How Emmylou Harris helped bring magic back to the Ryman

Twenty-six years ago, the Mother Church of Country Music looked like hell.

The Ryman Auditorium hadn't hosted a public performance since the Grand Ole Opry left downtown Nashville in 1974. Over the years, it slowly fell into disrepair. The building was open for self-guided tours, but a musty smell and a layer of dust had settled in the room that had once hosted legends from Harry Houdini to Hank Williams.

Then came Emmylou Harris. The peerless country singer had formed an acoustic band called the Nash Ramblers and wanted to cut an album of songs she’d never recorded before.

“We wanted to do it in front of a live audience, and back then there weren’t as many venues to choose from,” explained Harris, sitting at her kitchen table one recent afternoon. “(Music executive) Bonnie Garner was the one who said, ‘Why don’t we ask if they’ll open up the Ryman for us?’"

Harris and the Nash Ramblers — Sam Bush, Al Perkins, Jon Randall Stewart, Roy Huskey Jr. and Larry Atamanuik — got permission to play three nights at the dilapidated venue in the spring of 1991. For safety reasons, the 200 audience members at each show were not allowed to sit in or underneath the balcony.

Harris assembled a set list that ended up being what she calls a “travelogue of American music.” Songs written by Steve Earle and Nanci Griffith nestled alongside Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times” and compositions recorded decades earlier by Eddy Arnold and Bill Monroe. “The important part of what would set that album apart was that the first time we ever played those songs for an audience we would record them,” she explained. “Later down the line (a song) might be technically better. But there’s nothing like the excitement of playing it onstage for people the first time.”

Magic was in the air during those Ryman shows. So was other debris, stirred up by the most action the venue had seen in years. After her performance of “Half as Much,” Harris asked the crowd, “Is this a great place to sort of feel the hillbilly dust?”

Despite the airborne particulates, Harris — who had struggled with recurring bouts of bronchitis (one reason why she formed the acoustic Nash Ramblers after years of playing with her electric Hot Band) — was in fine voice, and the Ramblers’ performance was impeccable.

In one of the three-night stand’s most charming interludes, Harris and the father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe, danced while the band played Monroe’s “Scotland.”

“I think it was the third night after Bill danced with Emmy that he came off and had to pop a glycerin pill, his heart was racing so much,” remembered Bush.

Monroe’s presence on the stage, which he’d first played more than 40 years earlier, along with the set list, was a significant nod to the building’s history.

“People felt that they were present at an event that was making an important statement about heritage and about Nashville’s past, country music’s past and its future, a statement being made by a woman who was progressive but also carried the flag for the Louvin Brothers and Bill Monroe,” said Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum historian Jay Orr, who attended Harris’ 1991 Ryman show as a music reporter for the Nashville Banner. “I don’t know of many things you can point to that made as much difference as that series of concerts did.”

The live album “At the Ryman” was released in January 1992, the same month Harris became an Opry member. The next year, the record won a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Most importantly, it drew attention far beyond Nashville’s city limits, and made people realize that the Ryman Auditorium was a historical landmark that played a crucial role in American popular music.

"I think in a lot of ways it brought different attention and stimulated different ideas about what could be, and, in some ways, what could be once again," said Steve Buchanan. Now the president of the Opry Entertainment Group, in the early '90s he served as the marketing manager for the Opry and Ryman and was essential in green-lighting Harris and the Ramblers' performances.

Not long after the Ryman’s centennial anniversary in the spring of 1992, an $8.5 million renovation, overseen by Buchanan, was underway. The process brought the facility up to code while preserving its history and renowned acoustics; additions included a much-needed air-conditioning system and backstage dressing rooms, and a century's worth of chewing gum was removed from the pews.

Now the Ryman Auditorium is Nashville's crown jewel, a revered room not just for locals and tourists alike, but for the wide range of musical acts that perform there.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the album, and the 125th anniversary of the Ryman Auditorium, Harris and the Nash Ramblers (plus bassist Byron House, as Huskey died in 1997) are playing one more show at the historic venue on Tuesday.

"At the Ryman" has just been reissued on vinyl by Nonesuch Records; purchasers who buy the vinyl at the venue or through the Ryman’s online platforms will receive a 7" record with two previously unreleased songs. “I always took great pride in the Rambler record,” Bush said. “We kind of bucked the trends of country music at the time. … I’m really proud that it was just a good roots music record.”

He adds, “We’re all a little older now, but it’s going to be great to look up and see us there together (on the Ryman stage). It’s going to be a joyful noise.”

“Now that it’s approaching I’m a little nervous because (the album) was 25 years ago and I don’t sing quite as high as I used to,” Harris said. She smiles and says, “However, that’s what capos are for.”

Her heavenly voice may be a little lower, and maybe her knees aren’t quite up for buck dancing to Bill Monroe tunes, she admits, but the opinion Harris shared with the “At the Ryman” crowd between songs hasn’t changed: “I’ve played a lot of different places. … This is the best.”

Reach Juli Thanki atjthanki@tennessean.com and on Twitter @JuliThanki.

If you go

What: Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers featuring Sam Bush

Where: Ryman Auditorium

When: 7:30 p.m. May 2

Tickets: $35-$75, ryman.com