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Wynonna Judd to bring Christmas show to area

By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal

Published on Thursday, Dec 06, 2007

Wynonna Judd has sold more than 10 million records in her 23 years as a recording artist, both with her mother and solo.

The singer, who will perform Tuesday at Playhouse Square's State Theatre in Cleveland, has racked up 20 No. 1 hits on the country and adult contemporary charts, published a memoir, Coming Home to Myself, and hosted a season of Nashville Star on USA Network. She has won Grammys, performed at the Super Bowl, appeared on Oprah Winfrey's show twice and jammed on stage with Phish.

Her career has been full of peaks. As half of country duo the Judds (with her mother, Naomi) the Kentucky native and mother of two (Elija, 12, and Grace, 11) became huge in the mid-'80s through the early '90s with 14 chart-topping hits, including A Girls Night Out, Young Love (Strong Love) and Maybe Your Baby's Got the Blues.

Her mother retired after contracting hepatitis C, but Wynonna continued as a solo artist, beginning with her eponymous titled 1992 solo debut, which went triple platinum on the back of the singles She Is His Only Need, No One Else on Earth and I Saw the Light.

The rest of the decade was very good to her professionally; she had hits with To Be Loved by You, Is It Over Yet? and others.

Throughout her solo career, Judd has shown her diversity, stretching past the boundaries of radio-friendly country music to include her love of other genres, best shown on her 2000 album, New Day Dawning, in which she faithfully covered Joni Mitchell's Help Me and the rockin' soul song Chain Reaction.

Her personal life has also experienced plenty of valleys, including an addiction to food, strained relationships with her mother, sister and father, a 2007 divorce from her second husband, D.R. Roach, following his arrest on a charge of sexual assault of a child under 13.

Yes, Judd has been around the block a few times. She's been many places and done many things, but it wasn't until she hit the big ''Four Oh'' in 2004 that she began to figure out the trick of juggling life, family and career and enjoying her time on Earth.

''I just realized at 40, how it works,'' she said in a telephone interview shortly before the start of the current tour. ''And what makes it work is getting a real strong foundation of self and to stop trying to prove yourself to everybody.''

It was also her 40th birthday that prompted her to re-evaluate her relationship with her career and to record a holiday album, A Classic Christmas, in 2006. And it


was that same epiphany that allowed her to wait a year before going on the road with the album with her new stripped-down stage show.

''There has to be more than the bottom line or statistics and I'm more than a number on a chart,'' she said. ''I had to find a purpose in this business. I had to find a reason to stay and I decided it was people and fellowship and the music . . . period.''

''So this tour is about what happens after all these years of being on the road and just enjoying myself. And, you know, I don't need a horn section, three backup singers and a lighting rig that looks like a spaceship. I can actually walk onstage and use my gift and allow that to be enough. I don't have to have all that to be loved.''

For fans of Judd and holiday music, the album plays like a big warm cup of cocoa on a cold day. Judd isn't interested in reinventing The Christmas Song wheel. Instead, she takes listeners on a relaxed, low-key jazz and string-inflected ride through a catalog of familiar tunes with nary a twang to be found in her relaxed honeyed vocals or the reverent arrangements.

The 11 tracks include a ballad tempo The Christmas Song that highlights her jazz phrasing, a bouncy Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, with the seldom sung opening verse, and a lovely Ave Maria sung in Latin.

The show will also feature many of Judd's past hits, and she will share stories about Christmas with the Judds ('''Cause we're just funny,'' she said).

Judd said that as she gets older, sharing her personal ups and downs with fans has become an important part of her own healing process. She points to her two appearances on Oprah — the first about her food addiction and the second highlighting her rebuilding relationships with family members — as examples of how opening up and reaching out to others can help people center themselves.

''When I went on Oprah, I got 700,000 e-mails because I talked about the stuff that was real, and I thought, 'This is interesting. I can go on Oprah and talk about food and I don't get any e-mails, but I can go on there and I talk about my relationship with my mom and Ashley and that we're in the healing process and I get all kinds of mail.'

 

''What does that tell you? That a lot of people out there are really searching, so I think I just became sort of a sister-mommy to a lot of people out there.''

Judd has started working on her next album, which she said will again feature her eclectic taste, or what she calls her ''musical ADD.''

She's done recording sessions with blues guitarist Keb Mo', another with a full orchestra and a cover of I Hear You Knockin' ''that sounds like the Rolling Stones,'' she said.

With Judd in a happier place in her life and career, surely getting No. 1 hits isn't as intoxicating a prospect as it was in her pre-40 days, when she admits to reading reviews of her concerts and actually changing her show in the hope of getting a better review.

''Yeah, I could tell you it's not and be a liar, but what I'm starting to do is accept the fact that my life can't be wrapped up in success and No. 1 status and parties.

''And No. 1s are great and parties are great, because it encourages the people around you,'' she said. ''But I cannot be worried about that.

''Do I wish, hope and pray? Absolutely. I mean who doesn't love to be fabulous?''

As for her own favorite holiday song?

''The ones my kids sing in the back of the car, because they do exactly what we did when we were young, they make up words. They make me laugh so hard,'' she said. ''Sometimes you hear the songs in the mall and you think, I'll never be that happy for long or it could never be this perfect, and I tend to get a little crazy around this time of year so . . . humor, honey humor.

''So when Grace and Elija are singing 'jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg,' those are my favorite moments.''

 

Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.

 

Wynonna Judd has sold more than 10 million records in her 23 years as a recording artist, both with her mother and solo.

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