How The Great Divide Came Apart, Pulled Together, and Made Their Opry Debut With Wyatt Flores

Editor's Note: This feature originally appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of No Depression. We're sharing it now in honor of Wyatt Flores' new album, Scared of Heights, which came out July 31 via Island Records/MCA. Read on to learn more about their intertwining tales and listen to Flores' new music below.

On a sweltering July afternoon in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mike McClure tried to cool down the tour bus with a serenade.

“He’s standin’ on a piece of the Ryman, look at him now!” McClure sang, over and over, in the front lounge, in front of his bandmates in the Red Dirt country rock band The Great Divide. Each time he did, someone would answer the call with a “Yeah, he is!” response.

McClure was quoting the 1992 Gary P. Nunn song “Standing on a Piece of the Ryman,” which references the circle in the middle of the Grand Ole Opry stage that was cut from the original stage at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. The night before, McClure had stood in that hallowed circle for the first time, flanked by the rest of The Great Divide. After three decades as a band, and with the help of major label country star-in-the-making Wyatt Flores, they had finally played the Opry.

In Little Rock, as their crew loaded in for a show at The Rev Room, the five-piece Divide basked in the memories of their Opry debut the night before.

“I had no idea what to expect,” McClure says. “I just hadn’t really thought about it. But, once you step in there, and once you see that circle and the pictures on the wall — and you see what a well-preserved history of country music it is, you feel it. I really felt it. The way it’s laid out, with the balcony up high above you, once you’re on stage, it’s surreal.”

Building Buzz

The Great Divide formed in Stillwater, Oklahoma, in 1992, featuring McClure as the gravelly voiced frontman and lead guitarist, Scotte Lester on rhythm guitar and vocals, JJ Lester behind the kit, and Kelley Green on bass. McClure grew up on the outskirts of Tecumseh, a small town southeast of Oklahoma City. The Lester brothers were raised in rural Payne County, Oklahoma, outside of Stillwater. Green was a rodeo cowboy from Northwest Arkansas.