HOWDY! WELCOME TO THE GRAND OLE OPRY!

Shout “Howdy!” from the hallowed halls of one of the cornerstones of country music: the Grand Ole Opry.

It’s time for your grand entrance! A smiling, personified Opry House welcomes readers inside to perform among a star-studded cast of country music legends: Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, DeFord Bailey, and many more. Grab your backstage pass, enter through the special entrance just for performers, and get swept up in the whirlwind of performers preparing for the big show. Check out your special “Into the Circle” dressing room, reserved just for debut Opry performers. Finally, it’s showtime! Take your spot onstage, marked with a circle of wood from the Ryman Auditorium (the original location of the Grand Ole Opry). The curtain is coming up, and away you go! Zippy second-person prose narrated by the Opry House gives the story some pep, but Chapman’s eye-catching illustrations take center stage. Photos, cut paper, watercolors, and gouache are layered in collage for a dazzling, pop-art effect. Illustrated figures are racially diverse, while overlaid photos show a variety of actual Opry performers, almost all of them white. This book will be of most interest to Tennesseans and those already interested in the genre, but newcomers will find much to enjoy as well.

A toe-tappin’ tour of Opry history that will hit the right notes for curious music fans.