The Devil’s Music comes in a lot of forms – from rock-n-roll to the blues, to the music that spawned them both – country music, the kind that was played at the Grand Ole Opry.
You see, not all musical curses are linked to performers or the songs they sing. Some of them are connected to the places where music is played – like the Ryman Auditorium, located in downtown Nashville, which was the center of repeated tragedies for many years.
“When’s it all going to end?” one record promoter asked years ago following one Grand Ole Opry death after another. And he wasn’t the only one asking, A lot of performers playing at the Ryman were asking the same thing.
For three decades between the 1940s and the 1970s, scores of them experienced personal tragedies and losses, and in a single decade, a dozen Opry stars were killed by violence. And when they died, they took others with them, including relatives, business associates, and friends. They burned to death, suffered beatings, robberies, murders, became victims of automobile and airplane accidents, and suffered deaths linked to alcohol and drugs.
It was no wonder that rumors spread of the “Opry Curse” that was stalking the performers who appeared under the spotlights above the Ryman’s big wooden stage.