For a country music fan, there’s nothing sweeter than going to the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville for a country music concert.

Oh, wait. Yes, there is.

Being a country music fan and walking around backstage at the Ryman is pretty special.

And the only thing sweeter than that is stepping on stage at the Ryman, The Mother Church of Country Music, and being the MC for a show there! And being the MC at the Ryman for a show by your friends, The Walters Family. And having Doug Johnson added to the band to play steel guitar!

It happened for me 11 years ago today!

To hear your voice echo off the walls is an incredible experience, more so when you realize legends like Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and so many others had that same experience. The place just drips country music history, from the Minnie Pearl dressing room to the pictures of George Jones and Hank hanging in the hallway leading to the stage (I hope they’re still there).

The moment was not lost on me. I apologized to the audience and explained I just had to take a moment to take a picture of my feet on the Ryman stage. The cool thing was someone in the audience got a picture of me taking that picture!

The acoustics at the Ryman are amazing. An usher there told me Tony Bennett sang there a few weeks earlier and did his encore without a microphone!

My thanks to the Ryman staff and crew for that special moment 11 years ago. And extra special thanks to the Walters Family for asking me to introduce them on that historic stage. It was a professional and personal career highlight.