Ray Wylie Hubbard with fan Silvy Starks at the Ridglea Theater in September. Photo via Facebook

Ray Wylie Hubbard gave Oak Cliff so much love during the backstage interview, released Tuesday, from his Grand Ole Opry debut.

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Wylie performed on the Opry stage for the first time in July at age 72. He cites his Adamson High School classmate Michael Martin Murphey as his first influence. Murphey, who was a year ahead of Hubbard, performed a song he wrote himself during a school assembly.

“We didn’t have that great of a football team, but we had some really great assemblies. It was a good time,” Hubbard told the Advocate in 2012. “I have incredibly fond memories of growing up in Oak Cliff.”

Hubbard was also buddies with Oak Cliff native B.W. Stevenson, the singer/songwriter who graduated from Adamson after Hubbard.