"Country Music is Wherever the Soul of a Country Music Fan Is": Opryland U.S.A. and the Importance of Home in Country Music: An article from Southern Cultures 17:4, The Music Issue

“Nixon’s visit (only five months before his resignation) was seen by national journalists and politicos to be a trip to one of the few places where he would still receive a warm reception, and it was quite warm indeed. Nixon took the stage, played two songs on the piano, and bantered with Roy Acuff.”

When the Opry changed sites it wasn’t without a good deal of growing pains, angst, and rhetoric—but by taking old values to the new venue, not to mention a circle of the original old floor, coun...