Naomi Judd | Country Music Success Stories

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I’ve been through an alphabet of tragedies and trials and I’m still here. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it at all. But I just kept going like the little engine that could. I said to myself: I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. –Naomi Judd

What does it take to become a country music success story? For Naomi Judd, it took the strength of a mother’s love and the determination of a champion to build a better life for her daughters, Wynonna and Ashley Judd. Recorded in September 2020 on Naomi’s 500 acre farm in Leiper’s Fork, Tennessee, this interview takes you through Naomi’s life, including the birth of Wynonna on her high school graduation night, a job as a receptionist for The Fifth Dimension in Los Angeles, and a mountaintop home in Kentucky where there was no heat, no phone and no TV. While she studied to be a nurse, the family lived on welfare and Naomi traded her prized buck knife to buy Wynonna her first guitar. It was on the porch of their rustic home that Naomi and Wynonna learned their first song together: The Sweetest Gift: A Mother’s Love. After receiving her nursing degree, Naomi moved the family to Nashville where she was an ICU nurse. Brent Mayer, the father of one of her patients accepted a homemade cassette tape of Naomi and Wynonna singing together. He was blown away by what he heard an arranged for a LIVE audition at RCA records. The Judds were signed to a record deal that would catapult them into country music history as the most commercially successful duo of the 1980’s with 25 singles, 14 number 1 songs, 8 CMA’s, 5 Grammy Awards, and 20 million + records sold. From Naomi’s songwriting technique to her determination to beat Hepatitis C, this interview is an essay in perseverance. Music City Mentor Jacy Dawn Valeras tops off this first episode with helpful tips on songwriting. For a deep dive into the soul of a country music icon, just hit that download button. #countrymusic #womeninmusic #nashville #musiccitymentor #countrymusicsuccessstories