NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Alan Stoker is a vital name when it comes to the history of music. You haven't seen him up performing on a stage, but there is a good chance you've watched him at work. As he gets ready to retire, we wanted to tell his story.
You might have seen this. In the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, there's this big window with a guy working inside. People stop and watch him and wonder what he's doing.
"I don't mind being an exhibit which is what I am," Alan smiled. "I've been here for 51 years, and this is the audio restoration lab. We are actively preserving obsolete audio material every day."
"There are people staring at us even right now," I laughed, looking at the people outside the window.
"Yes! Hello!" Alan said, waving to them.
Alan is an audio curator. A lot of what he does ends up on the museum's website.
"I digitized Elvis Presley's first recording for Jack White," Alan said. "I digitized the first recordings of Johnny Cash; an audio letter he sent to Vivian when he was in Germany in the Air Force. I digitized the first recordings of Jerry Lee Lewis, the first recordings of Roy Orbison when he was in high school."
Alan has a Grammy for the work he did on the Night Train to Nashville album, a collection of recordings by r&b artists with local roots. I happened to catch him on a day he was working on something pretty great again.
"This recording is the Grand Ole Opry troop in Berlin, Germany," he said as we listened to the recording in the background. "1949. The Opry took the cast on a tour of air bases in Germany."
We heard the recording stop.
"That's the problem you get with some of these tapes!" Alan laughed, running to attend to it. "The splices break, so you just have to fix them!"
The passion for music is truly in Alan's blood.
"My father was Gordon Stoker of The Jordanaires," he said.
The legendary quartet often performed live with Elvis and have many recordings with Patsy Cline.
"You're just replacing the splicing tape and using the original splice," Alan said, carefully handling the recording. "So, here I am in 2025, fixing something an engineer did in 1949."
"I took this as a summer job through my sophomore year of college and 51-years later, I'm still here," he continued.
He's here for a few more days. This is Alan's last week at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
"So, why retire?" I asked him.
"Well, because it's time," he said. "I'm ready to retire. Everything changes. It has to change. I know that. I'm ready. I feel good about it."
There's something interesting about the clarity of these old recordings. For Alan, that's been such a joy sharing a passion for music with people, providing them with this link to the past.
"I thought the work that my dad did in his career will live long after he's passed," Alan said. "I'm thinking maybe the work I've done preservation-wise will long outlive me. I've been very fortunate I've been able to stay all this time."
By the way, Alan's not gone for good. He told us he'll still pop in and volunteer now and then.
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
My friend and colleague Carrie Sharp had a lot of fun last week, on an adventure to a country more than three thousand miles away! She’s back now – sharing her Adventures in Iceland through stories, and incredible images of this remarkably beautiful and unique island nation (kudos to Chief Photographer Catherine Steward)! But did you know Nashville has something very important in common with Iceland? Tourism! Here, Carrie explains how a volcanic eruption decades ago helped save the country’s economy from collapse!
-Rhori Johnston
