Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 11, 1995 TAG: 9506090056
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CLIFTON FORGE LENGTH: Long
Just offstage, they were having prop trouble, leaving the show's master of ceremonies, Denny Tincher, to fend for himself while the audience waited with awkward laughter.
``Are you ready?'' Tincher asked, looking to the wings where the two women were struggling. ``Is this time for your big intro?''
There was one of those longer than comfortable pauses. And more laughs. But fortunately for everyone involved, this was the comedy segment of the show, so the laughter fit right in.
It seems the problem was this:
The troublesome prop was supposed to be a cornfield, although it didn't really look like a cornfield at all. It looked more like what it was - a small clothes rack draped with an old bed spread that had been spray-painted black and green.
In their comedy routine, Mamie Mae and Bibbie June were supposed to walk out of the cornfield and start talking about baseball.
But first, they had to figure out how to get their homemade cornfield on stage without being seen by the waiting audience. This was a dilemma they had not thought about during rehearsals.
Complicating the situation was the lack of an essential piece of show business equipment - a curtain.
Did the Grand Ole Opry start like this?
The answer is probably yes, but the Grand Ole Opry has long since lost the kind of homespun, amateur-night charm offered by this very different Opry. Call it the Grand Ole Opry's hayseed Appalachian cousin.
The Virginia Opry.
The Virginia Opry does share some family characteristics with its Nashville forefather. It loosely follows the same format of live music, cornball comedy and a regular cast of pickers and players. Also like its forefather, the Virginia Opry boasts a special setting as its home, the historic Stonewall Theatre on Main Street in Clifton Forge.
But that's where the similarities stop. In everything else, this upstart Opry, which plays the first Saturday of every month, has a long way to go before it will start Roy Acuff to rolling in his grave.
Let's hope it stays that way.
For it's this same charm, a sort of wide-eyed, newborn innocence, that's half the fun.
Like not having a curtain.
For Mamie Mae and Bibbie June, it did pose a problem. Otherwise, the lack of a curtain only strengthened the bond between the cast and the crowd. It was like they were all, somehow, in it together.
So when Mamie Mae and Bibbie June finally figured out how to move their cornfield on stage - by hiding behind it and shuffling it slowly into the spotlight - they were greeted with a chorus of supportive chuckles.
Never mind that cornfields typically don't shuffle.
That wasn't the subject anyhow. The subject was baseball, and with their prop in place, they popped out from behind the corn and Bibbie June quickly got things going.
``Look Mamie Mae, they said that if we built it, they would come,'' she said.
As a comedy team, they are the Opry's version of the odd couple, a pair seemingly as mismatched as Bibbie June's socks. (One was white. The other was red.)
Bibbie June - real name Vivian Pendleton - is 49 and lives in Covington. She has been married 31 years to a man she met at a drag race and they have eight children.
She calls herself a born ham, who, as a young mother, would line her babies up and sing ``Let Me Entertain You'' to them. And she says the country ding-a-ling she portrays in her act is really just a slight exaggeration of the country ding-a-ling she is in real life.
In fact, she has five sisters who all live around Clifton Forge, but only one of them has ever seen her perform. Their excuse: ``Well, Bibbie June, you ain't acting anyhow.''
She takes her comedy seriously, though. She has aspirations to turn it into a career. Outside of her Opry work with Mamie Mae, she books herself as a solo act, billed as the Queen of Burlap.
``The burlap is a good hook,'' she explained.
By contrast, Mamie Mae - real name Elizabeth Bodkin - doesn't have any professional comedy ambitions and she didn't meet her husband at a drag race.
She is a lab technician at the Westvaco paper plant in Covington and recently earned a degree in American Studies from Hollins College.
In their act, appropriately, she plays the straight part to her half-witted sidekick. She asked Bibbie June in their baseball routine, for example, to help her explain some common baseball terms.
Like umpire. ``That big building in New York,'' Bibbie June answered.
Foul. ``The smell of my socks after a double-header.''
Error. ``Something you shoot out of a little bow.''
Comedy is only a small part of the Opry show. Mostly, it is designed as a music showcase.
Or as master of ceremonies Tincher says in the show's ``Beverly Hillbillies''-like opening number: ``Gather up the family. It's Saturday night. Pull your hat down low and your boots on tight. Point your truck towards town. C'mon let's go. It's a knee-slapping, toe-tapping, finger-snapping, belly-laughing Opry show.''
Tincher, who by day works as general manager of Big Country 101 radio in Covington, also doubles as the Opry's director. He's in charge of putting together the monthly show and deciding who gets into the 15-member Opry cast.
Tincher is the third director the Opry has had since it debuted in October 1992. He says he was attracted to the show's wholesome atmosphere - and its potential to tap into a region rich in music.
``Right now, we have more talent available than we have openings to bring them in,'' he said.
By the same token, he added: ``If we get a talent, we try to find a place to put them.''
Therefore, the Opry often features special guest performers to augment the regular lineup. On this particular night, the guest was a singer named Scott Stacy who performed three numbers: a duet with Shelly Cole of the Vince Gill-Reba McEntire song, ``Oklahoma Swing''; a cover of the Eagles' ``Desperado''; and an original composition of his own.
In many ways, Stacy reflected the essence of the Opry's strengths, its continuing growing pains, and its charm.
On the one hand, his performances were some of the evening's highlights. Like most of the Opry vocalists, his singing was solid if not sensational, ranking him on a par with at least your average country music opening act.
On the other hand, he had his share of troubles.
On ``Oklahoma Swing,'' for instance, the Opry band botched the beginning, causing Stacy and Cole to look at each other puzzled and confused. After a moment, the band just started over with more success.
The goof frustrated Greg Pearce, the Opry's musical director. He said it's difficult to maintain a tight band when it only performs once a month and rehearses once a week and has a revolving roll of players.
On this night, Pearce said the band's regular drummer was out and the bass player had called at noon to cancel as well. That left Pearce scrambling for substitutes. The result was a rhythm section whose members were unfamiliar with each other and several times - like on ``Oklahoma Swing'' - were completely out of sync.
But the band's troubles bothered Pearce more than it did the audience or newcomer Stacy, who just seemed happy for the opportunity to play in the show.
When he got set to play a song of his own, titled ``Mama's Love,'' this exuberance especially came through. ``Oh,'' Stacy said with all sincerity, ``if anybody's taping this, Momma wants a recording.''
Another element of this homespun quality is the Stonewall Theatre itself, a piece of small-town Americana that was built as an opera house in 1905 and later converted into a movie theater and concert hall.
In its heyday, stars such as Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, Lash LaRue and Burl Ives all performed at the Stonewall. Legend goes that Roy Rogers once carved his name and his horse Trigger's name into the wooden rafters above the stage.
Like so many small-town movie houses, the Stonewall over the years fell into decay and eventually closed. But Clifton Forge, like so many small towns, has a certain pride and a slogan to match: ``A city that will not quit and will not die.''
The community rallied around its old theater. It was designated as a historic landmark. In 1991 a restoration campaign was launched, and in 1992 the theater re-opened as a cultural and performing arts center.
The Opry was started soon after as a regular fund-raiser. M. Ray Allen, founder of the Appalfolks of America Association, which owns the theater, says the Opry is the Stonewall's biggest money maker.
It was Allen who came up with the idea for the Opry after visiting the Kentucky Opry, a similar Grand Ole Opry spinoff that has been prospering in Prestonsburg, Ky.
On a typical night, the Virginia Opry draws around 300 people, many of them regulars to the 527-seat Stonewall. Admission is $5 and $6.
Tincher, the show's director, would like to see attendance grow and is optimistic. He'd also like to have a curtain.
``We have no idea what the potential is, but we know it's there,'' he said.
Plus, there are the added attractions: the 60-cent popcorn, made extra salty so that people will buy more drinks at the concession stand; and, new to the Opry this summer, hot dogs with homemade chili for a buck.
It seemed only fitting for Bibbie June and Mamie Mae to lead the audience in a sing-a-long of ``Take Me Out To The Ballgame.''
Try to get that at the Grand Ole Opry.
Or this - the sweetest part of the whole friendly affair: Mamie Mae and Bibbie June and Denny Tincher and Greg Pearce and the rest of the cast, in what has become a Virginia Opry tradition, stand in the lobby after the show and thank the people for coming as they file out.
It's a nice tradition. And although nobody actually says it, a familiar line comes to mind - a line that, in this case, comes from the heart and goes out to neighbors and friends. Family.
``Y'all come back now, you hear?''
by CNB