This era of country musicians was the rural conscience. A people who brought their culture, their heritage, their very hearts and souls as their gifts to the microphone. I felt honored to be among the glorious parade of the sons and daughters of the mountains, the valleys, the plains, the bayous, and the cotton fields. His endorsement gave me instant acceptance into the family of country music. Entering the Grand Ole Opry with Lester Flatt was the equivalent of walking into the Vatican with the Pope. One week later, I proudly carried Lester’s guitar and walked beside him into the backstage area of the Ryman Auditorium. By the end of the next weekend Lester Flatt had offered me a job in his band.
I've squandered it countless times since then, but at that moment even at the dividing line of the late night darkness my trip seemed to be surrounded in a pure white celestial beam of light. I’ve found it to be a gift that was placed in my hands to use at will. The one that was to set me on my way and mark the true downbeat of my journey. He collected me then we disappeared into the night traveling in his 1965 Chevrolet car and headed toward the outer edge of what seemed to be a divine appointment. I was filling up my eyes with country music history, low life, and flashing neon signs when I heard Roland call my name. Guitars,” and “Live Country Music” all beckoned. Signs that read “The Wheel,” “Night Club,” “Demons’ Den,” “Adult XXX,” “Peep Shows,” “The Ernest Tubb Record Shop,” “Grammer Busy like rats, shadowy forms of hookers and more edgy people moving fast. Lots of winos stumbling up and down the alleyways. The atmosphere around the place was seedier than anything I’d ever seen.
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Some of the windows were broken out or boarded up, but somehow her dignity seemed intact. It didn’t matter to me that the building looked weary and in need of repairs. I felt a sense of belonging behind those doors. When I stood in front of the Ryman tabernacle that first time, it was eighty years old and I was thirteen. Just the sight of the place nearly drove me to my knees. I came face to face with the Mother Church of Country Music-the Ryman Auditorium. What was waiting on me was a vision that I had not counted on seeing. I picked up my bags and walked to the other side of the Greyhound station in hopes that he might be waiting there. I was beginning to get anxious as Roland was nowhere to be found. He played “Pins and Needles in My Heart” by Roy Acuff and then moved on without saying a word, and not a soul seemed to care. He was standing over a manhole cover across the street from the bus station with steam forming around him. The first live music I heard in Music City came from a harmonica-playing street performer. They touched off the mood of the night, looking like fugitives slipping into the abyss of the Greyhound corridors. Strangers who looked as if they were coming and going from shipwrecks, home wrecks, shattered dreams, cyclones, mysterious scrapes and jailhouses. Mostly a steady stream of tear-stained travelers. I didn’t see much glamour before me that night at the bus station, though. It was country boy Hollywood, the air castle of the South, a dream factory. I wanted to live in the land of rhinestone suits. However, I didn’t think I would get here this fast. I had always dreamed of coming to Nashville.
They became my welcoming committee and seemed to look upon me with a lonesome, knowing, sadness from high atop the timberline peak of the city. No moon, no stars, the only movement in the sky was the night birds. As I waited I couldn’t help but notice how dark it was. Thirty minutes later he still hadn’t arrived. He also remarked that he would ask Lester if I could “ride along with them for a show or two.” When I stepped off the bus that morning I was expecting Roland to be there to meet me. We had become friends and at the end of the run he had invited me to come to Nashville. I had met him on the bluegrass festival circuit the previous summer. Roland was the mandolin player in Lester Flatt’s band. It was around 2:30 on the Thursday morning of Labor Day weekend 1972 when I first set foot in the city some refer to as the “Athens of the South.” I had ridden a Greyhound bus 430 miles from Philadelphia, Mississippi for what was supposed to be a weekend visit with Roland White. NASHVILLE VOLUME 1: TEAR THE WOODPILE DOWN By Marty Stuart I came to Nashville from the land of Jimmie Rodgers, looking for a place, a place to belong inside the world of country music.
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