From O-Line to Opry: Former coach and his metal guitar play Ryman Auditorium

By Don Corridor

Information-Chief employees

In 1970, about $2,000 may purchase you a very nice used automobile or truck from York Gary. 

However as a substitute of shopping for a automobile, 17- year-old Nashville native Gene Simmons spent his cash on a metal guitar. There was just one drawback—he didn’t know easy methods to play it and didn’t know anybody who may.

“After I noticed my first metal guitar, I knew that I favored it and that was what I wished to do, I wished to study to play,” he says. “After I began, I didn’t know a single soul that performed. I set it up within the kitchen and I fully sickened out my mother and daddy. It sounded worse than a bunch of squalling cats.”

Simmons comes from a musical household; all of his uncles performed one instrument or one other, and with time and apply he realized to settle down the squalling cats and really play the metal guitar. 

He taught himself, primarily from listening to the radio, however he additionally benefitted over time by attending to know many world-class metal gamers who have been anxious to assist him out. “I performed within the band on the Scorching Springs Cowboy Church for 13 years and met a variety of Nashville gamers once they’d be within the space and are available to church.”

Music wasn’t Gene’s solely love. He attended Henderson State College on an athletic scholarship, and on graduating in 1975 he started a training profession that might final greater than 3 many years. 

“I coached in Dierks, Mineral Springs, Lockesburg, Murfreesboro and Nashville.” An assistant coach in all these excessive faculties, he specialised within the offensive line and in particular groups, in addition to being the top observe coach at every faculty and the junior excessive soccer coach in Nashville, teaching right here from 1981-1986.

“I coached 33 years, and I cherished it,” Simmons says. 

However the love for music by no means left him. All by means of the years he would coach on Friday night time, then

 play with space bands on Saturdays and through the summertime. “Weekends and summers we’d keep fairly attached.”

One of many locations he performed recurrently was the Ashdown Jamboree. It was there that he met Ward Davis, a 14-year-old from Monticello who joined the employees band. “With him being so younger, I simply type of mentored him all I may,” Simmons mentioned. “You type of look out for a 14- year-old child once they come on board like that.”

He grew to become Davis’ pal and mentor over the subsequent a number of years on the Jamboree. 

Davis would finally graduate from highschool and transfer to Nashville, Tenn., hoping to make it as a songwriter. Through the years his songs could be recorded by Cody Jinks, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Sammie Kershaw, and Randy Travis, but it surely was when he determined to be a performer that his profession actually took off.

In the meantime, 20 years had handed since Gene had heard from his younger pal. That modified when Gene’s brother instructed him that Ward Davis was looking for him on Fb. 

“I’m not a Fb individual,” Gene says, however a pal gave Davis his telephone quantity. “He known as me the subsequent day and requested if I’d come and play with him in a present he was headlining on the Ryman Auditorium.”

The Ryman, with greater than 2,300 seats, was residence to the Grand Ole Opry from 1943-1974. “On Saturday nights, my household would collect round and take heed to the Opry on WSM 650 radio from Nashville, Tenn.,” Simmons mentioned. 

On Aug. 20, Gene arrange his metal guitar on the identical stage that his Opry heroes had performed and sung on when he was a baby. “It was the fun of a lifetime,” he says. “I instructed Ward that I hoped I may maintain it collectively. It was a lifelong dream to be on that stage.”

What does the longer term maintain for Gene now that he’s achieved his Grand Ole Opry dream? “I simply plan on preserving on doing what I’m doing now, enjoying at Mountain View Baptist Church in Umpire and at reveals within the space.” His metal guitar retains him busy.

Through the years, Gene influenced a variety of younger males as a coach. He additionally influenced at the very least one younger man, a musician, who has gone on to turn out to be a headliner. 

Gene’s philosophy of life? “No matter you do, it’s important to dedicate your self to it. Dedicate your self, and be reliable.”

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