It’s been 23 years since Wynonna Judd stepped into the spotlight for her first professional gig in Omaha, Nebraska. Twenty-three years since the big-voiced red head won her first Grammy award, and 23 years since she scored her first #1 hit with “Mama He’s Crazy” alongside her mother, Naomi, as a member of the duo The Judds.
Twenty-three years is a long time in the music industry, a long time in any industry for that matter, but life in the headlines offers different challenges and trials. Like dog years, each year is the equivalent of two or three in anonymity. At 43 years old, Judd has already had a lifetime-worth of well-publicized success partnered with a lifetime-worth of equally well-publicized problems.
Now, Judd is on the move, hitting the road for her nationwide “A Classic Christmas” tour, which will bring her to the Naples Philharmonic on November 27th.
“I’m better and not bitter for my journey because I know it had a purpose,” Judd says.
Judd is with her children when she picks up the phone for a quick 15 minutes with the Daily News on a recent afternoon.
“I think they forget that I have a life and a career,” she says with a chuckle, quieting them in the background.
Even speaking over the phone Judd’s vibrant singing voice is fully evident. She talks slowly with measured, thoughtful words, her dramatic intonation evidence of many hours on stage.
As she discusses her career, her fans and her upcoming tour, Judd projects an effortless star quality and an everyday gal attitude. She calls me “honey”, she scolds and she laughs with a deep, throaty purr that approaches a growl. Much of what Judd says sounds like a concert monologue – tough yet friendly words to connect with an audience in the darkened seats.
“People see themselves in me,” she says. “I get a lot of mail from women and men who feel unloved, who are misfits, who don’t know what to do next. And they hear me talking and they say, ‘Oh my gosh, I can identify with her.’”
This winter as part of her “A Classic Christmas” tour, Judd is connecting with fans in a different way, inviting them to write to her and share their favorite Christmas memories for a chance to win a pair of tickets to a local show, back stage passes and have their story read on stage by Judd herself.
“People writing allows me to meet them, to find out who they are…That to me is fellowship; that’s not just a gig,” she says.
Judd’s own favorite Christmas memory is an old one. It takes her way back before the mega tours, the #1 hits and the constant headlines…
“We were living in Kentucky on a mountain top with no TV and no telephone. I was about ten, and we had no money to buy Christmas presents,” Judd remembers. “I remember the ten year old prayer of ‘if there really is a Santa, if there really is a God…and if miracles really do come true…Let it snow.’ And it did on Christmas morning.”
Her voice wavers between wistful and amused.
“When you’re that age everything’s a big, big deal,” she adds, then pauses to reconsider. “Well, at 43 it’s still a big deal.”
At 43, Judd has rounded a corner in her life. After years of media scrutiny surrounding tense family relationships and battles with her weight, Judd entered the Shades of Hope clinic in Buffalo Gap, Texas in October 2006 to receive treatment for food addiction.
“I’m so grateful for the news flashes,” she says sarcastically. Then adds matter of factly, “It’s real life.
I ask her if these struggles have affected her music, but she doesn’t want to talk about the drama in her personal life.
“How old are you?” she asks.
Now, Judd says, she’s back on track, focused on her music and recording a new album to be released in 2008.
From a performance at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to engagements all over the country, Judd will be celebrating this winter, singing a combination of Christmas classics and the hits that have made her famous and kept her on the charts for more than two decades. But Judd says her tour is about more than just belting out the tunes.
“You just get to a point where this business has to be more than just the show, the ticket prices and all that,” she explains. “There has to be a reason for me to be a singer much more so than whether we get paid or not.”
For Judd that reason has become her fans. After one appearance on Oprah, Judd received 700,000 emails. During live shows she is known for engaging her audience in a banter that makes the theatre seem like her back porch, as the Seattle Times reported in October. Judd sees herself as more than an entertainer. Under the spotlight she becomes a best friend, a mentor and a comedian.
“My job in those hour and 45 minutes is to encourage people to not road rage or go off on their kids or file for divorce…to show them what’s going on in my life as an example of real life and let them make their own decisions.”
“I love to be intimate with my fans,” she says. “I love to know that I can hear that person in the fourth row say, ‘Mama, you look hot!”
In some ways, even after 23 long years Judd is at the best place she’s been throughout her entire career, though she’s quick to say that she’s still the same girl from that Kentucky mountaintop.
“I can sing rock and roll or I can sing blues or country, and I am still the same girl that sat on my back porch and played my guitar and sang at the top of my lungs.”
Want to see Wynonna live in Naples? Naples Philharmonic, 5833 Pelican Bay Boulevard, Naples. Tuesday, November 27th, 8 p.m. $76.
- |
Comments » 0
Be the first to post a comment!
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.