A passport to Grand Ole Opry country

Even with the enormous success in recent years of such artists as Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney and the Dixie Chicks, country music remains a relatively unknown quantity to millions of pop and rock fans.

That’s a shame, because country music has provided us with some of the most compelling singers and songwriters of our time.

The music was one of the building blocks of rock ‘n’ roll, and its emphasis on evocative storytelling has influenced many of our most valuable songwriters, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Lucinda Williams and Jack White.

Numerous CD collections offer overviews of country music, but there is something extra to be gained from seeing the artists as well as hearing them. The clothing and hairstyles, for instance, underscore the various strains and eras of country music.

That’s why “Opry Video Classics,” a DVD collection from Time Life, is such a valuable package. The eight-disc set’s 120 performances -- most of them never before available commercially -- include some numbers that have transcended country music and are ingrained in the broader pop culture. Among them: Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man,” Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” and the Sons of the Pioneers’ “Tumbling Tumbleweeds.”

But the heart of “Opry Video Classics” is devoted to performers, including Don Gibson, Ray Price and Hank Snow, who aren’t well known beyond country’s boundaries.

The set isn’t perfect. Some of the performances were shot in a TV studio rather than during the actual Opry shows at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and many of the artists aren’t shown during their prime years.

Still, “Opry Video Classics” is a marvelous look at one of America’s richest musical genres.

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Various Artists

“Opry Video Classics”

Time Life

The back story: The Grand Ole Opry was for decades the most important showcase in the nation for country music. It began as a radio show in the 1920s and expanded to television in the mid-1950s, but most of the performances in this set are from the 1960s and 1970s. The discs are divided by themes, such as “Honky-Tonk Heroes” (including Waylon Jennings, Ernest Tubb, Webb Pierce) and “Legends” (Cash, George Jones, Loretta Lynn).

One of the highlights is seeing Willie Nelson in his cleanshaven, pre-outlaw days, standing on stage in a suit and a tie as he sings some of the hit songs, including “Crazy” and “Mr. Record Man,” that he wrote for other artists.

We also get to see vintage footage of Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton singing together before she achieved pop stardom on her own, and we watch George Jones with two of his duet partners, Melba Montgomery and Wynette.

Another treat is seeing three numbers by Gibson, one of country music’s most underrated figures. Though he wrote such gems as “I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You” and “Oh Lonesome Me,” Gibson suffered much of his career from stage fright, which limited his popularity in a field in which constant touring was important in building audience loyalty.

You can see the nervousness in his eyes while he’s singing “Lovin’ You,” though he still manages to sneak in a few vocal touches as soulful, in his way, as what Ray Charles did in his more celebrated version of the song.

For a pop audience only familiar with Wynette through “Stand By Your Man,” it’s revealing to watch her sing two other songs that have almost as much evocative flair: “I Don’t Wanna Play House” and “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad.”

Not every artist in “Opry Video Classics” comes close to the stature of Jones, Gibson and Wynette, but almost every song in the set is noteworthy in some way -- which tells us something instructive about the art of country music.

The music: The best of the country songwriters are masters of storytelling, able to address such issues as heartbreak with an eloquence of the Hank Williams tradition or with wry wordplay that helps soften the pain without in any way denying the ache.

Gibson’s “I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You” is an excellent example of country’s eloquence. The song’s key lines: “I can’t stop loving you/So I’ve made up my mind/To live in memory/Of old lonesome times/I can’t stop wanting you/It’s useless to say/So I’ll just live my life/In dreams of yesterday.”

One of the best examples of country wordplay is Dickey Lee’s “She Thinks I Still Care,” which is one of George Jones’ signature hits: “Just because I asked a friend about her/Just because I spoke her name somewhere/Just because I rang her number by mistake today/ She thinks I still care.”

Though country music has been blessed with lots of extraordinary singers, “Opry Video Classics” reminds us that the song, ultimately, is king.

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Backtracking, a biweekly feature, focuses on CD reissues and other pop culture items of historical interest.