A Satisfied Mind

Porter Wagoner’s dazzlingly rhinestone-bedecked Nudie suits weighed an average of 35 pounds each. This is not an insignificant burden for an elderly man—or for a young man, for that matter.

Those suits represented a commitment to entertainment, to showmanship, to tradition—and most importantly, to giving the people what they wanted. Visitors to the Grand Ole Opry wanted to see the tall, pompadoured “Thin Man From West Plains” stride out onstage wearing more bling than Don “Magic” Juan. They wanted Wagoner, who celebrated his 50th anniversary as an Opry member in May, to open one side of his jacket and flash the ginormous “HI” embroidered inside long enough for them to take a picture. Most of all, they wanted to hear him sing one of the many expertly crafted, often adventurous songs he recorded during a half-century career that survived monumental changes in the music business and the culture at large.

Porter Wagoner, fortified with an indefatigable work ethic forged as a poor farm boy growing up in the Great Depression, never stopped giving them what they wanted. Sometimes he even gave them things they didn’t yet know they wanted: experiments in soul, disco and psychedelia; a new singer named Dolly Parton, who met with initial public resistance when he introduced her on his television show in 1967; James Brown, whom Wagoner invited to funkify the Opry; and a stripped-down comeback album, Wagonmaster, released on the punk label Anti- in June and produced by Marty Stuart.

He satisfied his public for so long, with such consistency and commitment, that it seemed as if he would never stop—as if he could never stop. Even after he was hospitalized on Oct. 15, it seemed impossible that he would not again set foot on the Opry stage. Parton, with whom he famously feuded and reconciled, visited Wagoner on Oct. 19 and confidently declared that she would sing with her onetime mentor on the Grand Ole Opry stage again.

That won’t happen. Porter Wagoner, 80, died at Alive Hospice on the evening of Oct. 28. To call the timing—at 8:25 p.m., just as Vince Gill, Mel Tillis and Ralph Emery were being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame a mile and a half away—a final act of scene-stealing flair would be a bit much. It was, at least, a coincidence worth noting—the stuff of country songs.

Wagoner himself had been inducted into the Hall of Fame five years ago, an honor that many saw at the time as long overdue. After all, the South Fork, Mo., native had made his radio debut in 1951; had recorded since 1952 and enjoyed country radio hits for decades, included “A Satisfied Mind,” “Company’s Comin,’” “Skid Row Joe” and “The Carroll County Accident”; had hosted a syndicated TV program, The Porter Wagoner Show, for 21 years; had won Grammys and Country Music Association Awards; had acted as the Opry’s de facto patriarch since Roy Acuff’s death 15 years ago.

“I really hate to see people like Bill Monroe, and, well, like myself—the artists that’s been around the business so long—move on,” Wagoner told Contemporary Musicians magazine shortly after Monroe—whom Wagoner had idolized as a boy—passed away in 1996. “You always hate to give up those things, but that’s a part of reality. And I hope that the people that follow in Bill Monroe’s footsteps and in my footsteps … will not stray so far away that it just becomes music, just becomes sound with no history or no heart.”

Funeral services will be held at the Grand Ole Opry House on Thursday, Nov. 1, at 11 a.m.