Grand Ole Opry - Nashville, Tennessee

Address:Nashville, Tennessee

Visit the Mecca of country music, in Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville's grandiose "Grand Ole Opry" radio program (running from the days of the Great Depression until today) is a little like a bird that somehow migrates without leaving the South - it winters at the old Ryman Auditorium (the Mother Church of Country Music on Fifth Avenue) and spends its summers in a snazzy $15-million Grand Ole Opry House on Opryland Drive that seats about 4,400 people. The new Ole Opry does retain something sentimental and sweet from its previous venue: a six-foot circle of worn old wood from the Ryman Auditorium has been inlaid in the new stage. The country's music's best old and new superstars and up-and-coming hopefuls of bluegrass, comedy, gospel, and country music, walk out into the spotlight and stand in that circle aware that their boots scuff the very same wood as those of Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, and Uncle Dave Macon. That circle of initiation, the epicenter of the Opry's legacy, also symbolizes its continuity - even after 80 years, the Grand Ole Opry is still going strong. You can buy tickets (do so well in advance) to sit in on the Opry's live broadcast on Friday and Saturday nights and enjoy the crisp crooning of country contemporaries such as Vince Gill, Alison Krauss, Travis Tritt, or Billy Ray Cyrus.