You may not typically think of a Senior Center as a rowdy place to be on a Thursday night, but the Manchester and Coffee County Senior Center might just take you by surprise.

As 6 p.m. ticks closer, you hear the band start to test their instruments until the hour strikes and the first note from the lead guitar fills the Center.

Before you can even decipher what song is being played, half the room is suddenly on the dance floor, some line dancing and some paired up with a partner.

You then hear a voice coming through the microphone singing as the seniors bust the proverbial rug.

That voice belongs to John Frost who finds himself in Manchester after a long career in the music business.

“I kind of got tired of the traffic situation back in Murfreesboro,” says Frost. “I love Murfreesboro, and I love Rutherford County, but somebody made me a really good offer on the house there, I made some money on it, and I started looking for a place. My nephew sells real estate in Murfreesboro, and he said, ‘Where do you want to go?’ and I said let’s go towards Chattanooga.”

Frost started his career in music as a child when he joined his brother in The Frost Brothers Quartet in 1961. The gospel group toured across twenty states and Canada before Frost was fifteen and even made appearances on television in Chattanooga and sang on a show hosted by Grammy-winning gospel singer Jake Hess.

“The gospel thing did well for us,” explained Frost. “We had a tour bus and all the sound and the whole deal. We were able to meet a lot of different people and all the gospel artists. We knew pretty much all of them, the Stamps, the Oak Ridge Boys, all of them. That’s what got me started in the music business was the gospel thing we did with The Frost Brothers Quartet in the 60s.”

Frost eventually found himself drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War, but that didn’t stop him from playing music. He eventually found fellow infantry members who also had a talent for music.

“I said ‘Hey, let’s enter the battle of the bands for the brigade and see if we can win it,’” Frost recalled. “They said ‘You play?’ and I said ‘Oh yeah, I’ve been playing since I was eleven’. So we entered the contest, and we won it and won a trophy, and ever since we did that, they loved us. We had it made in the shade.”

After coming back to the States, Frost led a few different bands before auditioning and becoming a member of The Four Guys, a country group who used four-part harmonies much like The Frost Brothers Quartet.

As a part of The Four Guys, he became a member of the Grand Ole Opry and got to perform on the iconic stage which Frost describes as a dream.

“I’m from the big city of Eagleville, and that’s a small-town boy’s dream is to be on the Grand Ole Opry,” he explained. “Not only was I on it, I was a member for twenty-something years with the Four Guys, one of the best vocal quartet harmony groups around. They were great.”

Frost also recalls a conversation with The Four Guys owner Sam Wellington about his first performance on the Opry stage being a full circle moment bringing him back to his gospel roots.

“He said ‘Why don’t we go full circle. You came here singing gospel years and years ago. He said, ‘Why don’t we do an old gospel song ‘Turn Your Radio On’ and I said, ‘That’d be great,’ and I went out and that was my first song as a member of the Four Guys and a member of the Grand Ole Opry,” he remembered.

After leaving the group in 2000, Frost ventured out on his own. He eventually met up with an old acquaintance from the music business.

“I started going down 24 coming back this way and I saw Norris was playing music over here at Prater’s, and I hollered at him and found out he knew who I was, and I knew who he was from playing in previous venues together,” Frost recalled about catching up with Norris Haynes.

Frost and Haynes got reacquainted and then began their regular gig at the Senior Center after Haynes had an issue with a band member.

“As a matter of fact, the bass player left one night and he quit,” says Frost. “I said ‘Norris, I’ll help you out. I’ll play bass and sing some until you get somebody else,’ and I’ve been here ever since.”

The two, along with drummer Buckwheat Turner who commutes to Manchester from Huntsville, Alabama every week, formed a band they call Three’s Company and have a standing gig in Winchester in addition to their weekly spot at the Senior Center.

Frost says that he enjoys how Manchester still has the “small-town feel” and enjoys playing at the Senior Center because of the reaction of the crowd.

“They really appreciate it, the seniors do, and I am one now myself,” he says. “They enjoy it. They get out there and dance and have fun.”

So, if you’re looking for something to do on a Thursday night, stop by the Manchester and Coffee County Senior Center. The food is good, and the music is great.

It’s got that old school feel to it that only seasoned performers like John Frost and Norris Haynes and Buckwheat Turner know how to invoke.

Just don’t be too upset if you can’t keep up on the dance floor.