are some things online where you hear bits and pieces of it. But the Opry archive had it from start to finish, so I just sat there and listened to it. There was some screaming and hollering going on that night, too. It was exhilarating to listen to it. Then I found an oral history from Porter Wagoner – I quoted it in the book – that said, when you bring someone of world-renowned stature to the Opry, it benefits the Opry. You want the Opry to be in the news, because it draws attention to the show.
We’ve already talked about Jeannie Seely, but I wrote my concluding question with her in mind, as well. She passed in August of this year and when she did she had performed on the Opry almost 5,400 times. (The number is 5,390-something.) That longevity is incredible. So thinking about longevity, we’re standing here at the milestone of a hundred years of the Grand Ole Opry, looking at potentially another 100 years of the Grand Ole Opry coming up.
Do you see this modern era of the Opry as its golden age? Do you think the golden age of the show is yet to come? And who are you seeing that’s just getting their start “in the circle” nowadays that is gonna be like Jeannie Seely in a few decades, thousands of appearances into their Opry career?
Yeah [the future] looks strong to me, too. Something I never put into context until I wrote the book was that in the 1990s the Opry lost Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl, Grandpa Jones, Bill Monroe, and Dottie West. And you just think, “How do you recover from that?” They did. They figured out a way to press on.
There were definitely growing pains and bumps, but some of those figures that they picked out in the early 2000s have become advocates for the Opry, champions for the Opry. The ‘90s country stars that I love, like Lorrie Morgan, Pam Tillis, Vince Gill, Steve Wariner, and Marty Stuart are still out there. They still play the Opry – and they’re the elder statesmen now. I do think the cast members that joined in the ‘90s and 2000s are gonna become a foundation for the show.
I think you’ll be seeing Trisha Yearwood out there quite a bit as she settles into the “twilight years” of her career. I sense that she will be out there singing alongside Kathy Mattea and Suzy Bogguss. I think Opry is in really good hands with the young women that they’ve invited to be part of the cast. More than once, without any prompting, artists like Carly Pearce and Lauren Alaina have said they feel the responsibility to be here. And I think Lauren Alaina is very likely to inherit the comic routines of Jeannie Seely – she’s pretty much already there. She had us rolling in laughter in her interviews. She’s got the natural timing of a comedian, but she’s got hit songs, too.
I think the Opry is in really good shape right now. They’ve done a good job of connecting to a younger audience that wants to play it. It’s a career goal now for a lot of inspiring artists. I think when I moved here in the ‘90s it was seen as living history and you had to have some history to get on that stage. But now you just have to have a good story, some musical talent, and an ability to connect with an audience. That’s easier said than done, but if you can have those three things, the Opry will take a chance.
I think they’ve found a recipe for success. They set themselves up to succeed. There are times in the music industry where it seems like things are crumbling or those pillars are not as strong as they used to be. But I think right now the Opry is as strong as it’s ever been. I don’t see it going anywhere anytime soon.
Lead image courtesy of Ryman Hospitality Properties.
Journalist, author, and cultural critic Ann Powers released her latest book, Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell, in June of this year. A thought leader in pop and pop culture criticism – and an occasional BGS contributor – Powers considers this legendary figure in folk and American music with deliberation and intention. Traveling isn’t merely a biography or a retelling of well-known and oft-repeated Mitchell lore; instead it’s a careful consideration of the artifice and sincerity, publicity and privacy, myth-making and universe-building of this iconic musician, songwriter, and celebrity.
“I wanted to think about how Joni Mitchell became JONI MITCHELL,” Powers relays in her conversation with BGS executive director Amy Reitnouer Jacobs. “How she fought against that in her own life, and how she reinforced the legend as well.”
And how well-timed is this book and conversation, with Mitchell’s mythos at perhaps its lifelong peak? With Brandi Carlile’s assist, Mitchell has been enjoying a “Joni-ssance” of late, with jaw-dropping public appearances over the past couple of years after an extended hiatus and star-studded Joni Jams delighting fans and acolytes from the Gorge in Washington state to Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island.
Fresh off Mitchell’s headline-grabbing appearances at the Hollywood Bowl on October 19 and 20, we’re sharing our recent conversation with Powers about Traveling, its inception and writing, and how a truer telling of Mitchell’s life and creative journey requires a degree of skepticism – and may just result in becoming an even deeper fan of the one-and-only Joni Mitchell.
Right off the bat, I really connected with your hesitation to write this book, because I find that I have a complicated relationship and love of Joni, and I’ve never been able to put it into words. So when you start your introduction with that exact sentiment, I felt that really deeply. What was your thought process in committing to the book?
Ann Powers: Well, Amy, you understand more than most the thorny relationship we as writers and as lovers and supporters of music have with not artists in particular, but kind of the edifice around the art, or as Joni herself says, “The star-making machinery.” I’m very aware of how artists exist in one space and then there’s like a room where the artist lives, and in between is this space where a lot of misconceptions can happen. A lot of fetishization can happen. I was kind of trying to walk between those rooms and think about her as a public figure, as a legend.
And then, also what I could know of her from a distance. I say from a distance, because I did not interview her for this book – which is not unusual for biographies, by the way – but I foreground that because I wanted to say, “Look, I’m also a stand-in for maybe not the average Joni fan, but for those of us who are kind of considering these people that we’ve made immortal through our love and adulation.”
I wanted to think about how Joni Mitchell became JONI MITCHELL, how she fought against that in her own life, and how she reinforced the legend as well. That was the strong thread for me and an attraction to the project. My hesitancy was that I wasn’t going to be able to overcome the legend.
You say multiple times in the book how you’re not a biographer, but despite the chronological order, the book felt almost like a guide to being a critical fan. How have you developed as a fan in this writing process? Are you still a fan?
I’m definitely more of a fan than I ever was before. I would count myself among those people who took Joni Mitchell for granted before I was approached to do this book. And part of it, I think, is my self-styled “outsider” status. That’s a weird thing to say, but [I say it] as a misfit or someone who came from punk. When I was at the right age to have my “Joni phase,” my idols were Kate Bush, Debbie Harry, Chrissie Hynde, women who I now realize were deeply influenced by Joni themselves, but at the time who seemed almost like an alternative to her and Dylan and Neil Young.
The ’90s [were] the natural time for me to go through another Joni phase and then I did. I did get to see her at that amazing show at the Fez [in 1995] with Brian Blade. I had some prime Joni moments and definitely was listening more than I had in the past, but that was sort of like that moment when Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, PJ Harvey, and so many amazing artists were breaking through the Lilith Fair generation.
And here’s Joni in the press, bad-mouthing them or saying, “I don’t want to have anything to do with them.” So again, I’m like, “Oh, who is this person? Why is this person so hostile?” It’s like all these moments that would have been the one where I stepped onto that path turned me away from it – until much later, when I had an occasion, this book, to go beyond the surface of my fandom. Then I just went completely, fully in. So deep. And every step I took that was closer to her actual music and her actual words, not just her song lyrics, but interviews she’s given or the circumstances of her life, I became more and more of a fan.
In that way, this book is the story of me becoming that defender in the end, even if I’m still a skeptical defender, but I believe that that is something Joni teaches us to be – to yourself and as a skeptical defender of those people she admires.
The funny thing about Joni is that she took every step she could to stay off of that pedestal throughout her career. Sometimes I think her desire to not be encased in amber came from her own anxieties, like her own unhappiness with what fame wrought. It’s a very delicate thing.
This is such an important part of her music and her songs as well, especially an album like TheHissing of Summer Lawns, which is basically a critique of Hollywood. She’s living in Bel Air. She’s hanging out with Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty and the glitterati. She is of the glitterati. But then she’s also the one who runs away, who goes, “I’m living a monk-like existence outside Vancouver for a while.” Or, “I’m getting in my car by myself and driving across the South and using aliases and checking into hotels and hanging out with whoever’s in the lobby.”
This is something she kept doing in order to check herself and check the mechanisms around her and not become complacent with where she was. Same in terms of her collaborators. Instead of just doing what you’re advised to do in the music industry, which is just stick with the formula, she just kept blowing things up. She’s like, “I want to play with these jazz guys. I want to bring in like Brazilian percussionists.” That’s her curiosity, as I say in the book, but it’s also her refusal to be a conventional pop star. She’s always kind of trying to keep that at bay.
There’s something that you mentioned about the women you did look up to. When I think about Kate and Chrissie and Debbie, these women stand on their own; holding their own in a male-dominated scene and being surrounded by male collaborators and bands, but not necessarily lifting up other women. I’m trying to think of a female collaboration that Kate Bush ever did and I can’t think of one.
Well, when we look historically at the place of women, particularly in rock, there were labels attached to women who primarily collaborated with women – “women’s music,” right? That was lesbian music. And I think there was a lot of fear, and frankly, internalized homophobia, among a lot of women and people in general in the more mainstream music business.
So you didn’t want to be associated with too many women or people might think you don’t like men, you know? Read any interview with a woman star from 1967 to probably like 2020 and you’re going to see that phrase. “I love men,” you know, “I like male energy,” all this stuff. And there’s no shame in liking to work with male collaborators, but it’s amazing how fearful so many women and their teams – the people guiding their careers – were of female collaboration and female affinity. It was like a forbidden zone.
Of course, I also love the Go-Go’s and the Bangles, but girl groups were [their] own kind of zone. They were taking on these personae. These are great musicians, why did they have to dress up like ’50s pin-ups? It’s like they’re saying “Look, don’t worry! We’re real women! We can play instruments, but we can be girls too!” And despite what we think, that’s still so alive and well today. Though I do think there’s been a shift in the mainstream recently with artists like Chappell Roan and boygenius. There’s definitely younger millennials and Gen Z fighting against being confined by gender roles.
I have also noticed that younger artists are more eager to welcome their women heroes on stage and older women are more comfortable embracing it. Olivia Rodrigo is constantly pulling her heroes on stage. Katie Crutchfield from Waxahatchee is like, “Where is Lucinda Williams? Let’s bring her out.” And that was something you actually didn’t see even during the Lilith Fair years. It didn’t happen. You didn’t really see older artists on the lineup.
I loved the line in the book, “A map maker must be open to new routes.” Were there any new routes that surprised you, or unexpected people that came out of the woodwork?
Definitely the whole Florida thing. When I found out she had spent time down there and met Bobby Ingram – who’s since passed away. And, I didn’t really know there was this whole kind of mirror folk scene in Florida to that in New York.
But I also didn’t know about how diverse the early folk revival was. This is something [for which] I give a lot of credit to Dom Flemons. He’s been doing the work on this, but it’s still so under-explored. When Joni started out, she wasn’t just seeing Pete Seeger wannabes. She was also seeing Caribbean musicians and people doing musical theater and jazz rock or jazz folk, and although it was still a predominantly white scene, there were very important nonwhite artists on that scene.
In my early days [of writing], I just wanted to write a book about that. Uncovering the stories of other musicians who we forget when we only talk about Guthrie or Seeger or Dylan or whatever. It’s like, how white and boring can it get? If it’s just that, it’s that same story every time and yet it was so much deeper and richer and more interesting. And it’s so important to understanding Joni’s music, because her music was never pure folk.
Somewhere in the last seven and eight years of putting this book together, Brandi Carlile kickstarted the “Joni-ssance” as you put it. How did that change your process?
I thought Brandi would stop at her Blue concerts [at Carnegie Hall and Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2021], but suddenly it was like, “Oh wait, there’s so much more!” It’s been such an exciting story in and of itself that goes beyond music. It’s really the story of recovery, healing, and having this epic return. So on that level, it’s a like beautiful human story that’s been edifying to watch.
But I made the choice to stand apart [from the Joni Jam concerts] so I could continue to keep my perspective focused. Now with the book out, I can finally just enjoy this woman who gave us so much and is receiving her accolades. There’s a world of elders – and especially women elders – that I want to continually acknowledge. And if this project could be helpful in that, then I’ve done something positive for the world.
Allison Moorer has always loved words and it shows in her new memoir, Blood. Expressed in a literary voice that’s both erudite and intimate, her writing goes well beyond the devastation of the 1986 incident where her father shot and killed her mother, and then himself. Surveying Blood as a whole, her childhood stories will be familiar to anyone who has grown up without money, who has relied on other family members to help raise them, and who has found an identity through music.
This fall, Moorer has been touring behind the book by presenting on-stage conversations with music-minded moderators, such as her sister Shelby Lynne (they affectionately call each other “Sissy”) and her husband Hayes Carll. During these events she performs music from her new album, also titled Blood. While that project is inspired by her family trauma, it is not a direct re-telling of it. Longtime producer Kenny Greenberg gives it a sonic texture that fits perfectly in a catalog that now spans two decades.
She caught up with the Bluegrass Situation by phone in between her travels.
BGS: I really admire the research you put into this project. You were willing to try to fill in some gaps. One of the passages that I thought was interesting was the email from your father’s friend, Leon, who wrote this line: “I’ve never figured out if Franklin was two people in one body or if he was one person who made a change into someone I did not know.”
AM: Yeah. That’s pretty powerful, isn’t it?
Do you remember the emotions you felt when you read that message from him?
I felt like I had been seen. Because that’s often how I felt about my father. One of the reasons I wrote to Leon in the first place was because very often I had heard about this great guy that my father was. So many people had admiration for him and the person that they described was not who I knew.
He was a teacher at Leroy High School. This was when I was very small but I remember him being the shop teacher, and he taught English. That’s how he was introduced to my mother in the first place, because he was a teacher where my aunt went to high school. He was a juvenile probation officer. His last job was overseeing the vocational school. And so he had an effect on a lot of people.
But at home, what I had in my mind was not matched up with this person that I heard people outside of our house describe. I spent probably too much time trying to reconcile that and what I know about that is we all are many things. Who we are on the outside is not always who we are on the inside, and we can be more than one thing at the time. So I think in some ways I came up with more questions than answers, but sometimes the questions are more important than the answers.
One thing I found interesting is that he seems to have passed on a love of music and a love of literature to you.
Absolutely.
Have you always been in love with words and storytelling?
Yeah. I don’t think that I knew when I was a kid that I was in love with words. I just knew I liked to read and I had an affinity for them. I somehow kind of knew how to read before I went to school. I went to first grade when I was 5 — funny thing about my momma, she decided that I didn’t need kindergarten and she forged my birth certificate and put me in first grade when I was 5.
It probably had something to do with her work schedule because kindergartners had a shorter school day I think. But they found out that, “Oh, well, Allison at age 5 goes in the advanced reading.” [Laughs] That’s a little revealing about who I am. But I definitely found solace in books and in music when I was a kid and still do, still very much do.
Your father was writing music and lyrics even before you and Shelby came along, but I didn’t know the history of “I’m the One to Blame” on your record. I heard the music before I read the book, then found out later that he wrote those lyrics. I was curious, how did the melody come about to that song?
Sissy wrote it. She found that lyric in his old briefcase, not long after they died. We were definitely in the throes of shock and grief, but I love that she was still able to go, “Hmmm, that’s pretty good. I think I’ll put tune to it.” [Laughs] She did, and she did a fantastic job. So that song’s been around all this time, and neither one of us had ever recorded it. I thought this album was a really good way to do that and to share that with the world. It was important to me that be heard and that he could finally get a song out there. I wanted to do that for him.
I think “The Ties that Bind” is one of the most eloquent songs you’ve ever written.
Thank you. I’m proud of that one, too. I think that’s something that every person asks themselves.
What was on your mind when you were writing that? Did you have to go to a certain frame of mind to get that song out?
Wrestling with the question of inheritance is a big deal for me. How do you take the good and not the bad? How do you make sense of where you come from, and from whom you come? And not drag all of the baggage with you? It’s a tough thing and it’s a never-ending question, right? It’s the theme of a lot of psychological exploration and family therapy and individual therapy. It depends on what school you come from, but a lot of things in people can be traced back to how they were raised, and by who raised them.
We inherited these qualities from our parents whether we want them or not. That’s what “All I Wanted” is about as well. It’s about that same thing – I really am sorry that I inherited your ability to argue with a fence post. But I’m really glad that I got, you know, whatever, this thing or the next thing. I think that’s something that we have to work at as people. I’m fascinated by families and by inherited traits.
There’s a passing reference in the book about how you can feel at home by putting books on the hotel nightstand. That struck a real visual with me. As you’ve moved over the years, you carried all your books with you?
Oh my God. You would not believe how much it cost to move those fuckers. Of course I did! And I’m sure you have the same problem. My books are my prized possessions in a way. I’ve got some guitars, I’ve got a kick-ass shoe collection, and my books, and my heirlooms from family and my little things… I don’t hang on to much. I’m not a hoarder of any kind. I like to keep things pretty sparse but it’s really difficult for me to get rid of a book.
You must feel very comfortable in a bookstore then.
I do. My dream job is to be a librarian.
I am curious about the book event that you just did in Mobile. Because so much of this book is set near there, what was it like for you to go back to that part of Alabama and tell the story?
Well, I played Birmingham on Wednesday night and Mobile on Thursday night, so I had family at both of them, and I have to say I was nervous about talking about this book in front of them. I didn’t ask permission from anybody, and I don’t have to, and I know that, but I still understand that some of these memories are painful. I also realize that some of the things that happened to my sister and me when we were kids might’ve still been unknown to some of our family members and our friends.
So, I’m aware of that and there’s part of me that wants to make sure everybody’s OK. But I also know that’s a trap. And taking care of people is not why I wrote this book. My desire to take care of people is not at all why I wrote this. I think that that’s worth mentioning because I think that not talking about these things is part of what perpetuates the cycle.
So I did feel very much that because I had family in the audience both nights, the instinct is to not say it, to not expose the secrets, to keep hiding because it makes everybody feel better. But what I know is that’s exactly the opposite reason of why I wrote this book. So I had to balance that with myself, and I was aware of it, and I just talked myself through it.
What caught me off guard in this book was the passage titled “What Happens When You Hit Your Daughter.” I felt that deeply.
A lot of people are feeling that.
What have people told you about that passage?
I’ve had a couple of people tell me that they’re going to hang it up in their office because they’re therapists. And I am no therapist. [Laughs] Or any sort of professional. I wrote that passage because I had done so much reading and research on the family and cyclical violence and what the effects of abuse are. On an intellectual level, it’s interesting, but on an emotional and personal level, it’s devastating to me. I have seen to varying degrees all of those things I talk about in that passage applied to my sister, I think. So I wrote it for us.
Look, it’s like this. I recognize that this book has done a lot for me in terms of me coming to terms with my childhood and in realizing what the fallout has been on us. It showed me to myself as art does. We reveal ourselves to ourselves through making art. And the wonderful thing about art and the purpose that it serves in the world is it serves as a mirror for other people. The job of the artist is to reflect the world.
And what I’m getting back from the world about this book is that it is encouraging other people to look under their own rocks and to look at themselves and look at where they came from. They want to then tell me their stories, which is a lot to absorb but I’m also honored and I’m happy about that because so much of these sorts of things are made worse by the shame that they put on us, because we’re told not to talk about Daddy’s drinking or Mama’s violence or whatever’s going on at home.
When children are told to deny what they see and hear and feel, they become distrustful of themselves. I have noticed that in myself. Because growing up we were always told, “Don’t say anything about this. Don’t say anything about that.” In essence, “This isn’t happening,” because you have to deny your feelings. I think that’s absolutely the wrong path. So if someone is able to speak their truth because I spoke mine, then it means I did a good thing.
Photo Credit: Heidi Ross
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