What Performers Have Gotten Their Start at the Ryman Auditorium?

February 19, 2026

The question slightly misframes what the Ryman actually was. For most of its history as a music venue, the Ryman was not a place where unknown performers launched careers from scratch. It was, during the Grand Ole Opry years between 1943 and 1974, the stage where careers already in progress took their defining leap. An Opry debut at the Ryman was confirmation, not origin. Getting there required having already built enough of a following to be invited.

That said, the list of artists who made formative appearances at the Ryman, where their careers crystallized into something nationally significant, reads like a complete history of American roots music.

The Opry Debut Years (1943-1974)

Hank Williams made his Ryman debut in 1949 and received six encores, one of the most celebrated first appearances in Opry history. He had been recording for MGM since 1947, but the Ryman broadcast to 30 states over WSM’s 50,000-watt signal made him a national figure.

Earl Scruggs debuted with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in 1945. That performance, with Monroe on mandolin, Scruggs on five-string banjo, Lester Flatt on guitar, and Chubby Wise on fiddle, is cited as the birth of bluegrass music as a distinct genre. Scruggs was 21 years old.

Elvis Presley debuted at the Ryman in 1954. He performed twice and received a sufficiently mixed audience response that Opry manager Jim Denny reportedly suggested he go back to driving a truck. It remains one of the more famous assessments in music industry history.

Johnny Cash joined the Opry in 1956 at the Ryman. It was also where he met June Carter backstage. He told her in 1968 that he intended to marry her, which he did in 1969.

Patsy Cline joined the Opry in 1960 at the Ryman. She was already recording, but the Ryman stage and Opry membership established her standing within country music’s institutional structure.

Dolly Parton began appearing at the Ryman as a teenager when she first moved to Nashville from East Tennessee in the early 1960s. Porter Wagoner spotted her and hired her for his show. Her Opry membership came in 1969.

Loretta Lynn joined the Opry in 1962. Her first Ryman performance began a relationship with the venue that continued across six decades; she performed there for her 85th birthday in 2017.

The Carter Family, including Mother Maybelle Carter and her daughters Helen, Anita, and June, performed some of their most significant Opry appearances at the Ryman. June Carter’s presence on the Ryman stage, long before she married Cash, established her as a comedic and musical performer in her own right.

Lula Naff, the Ryman’s longtime manager from the 1920s through the 1950s, deserves recognition as the person who made these careers possible. She booked the venue’s talent as an independent agent, bringing in performers including Marian Anderson, Charlie Chaplin, Bob Hope, and the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Her talent and business judgment turned the Ryman into what was called the “Carnegie Hall of the South” before the Opry era.

After the Opry Left (1974-1994)

When the Grand Ole Opry moved to its new house in March 1974, the Ryman went dark. The building sat vacant for nearly 20 years. But its legacy had already shaped the industry.

Emmylou Harris performed a series of small concerts there in 1971, during the years when the Ryman’s condition was deteriorating and its future was uncertain. Her appearances helped build the case that the building was still viable.

The Ryman was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. After a serious proposal to demolish the building was rejected, an $8.5 million renovation restored it and reopened it in June 1994.

The Reopening Era and Beyond

The first post-renovation performance was Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, which Keillor said was directly inspired by his memory of the last Grand Ole Opry show at the Ryman in 1974. After reopening, the venue began hosting performers across genres who treated a Ryman show as a career milestone rather than a regular tour stop.

Several artists have used Ryman shows to record live albums: Josh Turner (2006), Patty Griffin (2003), Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” concert film (2005), Jonny Lang (2009), and Ringo Starr’s 2012 birthday concert. The Ryman show has become, for many artists, an occasion that warrants documentation.

Notable genre-expanding performances include Bob Dylan (2007), Harry Styles (2017, describing the Ryman as the “reason” for his tour), Wu-Tang Clan (2019, the first hip-hop act to headline the venue), and Lizzo (2019). Garth Brooks, despite being one of the most commercially successful country artists in history, did not perform at the Ryman until 2016, calling it a significant personal milestone.

What “Getting Your Start” Actually Meant

The Ryman’s role in launching careers was structural as much as individual. During the Opry years, performing at the Ryman meant reaching the national WSM radio audience in the eastern United States. The exposure was cumulative; artists who appeared regularly became known quantities across a geographic area they could not have reached through touring alone.

After the Ryman’s renovation in 1994, the dynamic shifted. A Ryman show became a signal that an artist had reached a certain level. The venue’s 2,362 seats sell out regularly. Pollstar named it Theater of the Year 14 times. In 2022 the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame designated it an official landmark.

The performers who got their “start” at the Ryman were doing something more specific: they were receiving a form of institutional recognition from a building that had, over 130 years, accumulated enough cultural authority to make that recognition matter.

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