Late-night legacy lives on

Sep. 27—Jerry Rucker was known for waking astronauts up in the morning.

Over the years, his son, Joe, has kept people up at night.

"My dad was a musician and had played all around Florida and in parts of Texas, and everybody in our house was musically-inclined in one shape or fashion," Joe Rucker said. "Dad worked for the Kennedy Space Center. He worked on the space shuttle from the time from the time that it started until he retired in 2009. In 1980, when the first space shuttle mission went up, he wrote a song called 'Blast Off Columbia.' They actually played that to wake up astronauts John Young and Robert Griffin in 1980."

His father's success motivated Rucker to pursue music. Rucker moved to the Nashville area in 1998, and a week later, country artist Jack Green asked him if he'd like to perform on the Midnite Jamboree.

"Here I was, a young, 20-something-year-old guy that had just gotten to town, and I'm already getting asked to be on Midnite Jamboree," Rucker said. "That was my first encounter with Ernest Tubb and the Midnite Jamboree, and I've kind of been playing it ever since."

While Rucker has periodically performed at the Midnite Jamboree since 1998, the Shop Springs resident hosted it for the second time on Saturday night.

"Ernest Tubb started many many years ago, and he really did it to (make) a place for artists to be heard that that may be one weren't quite at the level of being on the Opry (stage) yet," Rucker said. "It kind of grew from there."

Started by Tubb — a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame — in 1947, the Midnite Jamboree has been broadcasting across the radio at midnight on Sunday mornings for 76 years. Over that time, the show has played a role in country music history.

"I have a lot of respect for the show," Rucker said. "Whenever I take the stage, I've got in my head all the folks that have appeared on there, and it makes me want to show my respect more for it and get the word out about it. This is a piece of country music history, but it's also a piece of Nashville history that I think over the years people have slowly forgotten about."

When someone hosts the Midnite Jamboree, they're responsible for hiring the musicians for the week. The host also performs during the show.

"The biggest change that I've seen (since 1998) is that in that time we have lost so many of the legends that I've performed with," Rucker said. "I think of my mentor, Jack Greene, who passed away in 2013, and other artists like Hank Locklin, who was also a big mentor of mine. He helped me out. He's probably the reason why I moved to Nashville. I've performed with him on on the show, and he's gone now. With the passing of time you lose folks, but then you also see newer artists kind of pick up where they left off."

Rucker felt that the show went well on Saturday night, and he was excited about the response that he and his guests received.

"Because the show's been around for so long, a lot of the fans that come are long-time fans," Rucker said. "People are there to listen. I appreciate that. I appreciate all the different types of venues that we play. Some venues are all about getting the folks up and dancing. Other venues that you play around Nashville, you're almost more like background music. (With) this kind of venue — because of the history behind it — people come to listen, and they're a very attentive audience. They're there because they want to hear traditional country music, and it was a very great and responsive crowd. They know what they like to hear, and they cheer and clap and holler when they hear it."