Transcript
Welcome back everyone to another episode of The Ripple Effect here at Kentucky Lake. I believe this is our fourth episode. Um, and we are going to do another music episode. So as we’ve stated from the beginning, all of our podcast episodes are going to be focused on stories around Kentucky Lake that are either educational, informational, or inspirational. And I believe that our guests today is going to be a little bit of all three of those things. So welcome, Mr. Clay Campbell of the Kentucky Opry.
Thank you. I’m really happy to be with you this morning. Yes. So, Clay, the Kentucky Opry is obviously it’s a staple here in Kentucky Lake. You guys have been around for a long time. Um, but so just to kind of kick us off, tell us a little bit about yourself and maybe how you got here, um, to Marshall County and Kentucky Lake. I’m glad you asked that because that’s my favorite subject talking about me.
Okay, so I’ve been an entertainer for a long time. I’ve been playing music for sixty one years, and I got started playing music when the Beatles came over from England. So that’s been a long, long time ago. And, uh, but if we fast forward through, uh, a couple of marriages that didn’t go well and my music career in Nashville that failed, I was almost a star. Okay. And had a couple of major records that did never go anywhere. And, um, Barbie and I, uh, we rededicated our lives to God and we started wanting to start a family, and we thought, uh, Kentucky Lake would be an ideal place to live and, uh, raise a family.
We lived in Evansville, uh, when the Kentucky Opry was started in nineteen. We lived there for about four years that we started in nineteen eighty eight. And, uh, before that, I had a career in music. I traveled from coast to coast and played all over. And, um, I, uh, made records in Nashville and, uh, I, I just kind of was burned out and I was at the end of my rope, uh, kind of, sort of in a dark place. Uh, when I feel that God turned my life around. Yeah. A lot of times I feel like that that’s when it happens.
You get to the bottom. Um, and then miracles take place and directions change and life comes into focus. And so for you guys, it did here at Marshall County in Kentucky Lake, and we’re really happy and excited about it. So thank you. I’m glad to be here. Yeah, thank God that I’m here. Yes. So for someone who’s never experienced the Kentucky Opry, how would you describe it and what do you hope people feel when they walk through the doors of the Opry? The Opry is a very homey place. It’s very down home kind of place as a come as you are type thing. We copied our shows in the beginning after shows in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg and Branson. Okay. And it was a show where we had a house band of eleven musicians and singers and cloggers fiddling all kinds of music and dancers. And then, um, we did that for about thirty years up in up until Covid happened. And when Covid happened, I laid my band off and I kind of disbanded that we had been doing a few major, um, country music stars for years. We started that in the early nineties with people like, uh, Lee Greenwood and Merle Haggard and Grand Ole Opry stars.
And then we threw out the the year we would have three or four of those, and then our house band would play the rest of the time. And we had an extraordinary house band, uh, great comedian. And, uh, we had full houses of people and Christmas shows. We turned away people and our talent shows, we turned away people. But when they come to the theater now. It’s changed a lot. Um, because it looks the same, except outside. Now we have a paved driveway, which it was gravel for a long time. And, and it’s very homey. It’s like, it’s like a theater with a slanted floor. Um, people don’t like to come to a concert and sit on a flat floor in a, in just a chair like that. A theater with a slanted floor is a lot better. Comfy seats. And so they, the, the, the Kentucky Opry would be, uh, unless we have a rock and roll band. It’s not really loud. Uh, we were at the Grand Ole Opry to see Vince Gill, one of our favorite artists.
And, uh, we were in the balcony and it was so loud I could not hardly stand it. It just vibrated the floor with the bass and the drums like a like a rock concert would be. Uh, I think he’s been playing with the Eagles for too long. It’s what I think. And anyway, here, it’s not like that. It’s a lot quieter. It’s family friendly. Mom and dad. And we have a lot of, uh, stars that come. We have a lineup of great, uh, tribute acts. Great stars. Anybody can go to Kentucky Opry dot com or our Facebook page and find those. Okay. So we have mostly concerts now. Yes. Gotcha. Okay. And so a little bit just of interest for on my part. And so who, what type of music influences are have been most influential for you?
So who has sort of made you who you are as far as who you like to listen to and influence your decisions in starting the Opry? Um, since I, uh, grew up on a farm and I was country, I traded a saddle and a pig for my first guitar. Okay. And I started singing country music right on. Because my dad liked country music and my family listened to country music. We listened to the Grand Ole Opry and, um, my connection to the Grand Ole Opry, we, I, we had an old radio and I got a wire and I hooked it up to the screen on the upstairs window, and I could listen to the Grand Ole Opry, and it was a little scratchy, but that was my favorite thing to do was listen to the Grand Ole Opry stars. As I got a little older and started playing music in my teens, I started. I guess I got my first guitar at fifteen, and then by sixteen or seventeen I was playing with the little group around, uh, different places. And, uh, back in the day when your mother was a little girl, probably, um, the, the internet wasn’t around, of course, and people listened to records, of course, but the main thing was a jukebox everywhere you would go, the bowling alley or the, uh, the drugstore, the dairy Queen or wherever you would go.
There was a jukebox somewhere, drive ins, you know, they would have, they would have the little thing that you could leaf through and had your jukebox there. So, um, when you went to a jukebox, it had Elvis, the Beatles, it had Johnny Cash. It had, uh, rock and roll, the Three Dog Night and the Rolling Stones. It had all kinds of music. So if you went up to play the kind of music you liked, you put in a quarter and you could get six plays of six songs. But then, uh, sometimes before you could get there, you had to listen to everybody else’s music. So we had the jukebox with all kinds of music on. So I learned how to play all kinds of music. I learned how to play rock and roll and country and bluegrass and gospel.
So that’s what I grew up doing. Much like Elvis, I grew up listening to southern gospel music and bluegrass influence and country and rock and roll. Okay, I kind of. Do you wish the jukebox would make a comeback like in that we would start seeing that sort of, which I mean, they have digital kiosks now, obviously, but, um, I, I feel like when you’re talking about that, I had this sort of, this image of it just made restaurants and places of Gathering so much more social because all of a sudden you’re really having to listen to what other people enjoyed. And, um, it helped expose you. It created conversation, I’m sure. Um, that that’s pretty cool. Well, we didn’t have recorders back then. We didn’t have tape recorders and stuff. So the way me and the band would learn a song is we would put a quarter in the jukebox for sixth place, and we’d play that same song six times.
Okay. And then we would write down the words, and then we would write down the chords. So we would listen to most songs back then only had three chords, so it was kind of easy to learn them. And then we would have the words in. And when a new country song came out or something, we wanted to learn a new Elvis song or whatever. Then we could be playing that song in our band that weekend. Yeah. So that was cool. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That’s awesome. Um, okay, so take us a little bit about the process when you guys were trying to design the theater and come up with the theater. I know you talked about how it has a slanted floor. Um, so take us through the story a little bit of just how this place came to be.
Okay. Well, I was working as a salesman selling phone book advertising, and I lived in Evansville, and I was a big fan of Branson. And my wife and I would go back and forth and take our kids to Branson and see the shows, because I had traveled on the road for many years, and then I had disbanded, uh, when my life turned around and I quit that I quit playing clubs and nightclubs and I was playing in church, had a little gospel group I played. And, uh, so one weekend we took a trip to Katie’s, uh, for a, for a bed and breakfast, uh, place there. And, um, it was just out of, uh, out of Katie’s this way on a hill, um, little cabin up on a hill place.
And so, uh, the next morning we got up and I noticed a magazine laying there called the Leisure scene or something like that. It was a, it was like a newspaper that about the lakes area. And there was a there was an ad in that that had a Quonset building. It’s still sitting right up here a couple blocks south of the building. And, you know, it’s like a barrel that’s cut in half like that. Oh, and you know, you’re talking about yeah, it was for sale for forty four thousand dollars. And I was making pretty good money. And, um, I was missing playing music and I told Bobby, I said, let’s go over and look at that. And we went, we go, we go over here and look at it. And it had been sold. And I told Barbie, I said, you know, we could rent something like that. And I could put together, put together a band. And then on weekends we could come down from Evansville and play on Friday and Saturday.
And that would be a great amount of fun for me. And we could play while the tourists are there during the summer, take the winter off. And, um, so one thing led to another, another guy had already bought it, so we rented it for six hundred dollars a month. And then I got some theater seats from an old movie theater in Evansville, and I bolted those seats in the floor myself. And I built the stage myself. Wow. And so then I needed a chiropractor for about three years after that. I can imagine.
And the first year went very good. And we were we were in the black and doing well. And people loved our show. And toward the end of that first year, we had a Christmas show and my wife said, we’re turning away more tickets. We’re turning away more people each week than we sell tickets. And there was a wall in there. And I took that wall down and added another hundred seats. Okay. And that upset the owner of the building a little bit. And he said, I need you guys out here. So I said, well, we got we got another year lease. So we leased it for another year.
And in the middle of the year, we bought this house next door. It had, uh, two, it had two and a half acres with it, and we bought the house and the two and a half acres for thirty three thousand dollars. Now you can buy one hundred square foot for that. Okay? Because half an acre right up the road, about as far as you can hit a baseball that sold for seventy five thousand dollars just for a half an acre. So, um, we got a loan from the Bank of Benton at that time, and we built the Opry. And the first night we opened was, uh, New Year’s Eve, uh, nineteen eighty nine. And my comedian and I were talking and I said, how many theater seats do you think we should put in here? And he said, well, I believe three hundred would be plenty because we had two hundred in the Quonset building, and I put in three hundred seats. And the day before New Year’s Eve, my wife came in to me and she said, we got a problem.
I said, what’s the problem? She said, well, we’ve sold six hundred seats for tomorrow night. Oh, no. Oh, no. So I got Ahold of high school. We got a bunch of folding chairs. We got two hundred folding chairs, and then a hundred people stood up for opening night here. Oh, wow. It was a big. It was a big occasion. A lot of rain. And Ray Pat English, the guy that built the parking lot. He said some people might get stuck. So he brought his tractor and a whole bunch of people did get stuck that night. And because there was cars everywhere here and lots of rain and that started this, uh, the opera here in this building. And it’s had several changes, renovations and additions, of course, since then.
Okay. So do you guys do a New Year’s Eve show? We used to. We always had a New Year’s Eve. Okay. And generally it was oldies, oldies, rock and roll. Uh, you know, old rock and roll from the fifties and 60s, the Vandals and groups like that. I bet that was always very sort of a very special. It was a lot of work for my wife because we had food, hors d’oeuvres, and we had party favors, and the band played all night long and we were tired.
Little puppies the next morning for church, I’m telling you. Or so we said. We are not going to do any more food on New Year’s Eve. That’s it, I quit. We’ll go through Christmas. Christmas? There we go. Good deal. All right. So you’ve welcomed some nationally recognized country and gospel performers, tribute act, tribute acts, comedians, um, maybe even a magician at one point, you know, a little bit of everything. Um, so how do you decide who belongs on this stage and who comes to the Kentucky Opry to perform? A lot of weight falls on my shoulders on that. I had been a promoter for a long time. I booked my own band and, um, um, we used to do, uh, we used to do shows at the Carson Center when the Carson Center, we started chosen in two thousand and eight. Okay.
We did about fifty shows there, about forty five of which sold out. Okay. And, uh, one night the director and myself and Jamie Futrell, who is my business partner. He. He’s the general manager at Kick Bristol stations up there. Okay. And he’s a really great friend. And so we were standing there talking and he said, nobody knows their audience better than Clay Campbell, the director. And they said, well, why does clay shows always sell out? Why does he do well? And other people don’t do well? He said Clay really knows his audience. So I think that I got a really good handle and something I learned from years of playing music on what people like.
And basically I have booked what I think people will like, and I’m wrong sometimes, and my wife generally points that out to me whenever I’m wrong on something and we have something that doesn’t do well, and occasionally we have that. During right after Covid, things were a little iffy. This year has been a tough year compared to other years because of the economy, gas prices and everything. Uh, but I believe that will come back around. I believe gas prices will go down. I’ll I believe that twenty twenty seven, we’re already booking a lot of things in twenty twenty seven, and I believe that will turn around and the economy is going to come back really good.
America is a extremely resilient country, and one of the things that people like and want more than anything else is they want to be entertained and they want food. You give them food and entertainment and they’re pretty happy entertainment. Yeah, you’re you’re exactly right. And a boat, a boat on Kentucky Lake. Yeah. We could throw that in like that too. Yeah. No, I do have to agree. You’re you’re totally right. It’s been a tough season. Um, the economy is hard right now, but I agree with you. Um, we’re very resilient. The travel industry is very resilient industry. We have downswings. We have Upswings. Um, and, uh, so, you know, I’m also optimistic that we’ll kind of eventually start to swing back in the other direction. And when that happens, people, they want to go to places that they love, that they know where they know they can be entertained and have a good time. And I do think that that’s something that people have come to expect and love about our area is that we haven’t changed a whole lot.
But in a way, that’s what makes us special. We are still locally owned, we’re still small businesses. Um, and so when people come here and they bring their families here, they’ve been coming, you know, for for decades, a lot of times, or it’s multi-generational at this point. And so they know what they’re going to get when they come here. They, they know the memories that they’re going to make when they come here. Um, and so, you know, this certainly this venue and what you provide is, is part of that. I’m really surprised sometimes at how people will come here to see a show and plan a weekend trip here and come down from, uh, Peoria, Illinois or Indianapolis or whatever to see a particular act. Uh, and they make a weekend of it. And so the Kentucky Opry has been a good contributor for the community, for the restaurants, motels, and for buying gas and and other things. And so it has drawn a lot of a lot of people.
One of the things I believe that’s happening right now that is really good for us. And that is, um, I mentioned we went to the Grand Ole Opry to see Vince Gill. Mhm. Uh, the tickets were about four hundred. I know. Okay. Then we got gas down there and of course, we had to go out to eat at a very nice restaurant. We can’t just go get a sandwich at subway if we’re going to go out. So we had dinner then and we had breakfast the next morning. And then by the time that we tallied everything up, that little trip, that little night was seven hundred and forty eight dollars. So people come here and they can drive from southern Illinois, come down here and see a show and spend the night and spend way less than half of that. Local people can come here as we got free parking. It costs you forty dollars to park downtown Nashville. Forty dollars to park. I know, that’s outrageous. It is. It is. Yeah. It is expensive to travel right now, for sure. And so we do try to capitalize on the affordability piece here. Um, you know, you can, you can come here and save money, um, and still provide a great, a great venue.
And I think that is a great segue into, um, maybe talking a little bit about the free shows that you do. Okay. We do that for the community. Yep. The community’s been good to us. They’ve supported us here for thirty eight years. And, uh, so the, the situation is many people, uh, maybe on a limited budget, a man or woman on Social Security or just a single mom, a couple kids, uh, whatever, uh, money might be tight. Uh, on the first of each month, we have a bluegrass night, so we have various different groups that come through, and there’s a bluegrass association here that is a non-profit, and they bring in all kinds of groups, and you can come here and have a box of popcorn.
We do, we do pass the hat for the groups and, uh, give people an opportunity to, uh, give the band money for travel expenses and stuff like that. But it’s not a money maker for the band, really. And, uh, then we have some of the best top notch bluegrass groups in the country that come through on a travel, uh, traveling and just take a night here, fill a night or something. So that happens. And same thing with Southern Gospel. Uh, there’s a southern gospel organization here called the s g s u, uh, Southern Gospel United, and they have about twenty five bands and they rotate here on that Friday night, the third Friday night of the month.
Okay. And then the last Friday night of the month is classic country music, which I grew up playing and my sons all play that we’re playing here. Uh, I play here several times a year, and, um, I really enjoy that. It’s fun for me. And the audience just loves it. They love they love hearing the old songs from the seventies and eighties and nineties. You know, you remember when Garth Brooks first came out and remember the eighties? A lot of great music in there. Yeah, totally. Um, so it’s free. It’s absolutely free to get in. No admission charge. First Friday of the month is bluegrass. Right. Second Friday is off. Gospel. Gospel. Third Friday. Third. Friday’s gospel. Third. That’s what.
Yeah. Okay. And then the last Friday of each month, whatever. Fourth or fifth Friday. The last Friday is, uh, classic country. And they can get that. You can get that at our website or call or look on Facebook. Yeah. Okay. Good deal. All right. So let’s talk a little bit about what’s coming up on the Kentucky Opry at the Kentucky Opry, sort of for the remainder of this year into twenty twenty seven. Can you give us any sort of insider info on what we might expect? Yeah. Let’s see. I have my phone here and so let me get it. Get something that’s a little bit more accurate here than just my just my recollection. Um, okay, so some really good stuff coming up this weekend. We have the classic country night and then we have Malpass brothers, uh, during the fall break. We’re dark. We don’t have shows. Okay. Then we have Hotel California, which is the best tribute band tribute band for the Eagles ever. They’re coming to us. They’re not coming here. They’re coming to town.
Then we have Gene Watson that’s sold out. Uh, then I’ve got another, uh, show over in town with with, uh, Diamond Rio, then here. Classic country again. Then on November the sixth, we have Confederate railroad. November thirteenth. The Bellamy Brothers Jason Hoodie, mesmerizing Magic Dailey and Vincent Christmas show that most of these will sell out. Okay, uh, tenth Avenue North and stars go dim. That is a new gospel. It’s not southern gospel, but, uh, kind of a really great new group then. And they’re going to be here. They’re gonna be right here. Then we have Cochran and Company, which is also a brand new, uh, Christian contemporary guy. Yeah.
He’s amazing. Yeah. Uh, then we have, uh, John Denver, uh, uh, Rocky Mountain Christmas featuring Ted Vigil, one of the best, uh, John Denver impersonators. He’s an actual, actual impersonator. He’s amazing. And then on December the nineteenth, closing out the year, we have, um, an Elvis show featuring the, the Christmas music and the gospel music of Elvis with the Blackwood Brothers Quartet and a full band. And that’s going to be a fabulous ending to our year here. Then we got a bunch of stuff coming next year. Please go to our Facebook page or our Facebook or Kentucky Opry dot com. You can get a schedule there or you can call, uh, anybody can just call the Kentucky Opry number and or go to go to Google, just type in Kentucky Opry and there’s our schedule. There’s your schedule. Yep. Um, I don’t actually, we’ve been hearing the phone. It’s been ringing off the hook. Um, so hopefully those are some tickets. Now when people go, like, if they’re wanting to or they’re interested in like the, the Christmas show, for example, one of those are tickets already on sale now. Yes, ma’am. Okay. So how. So there, once the show is scheduled, the tickets are immediately on sale for that show.
Pretty much that’s the case. I told you the, uh, several of these shows were sold out. Well, they went on sale several months ago, and we got thousands of people on our mailing list. I don’t know how many emails we have, but, um, we have a company called Etix that does our ticketing system, and they send out emails to people who have come to see certain concerts. And if we have something like that that’s coming in the future, like if they like the, uh, if they like Hotel California, the Eagles, they might like the Bob Seger tribute or they might like, um, you know, Paul McCartney and wings tributes, something like that. So we, we have a mailing list specifically to people’s tastes and likes. Then we do a general, a general email list and we call that our VIP mailing list. So those people on that can find out two days what’s playing here and when it goes on sale. Okay. Uh, before the general public.
So that gives them a reason to sign up early. And we got a new app that’s coming out. Oh, I’m excited about that. Exciting. Okay. I don’t know if you can zoom on in on this, but I’m so excited about this. Right there it says Kentucky. It says K y Opry. It’s a little app on your phone. It’s free. Then you hit that and it tells you what’s playing at the Opry. It shows the events right there. You click it and you can buy tickets. Oh, wow. Yes. So so easy. Three clicks. Very user friendly. You can yeah, you can have a ticket. And even if even if you’re not very, um, computer illiterate, you can go to that app, push Kentucky Opry and then then go down to the act you want to see. Click it and then another click. You can buy tickets.
Very simple, very easy and makes it easy for, uh, seasoned citizens such as myself. Yeah. Okay, I like that. Okay. So seasoned citizens, I will you tell? What do you think the demographic is of people who come to your shows? Is it a wide variety? You know? You know, your audience. So is it multi-generational at this point? Do you get a lot of grandparents bringing their grandkids at this time or parents bringing their adult children? What does it look like? Uh, one of the main demographics of our our people that come here, it’s people who have money. Okay. Because if you haven’t got any money, you can’t buy a fifty dollars ticket. So it’s people that that are a little older, that’s maybe, uh, you know, got their kids out of the house. A lot of people, I would say between ages of fifty and seventy five or eighty is then we also do Christmas shows, we do magic, we do rock and roll shows. We got some pretty darn good rock and roll groups in like, uh, the Kentucky Headhunters.
Okay. Uh, let’s see, maybe who else is Bob Seger? And that group will draw, um, the people that look more like you. I don’t know how old they are, but, uh, they’re they’re they’re a lot younger than our middle age. They’re a lot younger than our regular crowd. And we haven’t really done anything for the teenage group except Rhett Walker. And he’s a new Christian artist and he’s a good looking devil of a guy. You ever seen. He sings great. And, uh, and we had almost a full house. And that was the first that was our first venture into Christian country. We do we’re doing a new genre now. Christian country. Oh, I like it. Yeah, I like it and it’s brand new.
Another thing we haven’t really touched on is, is Sunday mornings you have cowboy church. What? Um, I felt God calling me and telling me you’re feeling that we we should, uh, start this. We had a saxophone player come in one night to play as our guest. And he looked around and he said, do you have cowboy church in here? And I said, what’s cowboy church? And he said, well, they have in Branson. They have one in Pigeon Forge. And he said, one in Nashville. I play at the cowboy churches all the time. And I said, oh, I’ll do some. Looking into that. I did a little bit of looking into that, and we found some cowboy preachers that could come. And we founded the church in June of twenty ten, and we just celebrated sixteen years and we constituted as a church. Uh, in the next year in August. And so we’re affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Uh, we don’t call ourselves a Baptist church, but we, we’re pretty much a, you know, we are Baptist church, basically.
And we believe, like all good Baptists, that when you die and go to heaven, you’re supposed to take a covered dish. Okay, I’m taking potato salad. Okay. Very nice. Praise the Lord. Uh, but cowboy church is unique and different in a lot of ways. Uh, so it’s like a lot of churches, uh, we do, we do kind of like southern gospel, bluegrass, country hymns. We do a lot of hymns and older people like the hymns. And, um, a lot of churches have gone completely to contemporary music. We do some contemporary, but we still include the old hymns and people like that. And then we just have real plain preaching of the Bible. And it was started kind of as a mission. Uh, to be open during the summer, we thought. And then we continued year round and we became a regular church.
And we’re like most churches except for the last ten minutes of our services. Uh, we bring out a mechanical bull and give chance for people to write it for eight seconds. Really? No, I’m just kidding. Okay. I was about to say, wow. I’m going to have to check that out. That’s that’s pretty funny. I’m really very funny because my wife tells me all the time, you really think you’re funny, don’t you? Well, you got me giggling. That’s good. That’s good. That’s what I hope happens at the Opry. We do. Uh, entertainment. It’s not just music. Many of the shows that we bring in here are really great entertainers, and we have them back year after year. We’ve had Jean Watson here probably fifteen or sixteen times.
And yeah, the mini group Hotel California has been here a bunch of times. So the groups that people like we we continue to book them. Yeah. Yeah. I think that kind of probably maybe answers this, this next question is, you know, after nearly four decades of doing this, what still gives you the greatest joy when the lights go down? Um, in a performer takes the stage or comes off the stage. Like what, what makes you be like, yeah, this is, this is right. We did it. I believe that, um, when when everything’s right. Uh, it takes several factors to make things really click. Uh, number one, uh, we got to make a profit in order to stay in business. So we, we need, uh, what makes me feel good is to see a crowd of full house of people when we have a full and we only see five hundred and thirty seven.
So, uh, it’s a pretty small venue, but if it’s full, then we’re making money. The entertainers are happy, my wife’s happy. And if she’s happy, everybody’s happy. And then the people leave. At the end of the night, they shake my hand and they say, great show. Have these guys back. We live. We just love this show. Getting that feedback from the audience and that really, that really makes me feel good that we’re providing something here of huge value to the community. People come here, they spend money at Paddy’s, the poppies, the habaneros, and all the other fast foods. They buy gas and they they spend nights in the motels and resorts here, and it brings something to the community. It makes me feel good that I have done something here. I felt the Lord would call telling me to open this place.
In the beginning we prayed about it and when Barbie and I opened the building, we. We dedicated this to the Lord that it would be used for family, entertainment, your venue and what you do here. You’re. You’re an economic impact generator. So people are going to, they book their ticket to come here, but then they’re going to want to eat here. They’re probably going to need to fill up. They may need a place to stay. Um, and so, you know, it starts with you when they buy that ticket, but then it, it is a ripple effect as, as we’ve called our podcast here of, of how people then enter the community and invest in the community. Okay. So I’ve got a couple of rapid fire questions. Okay. Um, so we’ll kind of go through these, but, uh, and then so you just kind of say the first thing that comes to mind. Oh, God. Okay. Help me. Help me Lord. Here we go. What is your favorite seat in this theater? MM.
Well, I think several of them are really excellent. A lot of people like to sit on that little raised area back there where they come in, and then there’s a lip that goes up to the balcony, and that’s about six inches tall. You take a step up to that, and then you kind of look down over the whole theater. Those are real good. Uh, and you hear really great back there, These seats in the front are really great, and you can almost see the hair in Gene Watson’s nose. Okay. The I know you really this front row literally is on the stage.
The entertainers say it’s like we’re we’re in our living room singing to people on our couch. It’s really close. From the person standing on stage to the person in the front row is only six feet. Yeah, yeah, it’s really close. And so those seats are really good, but you don’t hear as well there as you do back in the middle. Some people want to sit right in the middle. But I think everybody like I, I don’t I can’t do middles when I go to shows or theaters, I always, I want an outer, outer edge. Everybody has their favorite. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Good deal. Uh, what is the and this is probably an easy one, but what’s the most requested kind of show? I think our most requested kind of show is, uh, is a nineties country act.
Sammy Kershaw uh, Lorrie Morgan. Nineties. Yeah. Nineties country is really, really hot right now. And it’s. Yeah, I was about to say I feel like it is kind of making a comeback. All right. Artist that you would still love to book that maybe you haven’t booked yet? MM. Gosh, I’ve had a bunch of great ones. You know, I’ve had Martina McBride and Vince Gill. I’ve had, you know, back in the years in the past, I had Loretta Lynn, George Jones. I’ve had most everybody, um, uh, I don’t know quite how to answer that question. Somebody that I would like to have here that I’ve not had, that you’ve not had that have not had is Joe Nichols. Joe. We’ve not had Joe Nichols. And people want to get him, and he wants a lot of money. And I’m not sure I want to part with that much money, but I’d really like to have him. Okay, I’m going to write Joe Nichols. Yeah. Okay. Um, let’s see.
Country, bluegrass or gospel. Which one is playing in your car most often. You know, there’s a station here that’s part of Bristol Broadcasting. It’s called Willy Radio. And they play, uh, eighties and 90s and two thousand country, um, probably up till maybe about two thousand five or so, uh, before Taylor Swift. Okay. Okay. They play that genre of about thirty years there, and I like that. I like the Oak Ridge Boys. I like all kinds. And then I do like oldies fifties. Most of the time when I’m listening to music, um, I’m listening to something that’s on my iPhone. Okay. One word that describes a Kentucky Opry audience. Fun. Okay. They always come and they want to have fun. They’re out for the evening. They’ve eaten at, uh, you know, a pork chop. They’re. The patties are down here, and they’re out for a jovial evening. And they want to laugh. They want to have fun and. And they’re looking to have a fun evening. Okay. It’s fun seeing your favorite artists.
If you got a favorite, a good mood and or if it’s the Eagles and you can’t see the Eagles. Like we wanted to go to Vegas to see the Eagles so bad with Vince Gill. And my wife wouldn’t let me pay seven hundred and fifty dollars for the tickets. It was each seven hundred and fifty each. The next best thing is here. Yeah. The next best thing is, is Hotel California right here. Right here? Yep. Who is your favorite country artist of all time? Oh, gee, I think I, uh, Hank Williams senior because he wrote so many great songs. He wrote two hundred country songs and two hundred gospel songs, and I sing a lot of those. Okay. Uh, who has been. Oh, well, this might be kind of hard to answer. Who has been your favorite performer at the Kentucky Opry? My favorite. I mean, I guess you are allowed to say you. Oh, wow. That’s that’s a lot of a question. Now my favorite I know, and I don’t know. I can tell you who I stay and watch the whole show. Okay. And a lot of times I’ll go home because I’m tired and I have a really early riser. So by the time the show is about halfway over, I’m I’m wanting to get in my easy chair, but I really like Hotel California. I really like their music. It was in my era growing up and I played a lot of their music.
Okay. Um, what show are you most looking forward to the rest of this year? Those Christian country concerts, you know. Uh, and the Rocky Mountain Christmas with John Denver. I, I did all of John Denver’s songs and sang all of them at one time or another. And so the Rocky Mountain Christmas Show with him, I think will be great. Okay. Um, if you could tell everyone one thing about the Kentucky Opry, what would it be? If you want to get a seat, call early, call early. Yeah. Yeah. If it’s a hot show, the tickets. We we we put Lorrie Morgan on sale in cell three hundred and fifty tickets the first day. So then if you want to sit on the aisle in the middle, you’d be a better you better be on our VIP.
Uh, you know, uh, email list and, and sign up for our email, go to Kentucky dot com and sign up and click join the VIP list. And then we’ll let you know a couple of days ahead before the general audience when your favorite star is coming. Okay. Uh, and that really, honestly kind of answered the last question, which is where can we buy tickets and learn more? And you just answered, well, we’ve become so used to using the internet because, uh, people want to check and see. You can go on to our website and look and see what, what the seats are sold and which ones you want to sit. And you, you can pick your seat, you can pick your pick your seat and buy it right then. And that’s really handy. Uh, you know, we used to have a pencil and a charge and, you know, back in the old days when we were in a constant building, uh, Barbie just had a pencil and the people’s name, and they made a reservation and we checked it off when they came in. And it was real simple operation, but it’s gotten pretty complicated in recent years. Yeah. Now, is the app live? Can people go yet? Not yet. It should be in about a week. Okay. All right. We have a new website coming that is going to be more user friendly also. Okay. All right. Well that’s exciting. So you’ll be able to go online.
Follow on social. So you know when shows are happening. And then you can always click over to buy tickets. Then sign up for the VIP list so that you can get those announcements two days early. And then be on the lookout for the announcement about the app. And that’ll be we’re posting videos now on TikTok, on Instagram and Facebook, and so people can find out about us if they’re on social media. Very nice. Uh, I think that’s about all the questions I had that I wanted us to cover today. Is there anything else that you feel like you want to? Well, I just want to thank you for the work that you do here for Marshall County. Uh, letting people know about this great area. Uh, it’s a great place at a slow pace. It’s not like Chicago or Atlanta. It is not like LA. It is a really quiet little place where you can go and have a relaxing, fun, uh, two or three days. There’s plenty to do here that could keep a visitor busy for two or three days and maybe even a week if you like boating, fishing, and lots of different things to do in the summer. In the wintertime, there’s not as much, but the Kentucky Opry is open year round. So that’s that’s a plus.
Yeah. No that’s good. I may steal that because our you know, we’ve always talked about and sort of prided ourselves. We are a place to disconnect, to reconnect, but a great place at a slow pace. I had a great slogan. I like that. It’s a quote from Clay Campbell there. Yeah. So we’ll have to we’ll have to give you, uh, give you dibs and we’ll use that one when you live in Chicago. Aren’t you wanting to go to a vacation where it’s a little slower pace? You know, Chicago is our number one market. So it is or not? It is. Oh. It is. Okay. Usually traditionally when it comes to website analytics and we’re looking at where people are coming from, Chicago is always up there. Top three. Um, Evansville is usually a top market, Evansville and Indianapolis. Um, and then we’ve seen actually quite an uptick. Uptick from in Nashville. So we know we’re getting folks from, from Nashville area. Um, but then our folks, our folks here, they don’t like going down to the Grand Ole Opry and fighting the traffic and parking issues and stuff like that.
They want something that’s a little simpler. Yep. Yep. And we, hey, we can do simple here. We can do simple. We like simple. It’s easy. It’s slow. Like you said, it’s a slow pace. So great place. Slow pace. There you go. All right. Well, um, thank you, Clay so much. Oh, you’re quite welcome for this conversation and this time and for everyone watching and tuning in. We appreciate you. Um, and, uh, we hope you enjoy this episode of The Ripple Effect on Kentucky Lake. Um, be on the lookout for more info and more stories. Um, coming your way. Thanks. See you next time.