Steve Wariner celebrates 20 years as Grand Ole Opry Member

Grand Ole Opry Vice President and General Manager Pete Fisher (l) presents country music legend Steve Wariner (r) with a plaque commemorating his 20th anniversary as an Opry member after his performance. Credit: Chris Hollo/Hollo Photographics for the Grand Ole Opry.

This past Saturday (May 14), four-time GRAMMY and CMA Award winner Steve Wariner celebrated his 20th anniversary as a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Pete Fisher, Grand Ole Opry Vice President and General Manager, presented Wariner with a special plaque during the singer/songwriter’s performance. Country Music Hall of Fame member Bill Anderson, who inducted Wariner into the Grand Ole Opry 20 years ago, also was on hand to pay tribute to his longtime friend.

“Wow! I can't believe I've been an Opry member for 20 years,” said Wariner. “It's still one of the greatest honors of my career. I remember my first time on the Opry in 1973 as a member of Dottie West's band back at the Ryman as if it was just yesterday.  It seemed like an impossible dream back then that I would be asked to join…but it happened a few years later! Dreams can come true. Glad to call the Grand Ole Opry my home!"

Earlier in the evening, the Opry threw a backstage party for the ACM Award winner, complete with a special cake decorated with an illustration of Wariner’s red telecaster guitar.

The country music legend is currently in the studio working on a new album to be released later this year.  His next concert performance will be at City Winery in Nashville on June 11 at 8:00 PM during CMA Music Festival. The show will be filmed for a future project. Tickets can be purchased at https://t.e2ma.net/click/gm3ps/s73h3d/ge5tyh.

The Kentucky native, Steve Wariner, has achieved 14 No. 1 songs and more than 30 Top Ten hits, including such classics as “Holes in the Floor of Heaven,” “Life’s Highway,” “The Weekend,” “I’m Already Taken,” “I Got Dreams,” “Small Town Girl,” “Two Teardrops,” “Some Fools Never Learn,” “Lynda,” and more. An award-winning songwriter, Wariner has also composed songs for Clint Black (“Nothin’ But the Taillights”), Garth Brooks (“Longneck Bottle”), Bryan White (“One Small Miracle”), and Keith Urban (“Where the Blacktop Ends”), as well as artists such as Country Music Hall of Fame members Alabama, Kenny Rogers, The Statler Brothers, Conway Twitty, and Don Williams; pop music icon Peter Tork (of The Monkees); R&B singer Ruben Studdard; bluegrass music’s Del McCoury Band, and many more. Revered for his guitar talent, he was given the rare status of C.G. P. (Certified Guitar Player) by his mentor Chet Atkins. He is also a member of the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame.  For more information, visit www.SteveWariner.com.

Bill Anderson reunited with guitar found in a pawn shop

Mike and Wendie Grauer with Bill Anderson

Today, it is common for any songwriter to write a song about their past. But when Bill Anderson, Vicky McGehee and Jamey Johnson co-wrote "The Guitar Song," eight years ago, they had no idea they were actually writing it about their future.

The pensive story-song about a fictional guitar that hung unwanted and tattered in an old pawn shop, yet held so many stories of its past to tell, went on to become the title track of Johnson’s critically acclaimed fourth album and starts out with the words:

I'm just a guitar in the pawn shop on the corner

And I'm waiting for someone to play me now and then

My strings are kinda rusty and I'm a little dusty

Oh, but you'd be too if you've been where I've been

In an eerie and remarkable twist of fate, those lyrics now reflect the true story of a guitar Bill Anderson played when he was first getting started in country music – and on Saturday night, August 8, on the stage of the legendary Grand Ole Opry, the authentic Grammer guitar, given to Anderson personally by Billy Grammer fifty years ago, made its way back into the hands of its original owner.

The story all began four weeks ago when Anderson’s secretary received an email from Mike Grauer, the owner of Bell Road Pawn in Phoenix, Arizona, which read that one of the shop’s customers had pawned an old guitar which had the words, “This guitar belongs to Bill Anderson,” in the sound hole.

Familiar with the 50-year Grand Ole Opry member and his long list of self-penned top country hits like “Whiskey Lullaby,” (Brad Paisley, Alison Krauss) “A Lot Of Things Different” (Kenny Chesney), “Give It Away” (George Strait), among others, Grauer searched the Internet and was shocked when he found an old video on YouTube of Anderson playing an identical Grammer guitar on The Johnny Cash Show. Grauer sent pictures of the relic, and upon investigation, Anderson and his team were able to confirm its authenticity.

“I thought, okay, here it comes, he’s going to want $25,000 for me to get it back,” Anderson joked. But to the contrary, when the country star asked Grauer what he would take for the special timepiece, he replied that he and his wife had always wanted to witness the Grand Ole Opry, but they'd never had the chance.

Without hesitation and, “before he changed his mind,” Anderson recalled, he booked two tickets to Nashville and arranged for them to experience The Grand Ole Opry in a special way -- backstage. As Mike and his wife, Wendie, celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary, Anderson introduced them on-stage to a captive audience, wistfully telling the story of his long-lost guitar that had now found its way home.

Anderson said, his voice breaking, “Mike, you and Wendie just have no idea, you have no idea, what this means to me. I don't think I ever played this guitar in the Opry House because we didn't come here until 1972, but I played it many times at the Ryman. It's so special to have it back. Thank you so much. I wish you a wonderful anniversary.” Laughing, he added, “It may be your anniversary, but I got the present!”

The long-lost guitar hit Anderson’s hands for the first time in 50 years, and he gave its strings a strum as he held back tears of sentiment. Today, the BMI Icon Award winner and the only songwriter in the history of the country music genre to have achieved a song on the charts for seven consecutive decades, Anderson surprised the audience with a surprise appearance by co-writer and friend, Jamey Johnson, and the two performed a chill-bump inducing rendition of the now non-fictional fan-favorite hit, “The Guitar Song.”

Anderson closed the special performance saying, “Thank you to Mike, Wendie and Jamey, and thank you to Billy Grammer. May you rest in peace, my friend."

"Your old guitar will be well taken care of… I promise I'll never lose it again.”

Bill Anderson is currently on tour across the country, performing in venues from state to state. For a full list of dates and additional information on the country legend, please visit www.billanderson.com.