The Grand Old Opry, known to some as the “home of American music,” grew out of a Nashville radio show called the “WSM Barn Dance” (launched in 1925) and has hosted every honky-tonk great, from the Carter Family to Hank Williams to Jerry Lee Lewis to Johnny Cash. To ring in the New Year, the legendary institution welcomes the legendary country-folk performer John Prine, beloved for his sweet if somewhat saucy nature and his simple and incisive songs that might make you laugh and cry at once. As Bob Dylan put it, “Nobody but Prine could write like that.” —C.J.F