Wynonna Judd

name back when I was twelve or thirteen. Okay, how did you encounter Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel at aged twelve or thirteen? Interesting story. I ended up in Austin, Texas with my mother and she was dating one of the band members, and we would go every night and sit and watch Asleep at the Wheel and the fabulous Thunderbirds. And I grew to love Ray Um as an elder, and he just took me under his wing, and he loved me, and he had no idea I

sang by the way. I was very shy, and I think he was just such a loving person that he took me under his wing. And he and my mom both decided that I wanted to change my name anyway because Christina was just a little too boring. Okay, you know there are a lot of famous musicians like Elton John although we legally changed his name Roles Cooper, and their regular life they go with their given name, in his case Red or Vince. Do your friends call you why no? No? Or do they call you Christina? They

call me why um? Christina? Uh is long past. That was my go to school years high school. I think I ended in tenth grade Christina and became Winona and officially when I got my first check, Bob, I um changed it legally to Winona. And when I got my first check for twenty dollars singing here in Nashville, and so I decided, okay, it's time here we go. Okay, if we looked at your passport, what is the last name, uh Judd? At this point, you know what, that's an

interesting question. I'm gonna have to go back. Is my passport Christina Claire Simonela? No, it's why Nona Ellen Judd because I changed it legally. That's right. I am a Gemini. So I have two names for two people. Here. Are you into astrology? I mean I I believe God created everything. So hey, I'm I can go where you lead me. I can go where you leave me. I'm not quite sure where I'm going, but you're going when you better. You're going to Mexico to the Girls Just Wanna Concert.

How did you get involved in that? That's a great question. While I have a huge following and people just love music, and Brandy Carlyle and I are joined forever. She's very, very dear to me. When Mom died, I went on tour and Brandy became my right hand and uh literally my left lung. She became so immersed in the tour, knew every song, knew every breath, knew everything, and I just we got really close and I just love her, and she invited me because she knows I'm really fun.

And I've pretty much done it all at this point, Bob, at least at least twice. You know, I've done cruises, I've done Hell's Angels, rallies, I've done the presidential six times, president singing to and this is going to look good on the resume because I'm going down to Mexico and sing my Alma. She's crazy instead of Mama. He's crazy. So here we go. Okay, so there a couple of questions. How did you literally meet Brandy Carlisle. Oh, I met her.

Let's see, when was the first time. I'm trying to think, huh, Brandy, When I met Brandy? What year? I think it was two years ago. I met Brandy and all of a sudden, I don't know how to explain it other than two spirits collide and she's the closest thing to a sister I've ever had. Okay, occasionally you talk to another person. This is audio only, just for the people playing the home game. Who are you talking to? I'm talking to my right hand Lindsay. Because I don't do well with dates.

I could tell you what you were wearing, and I could tell you what we were doing, eating and playing what game. But I have a hard time remembering because of my history or my my history. I have so much that happened so fast, and so my brain has a hard time remembering specific scheduled dates. So let's stay with Randy for a second. How did you literally get connected with her? Well? Through music and I she came to Nashville. Um, I met her with Tanya Tucker as well,

and we just became fast friends. And when Mom died, she literally stopped what she was doing and flew in to sing at the memorial, and um, you always remember who your people are there at moments like that, your wedding or a funeral. Um. And Brandy became literally the person that I sat in the um dressing room and just wept openly because she and I trust her. I

trust her with my life really professionally and personally. She's been to the farm, We've been on a side by side together talking about Joni Mitchell and just loving music and UM, I want I'm working on a song with her right now. You say you're fun. Can you expand that? Well? I think I have a little bit of a reputation for being really serious, and I think it comes from

being stuck on a bus with my mom for ten years. Um, and I I will say I lost a little bit of my joy because everything was really strict and specific. And I was raised She's a tough sum bitch and I was raised with her, you know, being the boss lady. And when I became solo, I went out and got a tattoo and Bota Harley if that tells you anything. And since then I've been trying to get away with as much as I can legally, and I just really try, I try really hard to not take all this so

stinking seriously because it gets really old, really fast. Okay, so by time this year's because the event and the plia is literally just a couple of days away. Are you going to be the type person who's hanging in your hotel room? Are you gonna be available? You're gonna be drinking, You're gonna be smoking, and what's why? No, They're gonna be like down in Mexico. You tell me, I'm so ready to I bought a wig for eighties night.

I think I'm gonna wear Spandex because you know it's coming back, and I'm gonna they want me to do stuff like show up and do bingo and shoot, I'm available.

Let's put it that way. Brand If Brandy were to call me up and say we're doing um, you know, a congo line, I would run down and do it because I'm I think it's really important in this day and age to connect with people and more intimately, especially because I think the business is so wacky that I'm looking to literally meet the girl who says I have no idea who you are. She's probably twenty something thirty something, and she has no idea. And the only reason she

knows me is because of Brandy. That's the person I'm seeking out. So if she calls me and says, hey, come to the bar, bring it okay. So where do you live right now? I don't want the address, but you know, generally you can go on YouTube and find it. Um. So I live on a farm. I bought land in ninet for dollars an acre, and I live on a five acre farm that's next to my mom's farm, and we have a compound. Ashley lives on the land. I gave her a house and she lives on the property,

and my mom's right next door her house. I talk about her still like she's here, which is interesting. Um. And then I live on the other side. It's sort of like a v if you were to make a triangle. That's the strongest force in the universe. And we live in a triangle and we have a lake that separates us. And how far is this from so called civilization? Let's see here. I think the smallest town is about three or four miles away, and it's tiny. No stoplight, people

walk right, horses, and it's just it's like genteel. It's just a really cool little town. It's like what Aspen probably doably was when it first started. And then you go into town, probably ten miles into Franklin, and that's our big city. And for those who were not tennessee, uh, connoisseurs, Franklin is how far from Nashville. Let's see, I would say Franklin is about forty five minutes to an hour

from downtown Nashville and then music Row. I would say I could make it there in about forty two minutes. Sure not it's forty three. But okay. You talk about having a very strict mother, one would think you wouldn't live on the same piece of property. Well, there's a fence. There's a really good fence. Um. You know, that's an interesting thing because the more I see the story from where I'm at right now, now that she's gone, as much as I did to get away from the strict um,

she was really all I had. You know, some people would say, you know, Stockholm syndrome, you're gonna go crazy there for a minute. And then some people would say, well, they just didn't know any better. I think I think it was the way it was in my life. She was so centerpiece. In other words, I worked for her. Um. Everything was about yes ma'am and no ma'am. Okay, you're

on the farm. How social are you, whether seeing people in person, staying in contact with eye, message or however you might or you more of a home body doing your own thing. I'm an I'm an omnivert, which is both omnivert. Uh. It depends on the day. It depends on whether or not I have on makeup. I'm a loner. I walk in the wilderness. I have eleven dogs and close to forty animals, and so I have my farm life.

We grow a garden. We are home bodies. Yet I'm very, very used to going into town and how having a burger at the local diner there and people know me first name. You know, how's it going? When? When does your tour start? Would you like a hot dog or a hamburger? And here's a coke? And it's just small town. It's awesome because people don't really care because a lot of us live out there. Just so you know, Bob, we live in It's sort of an area where next

to me, is Carrie Underwood down the streets Riba. There's a bunch of people out there that have decided they want to live out on the land and not be you know, downtown Nashville. And you see you have a farm. We talk about a garden. Uh. You know, are you a gentle person farmer? Do you have horses? You go out on your a t V? Or you just have enough land so you don't have to be right up next to the HOI POI I'm in it to win it. I'm I'm in the mud. Um. The garden is my life.

When it's planted. I completely cook. I put in a pro kitchen. I cooked for forty over Thanksgiving, and um, yeah, you can come to my house and I'll cook for you. I'm known as why Hop. I make a mean breakfast a brunch. If you will be uh at the table that seats twelve, and we will sit there and we will talk about life um on the farm. And then I'll turn around and put on my sparkles and my undergarments and go out. And I'm, you know, the queen of the night. Uh. It's an interesting life. I love

the farm. I love to get dirty. I lived two lives. In other words, who are the forty people who came for Thanksgiving? People that I really like. I decided to go with people that I really like this time. It was really, really fair and wonderful. These people were as close to normal as I've ever had in my life. Normal is just in our family, a cycle on the washing machine. So I ordered, um, let's see a eat tenderloins, and I suvied, and I cooked everything from scratch, including

the cornbread for the dressing. And I invited my son and his wife. My son has been with his girlfriend since they were fifteen years old. Elijah is my assault of the earth, and um, he's been married now for a couple of years. And I invited his whole family, her whole family. So that was like fifteen right there. So I I literally ordered enough food for the people that are the closest to me. We're hillbillies, I'll be honest with you. We don't do fancy. We do paper plates,

and um, we just hang out, you know. We do a bonfire and we sit around and some drink whiskey and some drink you know, kool aid, and the kids come and the dogs bark, and we're we're dysfunctional, okay, and it works. Would you cook suvied the tenderloin? It was to another method. That's a really good question. I think I did it because I wanted to try something fancy. I wanted to be like, you know, the chef of the of the deal. And Thanksgiving for me this year

was really painful. Um My mama has a cookbook, and I went and got some of the recipes from the cookbook, and my grandmother and my nana she cooked for about forty people on a riverboat every night. So we're known for our Southern cooking. And I just wanted it to be a little fancier. And I didn't want to do it Turkey necessarily because we had it on an alternative day.

I'm the alternative parent, just so you know, I'm the one that says, Okay, Christmas is gonna come on the twenty one this year, because everybody's got divorced parents, you know how it is. Families are um split in a lot of ways, and Thanksgiving as stressful. So I did it on a day where people just wanted to come over and hang out, and it was beautiful because it was an alternative to the stress and the pressure of commercialization. So how did you learn how to cook suvied which

is cook in water for those who don't know. It's French. Yeah, I learned it from I had a chef for ten years and she taught me an awful lot about different things, and I just thought, you know, it's something that I want to do because you can put it in the bath, the hot bath, the water bath, and you can leave it for four hours in the tech and the tenderloin stays at the same temperature for all that time, and then you take it out. It's a reverse seer, and you take it out and you see her the crap

out of it on your cast iron skillet. I don't do much without a cast iron skillet, by the way. And then you just are like, wow, this is exciting. I can taste it right now. I love good tenderloind You know you've gone on in your history about your relationship with food and body image. Where are you at on that now? Well, I'll be fifty nine in May. Where am I with body image? That's a really good question. I don't know how to answer that. I will tell

you I work really hard at acceptance. There's so much I would change change, And without going into too much detail, I will tell you this, I don't weigh and I don't worry as much as I used to. I used to worry so much about it. I used to fret and just stay on myself, and I just don't do that anymore. I have a husband who loves me, who's been in my life since I was twenty six, and um, I think I'm okay today, Ask me tomorrow. It may

be different. Okay. And in terms of health and exercise, you're just doing what feels good or do you have a regiment or a trainer? Yes, it depends on the tour, depends on I'm getting ready to go on tour and do three back to back shows a week, twenty six songs a night, so I've got to, you know, increase my cardio. I kind of do it as I need to. Um. As you know, as you grow older, you lose muscle. So I'm having to work with a trainer on the waits part because I'm not really that savvy when it

comes to working out in a gym. So I do have a trainer and I have somebody who helps me with that. And then I walk out on the farm, I do what's called meditative walking. You know, when you walk out in the wilderness, you whether you cry or cuss or pray, it's a time to just be in the woods. And that's my favorite. That's actually my favorite because I don't realize that I'm exercising. I walk because it just feels good and I'm going somewhere where I

love the farm. And is the ground relatively flat or hilly? It's both. It depends on where you go on the farm. Um, when you get to the lake, it goes up the hill and it's an amazing piece of land. I can honestly say that it's in the heart of one of the most beautiful pieces of land in Tennessee, and so many people want to live there. It's again like very much like Aspen. It started out. It's a small town that turned into an incredible, incredibly popular and everybody wants

to be there. You know, the busses are coming with the or addresses of all. Yeah, the tourists are coming, the buses are coming, and people are wanting to come out there and be a part of our society because it's just so different. The sun goes down, then what do you do. Gosh, it depends. Um, I'm making supper tonight. I make supper pretty much every night. I cook for

my husband. I have a thing about that, and I think being married to your manager husband, drummer, band member, we're together all the time, and I try to pick things to do for him during the daytime that don't involve business. So we turn off our phones, we sit down, we have dinner. We've been watching you know, Yellowstone and all the shows that are on Netflix. I don't watch a lot of TV unless it's something, and of course I always say it I tape it because I come

from cassettes. But we record stuff and we watch it. Um, if it's nice outside, we go sit outside and we do a lot of fire. I'm a fire maniac. I love fire. Can't have enough fire places. I do would fires as many times as I can per week. So it's it's outside. We live outside as much as we can. And where does the wood come from the farm? Do you cut it yourself? And your husband cuts it yourself. We have a farm manager that cuts it and we

do log on the farm. That's what kept me going during the pandemic was logging, and we cut down very few trees, and because we've had tornadoes. We live where the tornadoes hit us, and so we had three thousand trees that we took down out of the farm that we're blown down by the tornadoes. We're a hearty bunch and we get it done okay. And when you're off, when you're not on the road and forgetting, as you

put it, the pandemic. Do you travel for sport, whether it be in America, Europe, whatever, or if you're not working your home. Absolutely again, I'm a loner. I like to be on myself. Um. I love to be with the animals. We have miniature donkeys and pigs and chickens, and I love to cook and be around people that I love. My son and his wife are still living with us until next week when they close on their house, their very first house, and I like to be at home.

I've designed the house to where I don't have to leave if I don't want to. We have the studio there on the property, so Robert Ware came out to the farm and walked into the studio right there right behind our house. I have a golf cart and I go back and forth and we live on the farm. We live and work on the farm. I had to come into town today because our WIFEI is out, so we still live in the country where we have to deal with the realities. Okay, if you're a loner, how

does that work in relationships? Mm hmm, that's a really great question. I have what I call the dream team of people around me, and I'm not really very social. I don't go out to parties and I don't really go to events anymore. I used to back when I was in my twenties. And you know, I think it's because I'm working on a record right now. I'll talk seasonally. We're working on a record right now, we're working on the tour. I'm working on writing a book and doing

a cookbook, and I'm always working on projects. Like you you know, we're always working. We're always doing something. So I like to spend time doing that, and then when I'm not doing that, I like to get away with us with doing as little as possible because my life is so um. I just met with my doctor yesterday and she said, you know, let's talk about your adrenal glands started laughing and I said, I don't know how

I do it because I have so much energy. Um, I'm just always doing stuff, man, I'm always looking for something to do. Okay, So let's just say it's you and your husband in the house. Does he know to leave you alone at certain times? You're in your own head, you're doing your own thing. He's a cowboy, he's a maverick.

He's my king. He's always doing something. And I have to actually either text him down at the studio and say supper is ready, or I have to walk where he is and say, hey, let's go take a walk or do something. And he Tomorrow night is date night, so we have date night. And he's really good about He's very maternal. Yet he is a cowboy and so he's always eas either riding horses, working on a song, smoking a cigar and drinking his whiskey, or shooting his gun.

So he's a pretty busy guy. And so we get together usually after six thirty seven o'clock at night. We sort of have a date every night for supper. And he tragically lost his leg, uh in a motorcycle accident. But you showed me a picture before we started of him skiing, So how have he and you coped with the loss of his leg? Well, if you know cactus mosure um, it's really hard to tell that he doesn't

have a leg. He is the most honestly. I heard him complain one time when he lost the leg back three months after we got married, and he said, honey, I'm different, and I said, I know that, and I took care of him and that We have a documentary called The Road Back, and we talked about the entire experience, which was tragic because he's a drummer, and he's one of the great drummers um in our industry. How do we deal with it? He he deals with it like

it didn't happen. Almost, It's like it's the it's the craziest, most wonderful thing, because he just doesn't talk about it. And the only time I notice it is when he comes rolling in the kitchen for breakfast without his leg. Otherwise he puts on that leg and it's like, let's go, let's kick some ass. And he just doesn't let it get him down. He just doesn't. And you know, he'll cuss if it gets you know, if it moves the

wrong way or something every now and then. But I've never known anybody as positive and as joy filled his Cactus Mosure. He's um the love of my life. I've I've loved him since I was twenty six years old, when I met him on tour with Highway one oh one opening for the juds. And where does this leave you? On motorcycles, I haven't sitting in my driveway. I mean in my driveway in the the garage. I haven't sold it yet. I haven't ridden since the accident, and I

probably never will. We're sticking to horses. Okay, so you met Cactus when you were twenty six, but you were married before, you had relationships before. What you learn about relationships now, I'm not really good at them. Um. I'm such a an emotional, impath kind of girl that I didn't have any boundaries and I didn't have any way of, um saying no. And I'm such a chronic people pleaser that I had a really rough time. That's why I

didn't date very much. I think I had one boyfriend at eighteen, and then I got really really famous, which is kind of hard to get a date when your mom's standing right there. And uh, I just didn't date very often, and when I did, it was usually I just took a date to the Award show of somebody that I knew, like Dwight Yoakum. You know, I was always hanging out with the guys, and yet I was

so very very shy, very painfully shy. And what happened to me when I wrote about it in my book, I just didn't trust men, and I didn't hang out with them romantically. I hung out with them as my brothers on the road. The crew is always my my brothers. Those were the people that I grew up with the most. Those are my memories of having the crew, being with

the crew and there my family. So um. I didn't have a boyfriend at the time I met Cactus, and when I did meet him, I was so in love and my mom knew it, and she and I fought a lot because she was like, no, hell no, you're not going to date a musician. Of course, I would say, he's not a musician, he's a drummer, and then we would fight until dawn. Okay, you met him at twenty six. She didn't marry him for a number of years. So

you fought with your mother. Then what happened? Then? Then I met a guy and I had two children and I got married The second time, because I got pregnant without being married, and back then it was like, oh, that doesn't work. And so I got married and then I got divorced and spent three years walking in the wilderness by myself, raising two kids. And then I met my then husband, who was my bodyguard at the time, and then uh, yeah, that went to hell. So here

I am. Was it a matter of meeting Cactus? He was the one your mother wouldn't let you be with him, and you had to go on this circuitous route to get back to him. Yes, my mom got sick, just so you know. We were on tour together for a year and he kissed me and that was it. I would have married him, you know then. But Mom got really sick and she went to the Mayo clinic and I went with her, and Cactus called me up and said I'll go with you, and I said, no, I need to take care of my mom. And so her

illness sort of became, you know, front and center. And then we went on tour and everything got really chaotic and crazy, crazy crazy. So he went on to l A became one of the great session players out there, and met his wife and got married and they had three kids, and so I have two and so together we have five. So how do you reconnect well as life would have it? Um, I walked into a bar, uh, sort of one of those speakeasies here in our little town of Franklin, and he was playing drums and I

saw him and it was like, oh my god. And it was thirty years after you know, we went on tour together and my mom was right over there with me and I told Rus, said, don't you even my fingers? And we reconnected? He said, um, call me and I called his cell and he had separated from his wife and I had separated from my husband, and we went on a date. And that was it, like thank you very much. Wow. And then you know, it's very difficult to raise kids when you're a famous working person. M hm.

And how was that for you? You know, I I have to say that this is interesting you're asking me this because I haven't talked to out this a lot. I wanted to be a mom ever since I was a teenager, and I knew. I even said I will

have a baby at thirty and I did. Elijah Jed saved my life and I wrote a book called titled Coming Home to myself, because when I got pregnant and I was this you know, super duper working girl out there on the road and headlining and the pressures of being yeah and the public eye and touring and all the stuff that comes with it. When I got pregnant, it took everything and put it aside because being pregnant

was all I cared about. I traveled with a doppler, I listened to the heartbeat every day, and I was in love. And I think it's the first time in my life, Bob, that I just felt like I was with myself and I was not just a working person that I really, you know, had something to look forward to that was my own that I didn't have to you know, necessarily put out like product and get you know, judged for it if you will. Having a baby is such an intimate process that I became infatuated with the

whole process. And I took a year off. I went and paid everybody for the year. I had a hundred date tour and um, I paid everybody and went home for a year and just had a baby and sat home and made homemade baby food and sat by the fire and just had a baby. And it was one of the most glorious experiences of my life. So you talked about Elijah has this storybook relationship with a girl that he met at a young age. To what degree is he independent? Now? To what degree is he on

the payroll? Oh, he's not in the payroll. As a matter of fact. He won't let me pay for stuff. He's very, very independent as a matter of fact. Um, we argue sometimes about, you know what, let me do it. Because he's a canine officer, he's a first responder, so he has three job abs. He met his girlfriend at a football game when they were fifteen. They're now married.

They just bought their first house. They closed next week, and I offered to help him with something and he said, nope, Mom, I'm gonna do it myself and he'll come out on the road with me and I'll have him work a few dates as security and I'll pay him through Wine on It Incorporated. But he will not let me pay for stuff. And he's adamant about it. Wow, that's a rare.

It's very rare, and I know it, and yet I continue to try to push and give and give and give, and he's just like, Mom, you know what, last year, Bob, I gave him some land on the farm, and that to him is everything, and that's enough, and he won't let me do more. So that's sort of like the creme de la creme. That's pretty amazing. Um, let's talk about your mother. You know, not only did your mother die, she took her own life. My best friend of the

same thing. It's a very strange experience of mental health issues once again, but it's a very public thing for you. And she's your mother. My mother died two years ago like that a Rolling Stone song, and my mother certainly was not famous. I have mixed emotions, and there's a famous book out right now someone wrote about that they're glad their mother died. So you know, what's it like coping with all this. Well, I just wrote a line in a song with my husband that said, I'm somewhere

between hell and Hallelujah. Yeah, I I thought of it just because of my experience. Um, the pain has stopped, hallelujah. The pain has stopped. The hell is going over to her house and seeing all her stuff and she's gone, And that's just not something you can talk about without crying. Or I have three people that I call um that I literally did work this morning on why is it that I'm still so angry? Why can't I seem to get past the anger piece? And it's because grieving is

a crazy mother trucker. There's no way you can say, well, in five months, I'll do this and tomorrow I'll do that. Um. My mother struggled and I knew it, and I always kept I felt like I was keeping a secret. So I'm grateful that the secret is no longer because secrets keep you sick. And we all know about that one who we've had experiences with, and my mother took her own life is devastating because that's not how the story

is supposed to end. And so I'm really really frustrated with the whole thing of having to talk about it in interviews and explain it to people where I'm at, because I know people are curious and I understand that, and as we all know, online lots of buttholes and opinions, and um, I just try to live as honestly as

I can. I struggle a lot at night. That's when the noise is really really really loud, and so I walk the halls and I pray, and sometimes I cry and sometimes I write, and UM, I have a granddaughter who gives me an incredible amount of hope. You know, both of my parents are dead at this point, which is kind of weird to say, but as I say, it's very sad when they passed. But there's also a

certain freedom involved. Remember when my father died, and died at a relatively young age by today's standards, at seventy of cancer, and my mother had a car accident. If you had a dent in the car with my father, he would go berserk, and she realized, well, she could just take the car and get it fit. It wasn't like the biggest crisis. And my mother was both my inspiration and my nemesis. So has there been any relief amongst the tragedy? That is a really interesting word. I

wouldn't say relief. I think I feel a sense of a new season starting of independence. So I don't know if the word relief fits me. I know that I feel. Um, I'll give you an example of a story, because I love telling stories, because I think that's how people learn the best. Um. I was on stage. I was at sound check and they were playing the video behind me of mom and I don't know, it just it caught

me really out of nowhere. It just caught me, and I turned right around and looked at the at the screen and I said, um, I've lost ten pounds mom, and ever I started laughing, and I just kind of caught myself, like I'm still doing it. You know. I still feel the the tug of war sometimes with her, the love and the not so much, and I still feel it. I still feel so mad at her because I wanted to come back so I can argue with her.

And the last fight we ever had, I told her that if she didn't stop talking that I was going to pull her wig off and hit her with it. And she looked at me, like, you are crazy, And I started laughing because I have to. You know, it's just sometimes too intense. But I don't know if the word is relief. I think I just feel a little bit more independent because you're right, we were or orphans. We don't have our parents here anymore. We're not defined

or we're not waiting for approval or a comment. It's just us. So there is that independence to you and me, God, and that's kind of where I'm at. And what about your father. I never knew my father. It's a matter of fact. I found out about him in a tabloid. Um, And by the time I got it together to go meet him, he died very tragically and suddenly, and um, I never got to know him. And I just met my brother two years ago. So that's been a whole chapter of Wow. That's all I can say about it.

It's just wow. It's like, oh my god, all these years since finding out in the tablet a tabloid, why did you just meet him? And was there an instinct connection? How did you ultimately meet No? I didn't. I didn't meet him, That's what I was saying. Two weeks I had planned to go meet him in two weeks before the date that I had chosen, he died. So I

never did. I meant, I meant you you met my brother. Um. He drove down to the farm, he walked in the door, and it's as if and I'm not exaggerating because I'm not that way, God forbid. Um, he and I picked up right where we we're supposed to. I guess it was like, Oh my god, we're so alike. He's just like Elijah, and Elijah is just like him, and we're

just so connected. It's crazy, it's crazy good, and it's the most delightful piece of information I have to give personally, is that I finally, finally now know more about who I am because I never knew my father, and there's a question mark there for anybody who doesn't know their parents. So your mother was a babe, living a babe life seemingly always. What was that like as a little kid with her being your mother? Horrible men would follow her home.

She was quite the baby, right. If you look at pictures, it's like, to me, she's as gorgeous as any any Hollywood actress I've ever seen. And it was a problem. It was a real problem. And some of my trauma comes from all of the experiences that I witnessed of her living in Holly Weird, her being such a gypsy spirit and having so many different boyfriends, and yeah, she was quite quite the babe. You're right, so you're growing up.

She's your mother. To what degree is she hands on or to what we you're a free range child, boy, that's a well. I walked to school by myself. I was a latchkey kid, so it was very lonely and we always lived for the most part besides Hollyward. We lived in the country, so I was always by myself. And that's why I became so infatuated and enamored by animals, because they were my neighbors and my friends. And I wasn't popular in school. I was the moody musician, dreamer,

you know, that just didn't fit in anywhere. But people liked me because I was polite and I was a good kid. I didn't get into trouble, and I was always um wanting love and affection, and um my mom was always working. So I kind of raised Ashley. We kind of raised each other really, and we still talk about that because mom was always gone working And what do you say when you talk about that, how painful it was. Um, I did not have a hands on parent, and I parented myself as well as Ashley, and and

we grew up together. We were four years apart, so I was the ten year old making dinner and I was driving on the road at twelve thirteen. I was driving on the road at thirteen, and my mom let me because I guess she was always you know, working as a nurse, and I I did all the chores and so I was the kid who was responsible for just about everything. I never remember doing a spring break. I never remember going anywhere and having fun with friends, not really. So it was a weird. It was a

weird life, I have to say. And where did music come in? Oh, thank you Lord. It came in around eight years of age. I discovered the piano, and I discovered my voice before that, but I discovered an instrument with my voice, and I just thought that was the greatest thing in my life. And um it was third grade and Joni Mitchell was it because there was a woman in my life, a young woman who just worshiped Joni Mitchell and played me every song Joanie ever recorded.

And I learned every nuance of every song and still to this day, I can do the best harmony in the world besides Brandy Um. And I learned Joni mitchell songs and I became Joni Mitchell's absolute, you know, backup singer. I could have gone on the road with her at any given time, and it saved my life. Honestly, if it hadn't been for Joanie, I probably would have tried suicide before I did at eighteen. But the music kept me alive early. Okay, you dropped that I gotta go

there attempting suicide at eight team, I sure did. I got kicked out of the house and I went to live with Ashley's biological father, and he was going to send me to college and I was going to get a job, and he cut off all my hair and I was no longer who I was supposed to be in my book, So why stick around? Because I was no longer going to do music and be able to be you know, Winona, which I had big plans, by the way, big plans, and I was going to go

to college, and I just I couldn't take it. I was just it was like somebody cut my wings off and I attempted suicide at eighteen, and then what six months later, I got a record deal. Okay, let's go back. So the interest in music was yours independently, not your mother's. It seems your mother was a driven woman men, and if you look from outside, she needed more. She needed to make it. Was it music or it just needed to be something. Yes, I think she really was born

to be. My grandmother said to me when I was little, your mother should have been a soap opera star. Now. I don't know what that tells anybody else, but to me, that tells me everything. And my mother has always been the parade waiver. I mean, she's she's the Barbie doll, She's all the cliches, you know. She was always up for a good time. And I was so shy and so backwards that I felt like Nell in the movie. Um. I felt like this little hillbilly girl that I literally

wore overalls and hiking boots to to school. Bob. I mean, it's it's weird. It's like, who are We live in apple Hia. We go to a third world country pretty much, and we live on this little acre of land, and I'm by myself and I discovered Joni Mitchell, and all of a sudden, I'm learning all the open tunings and I'm playing all the songs, and I'm ready to just evolved into the greatest um poet singer. You know, I

was ready, and my mom saw it. And I think my mom saw that I was so immersed in music and such a dreamer that I think she just naturally was like, Okay, this is it, and she started harmonizing with me. And I didn't like it at first. At all, And for a summer we learned a couple of songs together and the next thing I know, we're singing to people and here we are. Who wah, let's start. Let's start from the reading. You talked about open tunings. How

did you learn? I don't know. I don't know. To this day, I have one person in my life who was teaching me E, A and D. And the next thing I know, I'm just doing it note by note and I'm figuring it out. And nobody really taught me. My self taught, And to this day I think about it. Sonia bird Yancy was a woman in my life who played guitar and I would sit and listen to her play and just try to figure it out. And I spent my life learning every Joni song. Where did the

guitar come from? Someone gave it to my mom when we moved from California back to Kentucky. Someone gave her a guitar. And it's one of those stories that it was not a good guitar and I learned to play on it and it was my very first guitar, which, yeah, I think about that. If someone hadn't given my mom that guitar I don't know where i'd be today. Okay, you're you know, you're independent. You're playing the guitar. Your mother starts to harmonize. Then how does it turn into

a gig? That's a really good question. We just started playing for all the things we could play for, Like, um, what is it when you like get some kind of an award for civil you know, like those those places where people gather together and you win the award for the community, were like the Rotary Club exactly exactly. We started doing stuff like that, and next thing I know,

we're doing this little show here in Nashville, Tennessee. The Ralph Emory Show comes on at like three four o'clock in the morning and they have the farm Report and they do commercials and there's a guy on there that sings with the band. And somehow Mom and I showed up there and sang on that show so that I could sing and then go to school. Pretty wild. Actually, okay, what how was it presented to you? Let's go back to Kentucky. You know, you're really good at this. I'm

gonna try to make it something more. You come home from school one day and your mother says, oh, we're playing at the Rotary Club. That's kind of how it was. I can tell you right now. I had no ambition. I was not the one to say, Hey, I'm gonna go down and join a band and I'm gonna start doing gigs. That was not how it happened. As a matter of fact, it's the opposite. I was, if anything, I was too shy to do it. And it was Mom who said we are going to do this. And

that's the way it is. Man. It's like she had all the ambition and I had all the you know, the talent in terms of guitar and vocal, and she was the harmony singer, and together it was this magical, little weird thing like are they mother and daughter or sisters? You know? And just everywhere we went we got more and more attention, and next thing I know, we're here in Nashville, Tennessee. Are you kidding me? So she was determined, Bob, she was on her She was on a mission to

make it. Okay, needless to say, you became uber successful. Do you think she was ever fulfilled or she was still looking for more. I think she was so fulfilled being the queen of the parade. I think she was more fulfilled than she could ever be. I mean, come on, we did the Super Bowl, for God's sake, you know, we got to go to the White House. We uh. We have a street named after us in Ashland, Kentucky. Uh. And we were the parade waivers of all times. Just bizarre.

It's it's such a weird story still to me today, and when I tell it, I'm just like, how in the world are these two Kentucky girls managed to make it in country music? I still I can't quite wrap my head around it because I was so backwards in so many ways, and yet I would go out on stage. If you look at the videos, I seem so sure of myself and I just can't even believe it. When

I look at it, I'm like, that's me. And then there's my mom, who's, you know, shimmying and swaying, and she's doing the harmony, and she's the beautiful mother who looks young enough to be my sister. I mean, come on, I don't think it gets any better than that. So how hard for her was it when she became ill and couldn't do it. I think that's where the end began, I really do. I think it. I think the depression was so debilitating. I think it was. I think it's

where it started. I think that the end was when she had to give up the road because I took her home on the bus. I helped her get all her stuff off the bus, and she stood on the porch waving to me as I pulled the bus out of the driveway, and I remember thinking, this is it. You know, it's like separating Siamese twins. I just, uh, I don't know. I don't know any other way to say it. She fell into a deep depression and from there,

you know, it started. And she's written a lot of books and done a lot of speak engagements around it. But I think it. I think it cut off her life. Supply, her lifeline was absolutely you know that was it. Well, let's go back before she had to retire. My friend who ended his life took his own life in retrospect, he was bipolar. I mean, it really hits every note on the scale prior to retiring. I hate to use

this word, but I will anyway. Would you call your mother normal or was there evidence of other mental health issues in retrospect? Wow, that's quite a packed question. I don't know the answer to that question. But I can tell you what I know, which is my mother was incredibly charismatic, incredibly determined, one of the most determined. She was as determined to die as she was determined to live. That's my mother. That's one of the quotes that I have used a couple of times when I'm not sure

quite what to say. Uh, my mother was incredibly um willful, and you did not argue with her. I was not allowed to really have a voice. Ironically, I'm the lead singer, but I did not have a voice. I still think about having to share a bus with her, and I look back on that and I go, God, if I had known then what I know now, I would have gotten my own bus. What the heck? You know? Why did I have to share a hotel room with her? Why did I have to share a dressing room with her?

I'm the lead singer. Why couldn't I have my own stuff? And there's part of me that thinks it was God's way of saying, you're going to be accountable to something bigger than yourself. Well, it was her, and I think she took full advantage of it. Many times. Um, we would be in Vegas and we would be sold out and she would come down to my room and tell me, you know, if you're late tonight, I'm going to tell everybody you know in front of you and embarrass me.

She was tough, and um I think she was incredibly driven to the point of it separated us an awful lot. Emotionally, it separated us an awful lot. I think that's pretty clear. But in retrospect, would you say that was just her personality or was she really crazy on some level? I don't know the word crazy. I know, well, I do know the word crazy. That's not true. I don't know crazy like some people have their identity there, you know,

understanding of what crazy is. I think my mother was so colorful, and this is the only way I know to describe it, because I don't know enough about the mental health part. I just know that she was colorful. She taught my children. One of the first things she's proud of doing as a grandmother was teaching my kids how to poop in the woods. Okay, that's crazy, that's not normal. That's crazy. But you live on a farm and it seems really practical, doesn't it. So you tell me,

is it practical or is it crazy? Well, I guess you know. I'll leave it at this. Um, what you know was this? You know? Was her tragic death preordained because of certain organic elements or was it based on events like leaving the road. But let's forget all that. So your mother is driven, she's booking you these gigs. Are you all in from the beginning or do you ever at times say hey, well tell me how you felt. Nope.

The very first thing I ever said to her before we went out in front of ten thousand people was the first time I was ever on stage. I looked at her and I said, I want to go home, and she looked at me. She was a snapper. That sound right there will send me into an absolute tantrum. Um, it's I could feel it. It's just one of those things. My mother was a snapper, and she would snap at

me and say do it girl, you know. And I looked at her and I was like, uh, next thing I know, we're in front of ten thousand people and we have a hit song and we're running awards and the rest is history. I was so mortified at being with my mother on so many levels. It just didn't make sense to me, why would somebody do this to me? Why would somebody put me on a bus at eighteen years of age? Why would they do that to me? And by the way, and I talked about this a lot,

but I can't get over it. I did her hair, for God's sake. Oh, I did her hair like I literally was responsible for zipping up the back of her dress and doing her hair. And that's just those you know, people say you didn't really pay your dues and by playing clubs. I'm like, okay, you share a bus with your mother for ten years and we'll talk because it was the strictest, most unbelievable thing that I did in my life. And I don't know else to say other

than why why would somebody do that? Because we were so freaking famous, she did all the talking. By the way, they had to send me to media school, Bob. They had to sit me down and say, okay, so when your mom tells that story and you're really not happy with her and you roll your eyes, you look like a little brat. And they had to walk me through how to do interviews because I was so not interested in all the fame stuff. She loved every minute of

it okay, breaking a few things down. Do you think she was so strict because she didn't want her success fucked up or because she didn't want you to follow in her footsteps? What was driving this strictness. I am known that there's three of us, Ashley, Mom and me, and if you put us in a room, the two of them are so alike in so many ways. I was always the odd ball, odd man out, whatever you want to call it, and I'm so free in spirit.

I drove my mother in saying I think that I was single handedly one of the most challenging parts of her success because I was so you know, I think I'll go and get a Harley. No, you won't. And she wouldn't talk to me for two weeks after I got the tattoo and I was on my own. I was like selling records and stuff and she wouldn't speak to me. So I had to get one of them raised because it had Mom on it. It was traumatic.

So my mom was pretty darn instrumental in making sure that everything was a certain way, and I would just come into the fold and sing and get the heck out of Dodge. So it wasn't like, oh, everything is great. We didn't fight a lot, but it was just very like business because she ran it. It should have been Naomi Judd and her daughter Winona, because it was definitely she ran things. Her and the manager ran things. I was just the chick singer and I would get a

memo member back when we facted. I would. I would get a memo and it would say, Monday, you're doing this. Tuesday, you're doing this. And I didn't have a say so we would go down to our c A and do two days worth of interviews because everybody wanted to talk to us. I didn't have a say so about all that. Zero was she as strict with Ashley? No, because Ashley behaved well, or she just wasn't. Ashley got the good end of the deal an awful lot. Ashley didn't get

what I got because I was the oldest. I think my mom really was nervous that I would get pregnant and meet a boy and go get married and then it would be ruined. You know, I still do this day. Um. Ashley was the one that finally told me about my real father. Mom never did, and I always always really angry about that because it was almost like maybe she thought maybe I would go running off into the wild blue yonder and not get on the bus and go

do shows. I was just really convinced that she had to keep everything going um, and I think she felt responsible for me, keeping me in line because I had so much talent, that I was so free willed that it terrified her. Literally, like I would go, hey, Mom, I think I'm gonna go build a house, and she'd go, what No. And then I ended up getting a condo near her because you know, I just can't be near her enough. Ah, bless my heart. So you too go

on the road. What happens to Ashley? She gets left behind? So how does she go from being left behind becoming a movie star? Good question. She went out to Hollywood and the only job I ever remember her having out there was she worked as a hostess at the Ivy on Robertson. And next thing, she's in an independent movie called be in Paradise and the rest is history, a great movie, and she's great in it. She's awesome. She's awesome.

It's one of my favorite movies she's ever done. And I remember literally walking three ft behind her because she was quite the star. And I thought, well, she's arrived, here we go. So did she had that seem driven element in her that your mother had? Yes, very much. So do you think she just learned it from your mother or she was left behind so much that she wanted to do Hey, I gotta find my own way to my own thing. I believe with everything in me

that it's nature and nurture. I think there's a nature there. And I think because she was nurtured to be so independent and make it on her own that she literally packed up an U haul it trailer to her car in Tennessee and drove out to l A by herself. That's actually okay. Going back to the beginning of the story, before you're on stage with ten thousand people blocking, before you hit the stage along the way, were you always

in or something? Were you saying I don't want to show up or I want to have a normal life for Were you saying, wow, this is great, Wow, this is great. I would do anything to be in a band. I have a band now, why not in the big noise? And everything is about the big noise. I don't want to be by myself. I love love, love love team. I do better with team. I don't want to be a solo artist anymore, and uh so I absolutely would do anything to jam with my guys. That was when

my magical time began. When I hit the stage, not because of performance, but because of art. Did I love every single minute. Robert Ware and I have talked about this an awful lot, because for me, it's about the musical experience of running. What is it when they go to the edge of the stage and you jump off. That's me stage diving. Yes, I just I mean not literally, but I would go to the edge of the stage and want to just free fall into the fans because

I love music that much that I would. I mean, I've I've flown to Australia just to do one show because that's how determined I am to have the live musical experience with the fans. Um So, yeah, I walk into the stage. You got let me add it. I'll do anything and I'll wait, you know, twenty hours if I have to. I was very patient because all I ever wanted to do was being a band. That's it. That's what drove me. Okay, you talk about Rob Weir, who is Bob We're of the Grateful Dead. How do

you meet Bob Weir. That's a really good question. UM. More importantly, UM, when I met him, I did not know a lot about Robert were and I called him Robert because I could not bring myself to call him Bobby. I just thought, that's like call and your teacher by her first name. And I fell in love with this character. He's like the Civil War general, you know, He's just such a character. And when I met him, I thought, well, I have nothing in common with this person. And next

thing I know, we're sitting in the studio. He came to the farm, he drove to the farm, got out of the car, walked into the studio and we did Ramble on Rose. And we have been so connected ever since. He came and performed at my mother's memorial. That's pretty crazy, right, And so he's been there for me, both personally and professionally. We played of course, we've played the film more and there's all the good stuff, you know, and the fans

love it and Deadhead judd Head were mingling. Everybody's getting along. But it's just one of those wacky stories where you go, how in the world did I end up being friends with him and his wife? What's the what's the connection. How did you meet him? That's you know what the connection is the music. I was invited to do stuff, and it's like he did one of my songs and I did one of his songs. Kind of thing at

the film More. That was actually after we my husband, thank you, my husband, Cactus Moser said I want you to learn some grateful Dead songs and I said, why why would I do that? I don't understand the history of all the you know stuff that you know. And I ended up calling him. I think I got his number from Dwight Yoakum or somebody. I'm trying to remember the details, and I just called him and next thing I know, he's at the farm. I think it was just us connecting on the level of, Hey, it's nice

to meet you. Hey, nice to meet you too. But I called him on the phone and I said, I really want you to come and be on my record. Okay, going back to the original origin of the story, Um, you make a deal with Curb Record. Mike Curb, Republican who had made it in the music business then was Lieutenant governor of California, ultimately had a lot of success in Nashville. UM his company and relationships been fraught with the negative history. People signed a deal and they can't

get out of it, and what was your experience? Well, I know more now than I did, and I didn't know all that crap, and nobody ever really sat me down and said, hey, by the way, this is this or this is that, and what do you want to do about it? And it wasn't until I had a few experiences with managers who said this is nuts, we gotta do this, we gotta make this move. I really

didn't understand and I was so trusting. I'm one of those stories honestly that you go, oh, bless her heart, she just doesn't know any better because I was too busy working, too busy doing, and too busy recording and traveling and doing tours. And it wasn't until probably the last I would say, five to seven years, do I really know what the heck is going on. And that's

not something I'm proud of. It's just sort of the way it worked out for me because I'm so trusting and I tend to not micromanage, and I think it's gotten me in a lot of trouble. But I still get a Christmas present from him every year, and I haven't seen him in years. And how about the money, good question, I'll let you know. So you're still working on the money. Yep. It's one of those things where maybe when I'm sixty, it's not that far away. One

can dream. Okay, you did not write the songs you're saying, which in many cases are the generator of profits. So how are you doing financially? I'm land rich in cash poor. I owe some of the greatest land in the history of mankind. And uh, you know, of course, a lot of people take out loans to do business. That's kind of the way it works in America, right, And so, um, I'm good, I'm good, I'm settled, I have what I need.

I'll tell you what's really exciting about me and my husband is during the pandemic, we were able to keep payroll because of logging. So thank you for that opportunity because it kept everybody afloat. And I'm grateful for that because it was a devastating blow to the music industry and a lot of my guys in the band, you know, went on unemployment. So I'm really grateful that the land provided and that's why we have land. Um, it's been a blessing. Did you get any loans from the government?

Let me think here, I did, I did? Okay, you bought the land for fifteen hundred dollars an acre in what year? How much land? And what did your mother say about that? Oh? She thought it was awesome as one of the things we agreed on because I was right next to her. Together we had a thousand acres, so it was like a compound. Um, I bought it in acre it goes for two d thousand an acre, now, so that was a really good investment. Oh yeah, my father would be proud of you. Yes, and that's my

great my great great grandfather would be too. That was what it was all about, Ogden Judd was all about buying land. My family. I come from a family of farmers, so they would all be very proud. Like the song Guardian Angels, Um, they're so proud of me. Fanny and Elijah and all my ancestors are looking down going. You know what you go, girl? The logging kept you alive. Going more detail. You hire a company that cuts up the trees. How do you generate the money? We hired

two guys, best friends. One's a preacher, one is a good old boy who wears overalls and no t shirt even if it's winter. It's awesome actually, And they come and it's just the two of them because I don't want them to mess up the land. And they did it old fashioned and uh, I mean compared to what's done today. And we only did trees that were down, and we had when you have five acres, you know how it works. And they just went where the trees were down and it worked, and I'm so grateful to them.

As a matter of fact, it saved us. Actually, So how many people are on the payroll personally or professionally? Professionally well, personally too, well the last the last tour we did, it was what how many people on the road last tour? I don't know, eight nine something like that. And then I'd say personally five. Okay. When you say the logging kept your who were the people you were paying? What do you mean people I was paying? No? No, no, you said the general the money from the logging allowed

you to pay your people. How many people was that? I would say about five people, five to seven? Okay. So going back to the story, you go on on stage, you have ten thousand people, and once you're pushed. I assumed you actually loved performing, because you say you love performing now. And what was it like suddenly becoming the biggest star in country music? What was it like? Oh

my gosh, that's a really good question. I think I looked like a deer in the headlights, an awful lot because I was still so so young, and Mom did all the talking, so I would sit there and kind of look around, like when are we going to be done so I can go hang out with my friends. So but I also loved, loved, love the the love

from the fans. I still have fans that were there the very first concert in night march Um concert that we did, and they're still there and there they're still around and it's like they remember me and I remember them and we grew up together. So I love the one on one. I'm not really good at the fame stuff unless it's a good seat in a restaurant. I don't really thrive on that actually, And um, I mean if you kind of look at me, I don't. I don't do the whole makeup and hair thing all the time.

I'm not a TikTok sensation at I don't really care about all that. I care about the human experience. I care about the music. I care about going out on stage and making a connection with somebody who has no idea what they've gotten themselves into. And that is what grews me more than anything in this world. Well, you're a very recognizable person, so uh, you know, it's one thing if you're sitting at home. I would think almost anywhere you go, people immediately know who you are. Yes,

they do. I've become a little bit more and more like Dolly in terms of the hair and the you know, the the tada I call it the tada um. Brandy Carlile said, I'm a queer icon and I said, can you explain to me what that means? She said, it's really really good and I said okay. I said, okay, awesome. I love people. I love love love people. A person walks up to me and says, I'm an atheist, and I said, okay, I mean that's the way I am. I just um, I'm a judge, not a judge. I

mean that's my absolute go to. When people come up to me and say, well, you need to lose weight, and I go, yeah, and you need to get a haircut, and uh, I I just you know what I'm I'm I'm real because I grew up in such a weird world, you know, being eighteen and being on the cover of all the magazines and doing Johnny Carson, I'm dating myself and opening for all the greats of country music, Merle Haggard, George Jones. I mean, I've worked with a highwayman. I

knew Johnny Cash. He was a mentor. When you grow up with all these people in your life and Tammy Wynette takes you on her bus to cook breakfast for you, that's just not normal, that's you know. And so I grew up with all these characters around me in my movie, and I went over to George Jones's house at Christmas time and played his kids, played his grandkids, played with my kids. And it's just so crazy, but yet it was my life and I'm still living it, and it's

so bizarre at times. But I can't get away from the music part of it. I just can't. As broken hearted as my heart is an awful lot, I can't stop myself from being on stage having that moment with the fan when they sing into the microphone the words to my song. There's just something about that that just heals me every single day. Because I almost gave up on doing the tour. You know, when mom died. I said, Okay, I don't know if I can I don't know if I can do this. I really don't physically know if

I can do this. And the people spoke and they said, yes you can, and I showed up. How much live is the music and how much is the adoration and love from the fans. I do not sing, and I will not sing. The only time I've ever lip SYNCD is at the super Bowl. I'm adamant about that. Um, there are no tracks. There's one loop that Cactus hits for a loop on a rhythm thing. But everything is live. I'm adamant about that. If there's one thing that I will say that, I'm gonna be like you. I'm sure

you have your opinion about things I can imagine. Um, it will be live and it will be imperfect or it won't be real and I just have to have that or else the rest of his bs. So everything is live to the point where I can do a song on a dime. You watch me, okay, so you're you're alive, But how much of the satisfaction is the love from the audience? It's so live? What do you mean? Can you explain a little bit better what I'm trying

to I'll give you a different example. A friend of mine used to book Oprah open played arenas for a while, and the obvious question here is why does Oprah need to play arenas? She's got all the money in the world whereas is David Letterman said, you know, she literally has all the money, but he said, where else is

she going to get that? Yes? Yes, the adrenaline is part of my my fix every single night when I go and I get off the bus and I'm walking to the stage and I hear the roar of the crowd, my energy gets up and I get the adrenaline and it's like the quarterback of the Super Bowl. I get very, very activated. And that is better than any drug in life. And that's probably why so many people do drugs, because it is the greatest It is the greatest thing on

this light, in this life, on this planet. To stand there and watch fourteen thousand people with their phones and their lights on. We don't do the big lighter anymore. Saying love is alive back to me. It is the greatest thing. I feel suspended. I'm writing a song with Brandy Carlile right now called from Here to Heaven, and that's where I am. I'm literally suspended off the ground and I can feel myself levitate. It is the greatest drip of love, life and support and healing that there

is in this life. Wow, did you do drugs and drink or what was your experience with substances? No, my mom did. She was the party or I was the stay in the room. And wonder if she's coming back. Um, she's talked about it. When she got to be seventies something. She just let it go and said, yeah, I smoked weed on the day we did our live audition at r c A. And I'm like, wow, okay, here we go.

Uh No, I wasn't and I didn't. I didn't have my my trip with alcohol until I was twenty seven to twenty nine, and then I got pregnant at thirty and that changed my entire world. So I had my experience with alcohol and that's it. I never did drugs. Tried it when I was little. A couple of times I'd try my mom's blunt. Is that the word blunt? Yeah, that's one of them. Is that one of them? Okay? And I tried her blunt and I was like thirteen years old, and I don't know how anybody does it.

I didn't didn't work for me because it made me even more dreamy and not want to go get a job. And that's not probably the best idea for me. So your mother becomes ill, she retires from the road, she becomes depressed. What's going through your mind? What the hell? I don't understand it. It's the mystery of life for me. I'm doing a lot of trauma work right now around that because I don't have any answers, and I don't

understand because she had so much. She's the kind of person that would literally get out of the car, go into Walgreens, speak to every single person in there, call somebody's mother on the phone, and literally walk out of there, getting the car, and go home and lay on the couch for the next That's why it's so so hard to understand. And I'm still in the moment of what the hell am I supposed to do with this information.

I'm trying to file it away neatly, but it's not that simple, and it's going to take a lifetime for me to get there. But she was the most charismatic, colorful character out in public. And then she would go lay on the couch for weeks at a time and I would call her and she would cry, and I would think, Wow, this is not the way it's supposed to be. And was she getting professional Hell? Yes. I will be honest with you, and I've never spoken about

this before. I will tell you that I feel like the mental health community let her down because, um, there was a lot of medication and I don't know that. I just don't think she got the help she needed. I really don't. And that's my two cents worth. Um, Ashley certainly has hers and I'll let her speak for herself. For me, watching mom um, you know she's an r N. She tended to look at doctors and other people as peers, and I wish someone had gone in and said no, Naomi, no,

So what's your relationship with Ashley these days? We are so different, and yet I have such a tenderness for her from raising her that I feel very motherly towards her. She calls me sister, mommy, and we're working more on the sister part, which is very painful because we were apart so much of the time. We were geographically in different worlds, and Um, I missed her prom and I missed her first experience with a boy, and there's just so much loss there that we're still trying to mend.

As a matter of fact, I was supposed to call her after this interview, and UM, she wants me to come over to the house. We're are both just so in different worlds, and yet we're trying to figure out a language that we can both speak well. How much contact do you have with her? A lot more than since mother died, A lot more, as a matter of fact, almost on a daily basis. We text, we face time

a lot, and I've been going over to her house. Um, last time I went over, ear candled her ears because she had a cold, and I just I try to go over and I take her soup. I'm the I'm the big sister. You know. That's kind of the way it's always gonna be. She's always going to be my little sister. I don't care how smart she is or how fabulous she looks in her Valentino dress. Um, I'm still her sister, and I do things to her that make her really uncomfortable. And that's my job. Give me

an example of one thing. Well, I like to say things that are inappropriate because she's so good with words, and she'll say a word and I don't know what the word is, and I'm like, what the hell does that word mean? I don't understand a word? Oh is that like? And then I'll use a word that's really not okay with her because she's such an activist. Sometimes it's like, hey, Ashley, snap out of it. You know,

I'm your sister. I'm not I'm not here to challenge you in any capacity other than the fact that I'm bigger than you and I can sit on you until you p So you're just gonna have to deal with the fact that I'm here. And sometimes I apologize. Sometimes I don't, but I do it just keep her alive in the conversation because she's so smart, that she's so intellectual that sometimes I just have to say, let's not

be so individually over here, separately smart. Let's be together and be silly and dumb, and let's try to find a place that we can maneuver naturally and authentically. If that makes any sense. Yeah, sure it does. When your mother gets hepatitis C and retires from the road. So this is decades back. What do you think about going forward in your career? Ye, I'm both um devastated and inspired to see what's next. I think I'm always looking forward to I've always been that way, and I think

that's a thing that you're born with. Um, I try not to. Mom was a lot more of the rear view mirror, and I'm more of the looking out the windshield. I could not wait until I saw a cactus mosure that night with Mom behind me and looking at her, like, see that guy right there, I'm going to marry him, and we're going to, you know, right off into the sunset together. And that's what we're doing right now with

the band. We're making a record, we're writing most of it, and we are determined to go to the next chapter. I'm on a label which I love the name Anti Records, but there's just something about that that just thrills me. Um Andy is interested in the musical experience as well.

So I found finally a home where I feel like I can be as authentic and strange as I want to be without feeling the tug towards being popular, um, which we all want to be to a certain degree, but I also want the music to speak for itself. So Cactus and I are always talking about what's next, if that makes any sense, Like I'm already on the Judge tour talking about what we're gonna do after that.

If that makes sense. Yeah, I'd end up on Anti Records because Andy gets me, and it's a it's a record label where you've got Um May have his Staples. You've got these characters that are just at the in the in the twilight, some of them and then others. You know, there's just this you know, Tom Waite. You have people that are on there that are able to be themselves and there's no pressure to try to be younger and faster and fit in with all the you know,

Tik Talker's. It's just this great place to belong where you feel like you can just be yourself and yeah, if you get paid for it, that's really cool. And yet I did a show with May of the Staples here at the Rhyman Auditorium and I just looked around like, is this really happening, like this is really my life.

I don't know how I got here, but boy am I really grateful that I don't have to worry about Well, let's try to be the comeback kid, you know, Okay, staying there, you have this unbelievable run with your mother, then you have a run solo and the number one hit stopped coming. What's that like? Emotionally? Mm hmm. I loved the songs so much and it's gonna sound really corny and maybe even a little cliche, but they're like my children. I love them so much. I just was

sad that other people didn't respond to them. And the label, of course, certainly has their responsibility part of it. I love the song so much I continued, like every night to sing them regardless of whether they were number ten or number one. D I didn't care about that part

of it. The emotional part came because I wanted the fans to hear the music, and that was the frustration part for me, was the numbers um more so than anything, because I wanted people to hear only Love, which I still sing to this day as if it's you know, the most important, top five important songs of my career and my life because my music, to me is more than just a career. Now, I've been doing it almost

forty years and it's just so part of me. Um. It was difficult because I want to I really want to please my producer. When I go in the studio. I'm known for singing it twenty times, even though we can fly vocals in, because I want it to be different, each verse to be different. If you listen to my records, I'm really proud of the fact that we didn't fix a lot of vocals because I wanted people to love me live. I wanted to be able to copy it live.

And I come from the era of when you have singers like Ann Wilson singing the way she does live, You're like, well, hell yeah, that's the way it's supposed to be. You know, it's supposed to sound like the record, but it's also supposed to sound real. So I had my moments of being feeling tearful because I wanted the producer to be successful and be successful myself. Absolutely, but I'm still tied to the music today that I was even back in the eighties and nineties, talking about the

number and not the music. Itself. You talk about being on Johnny Carson, being on the super Bowl, those opportunities are not as frequent. Not to mention the fact other than the super Bowl, does none of those things mean what they once did? Um, but are you looking out of the front window enough to say, well, I did that, then other peaks will commode. Is it bother you a little bit that the opportunities or peaks are not as plentiful as they once were. It depends on if I

go on social media. If and when I go on social media and I see what's going on out there, I feel like I'm missing prom. You know, I don't have a date for the prom. Oh and then if you take that away from me, which I try to stay away from it as much as possible in terms of just staying in the music, staying authentic, staying authentic. I think about Susan Tadeshi and I think about all these great musicians, and um, you know, she and Derek Trucks are important to me. They're very important to me.

They're on my record, and I'm like, yes, this is what I want to do for a living. Um, I'm getting ready to a show. Uh that I'm really proud of that. I just feel like the music matters more than the TikTok numbers. So it depends on the day. Um, there are days when I'm not worried about it at all because i have such a great fan base, Bob. I have such tremendously loyal fans that come to every stinking show, whether it's Green Hall or it's Bridgestone here

in Nashville, Tennessee. I literally have those fans, and I've earned them. I've worked really hard gaining their loyalty. And then there are other days when I realize I'm getting ready to sing with Kelsey Ballerini and she's the next, you know, big thing, and I'm passing the torch to her. Well, that's what I'm supposed to do, because that's what Lauretta ll ended to me for me, and that's what women in country music do for one another. Ashley McBride really

good example of the next generation of greatness. She comes on stage and sings rock Bottom, and I look at her like, well, you go on with your bad self, because I'm fifty eight years old and I can still get it if I have to, But you know what, you go on ahead, girl, and They get it. They know that I mean well, but yeah, I have my moments of looking on and seeing what everybody else is doing, and that's just not good for any of us. Do you feel confident in your talent and success or were

you in the past, even now haunted by impostor syndrome? Oh? I I told Oprah this. I did her show by the Way, eighteen times more than anybody else because I was telling my story and giving my testimony. I told her that it took me years to feel like I earned my success because I felt like I won the freaking lottery in nineteen eight four when I got a

record deal. Next thing I know, we're on tour, and I felt like I hadn't played bars, I hadn't gone through the stuff that we hear about with all the other legendary performers and artists so that I have struggled with in the past. Now I don't at all. I just don't. I just don't think that way. I think sometimes I'm missing out on things like when the Grammys come and go. I think, oh man, I should have gone to the Grammys this year. But I'm okay because I live on the farm. I sing when I need to,

and I go home when I can. And what about therapy for you? If you had therapy? I do it every day almost I've been in recovery and out for since two thousand and three. Healing and recovery my middle name, and I'm known for it. But I don't flaunt it and I don't talk about it a lot because it's not nobody's business. I just think it's important to continue to tell people I'm in a process. I was in one today, yesterday and two days before, because I think

if you don't reach out, that's the problem. I think too many people like me think they have the answers, and I know better. So this morning, when I called my life coach, who has walked through a lot of crap in my life, he was the one that called me and said come to your mom's right away. He was there when it happened. Ted was there and he's our life coach since two thousand three, so we're all very connected. And yet I'm in a process all the time.

I'm working with David Kessler, a wonderful grief counselor, who is helping me understand that suicide is a mystery and there's no way to neatly wrap it up, so you're gonna have to just walk through it, not around it. So yeah, heck yeah, I'm part yeah. And going back to the music, where do you get the songs from? Well, right now, Cactus Mosier and I are writing them because when I say I'm somewhere between hell and the Halloween,

it's so intimate and so personal. A lot of hit makers hit me up for Hey, let's check out this song. Check out this song like only Love came to me directly from the writer who had just finished writing it. I recorded it that very same day that he brought it to the studio. He knew I was recording, and he brought it to the studio. And that's that cheeseus

only need same thing. Songwriter shows up at the studio, says I want to play this for Wynona, sings it to me live and re recorded within the next twenty four hours. Right now, it's coming from my guts. I just finished the song I'm Broken and Blessed in this um, I can attest that I'm at the end of my rope, but I keep hold and all this is me. I'm broken and blessed and this um it's coming from the gut. It's coming from the deepest part of my being. So

look forward to sharing that. Well, this is a transition, because certainly in the Judge you're known for cover songs. How did you make the transition to writing yourself. I started to trust myself more. I think after you have grown children and you've had as much failure as I've had. I thought, literally, when I started songwriting, what is the

absolute worst that can happen? They can suck and I can just keep on trying um And I trust other songwriters, Brandy other people who have talked to me, Robert were and I talked an awful lot about being in a band at a very young age and not knowing any better. And I just listened to people. You know, I meet all these young cats that come through and I just trust them because they're doing it. And I'm like, you

know what, if Taylor Swift can do it. You know, she was such a young girl when I met her, and I thought I had no idea that she would become you know this since station, and I just think I trust myself now because I'm like, you know what, I'm going to talk to these people in the front row like they're my next door neighbor. And that's what we do in country music especially, we tell stories. And I can tell a story just like anybody else. Um. I want to write a song about sisters, and I

want to write a song about my mother. I'm working on that, and I'm writing a song about my granddaughter because she's eight months old. In her name is Khalia, and she's the light of my life. You mentioned you had a lot of failures. Which failures are you talking about? Well, relationships, UM, songs that have not worked obviously, UM, tours, you name it. I've had good days and not great days, and the ones that were the toughest are the ones that taught

me the most. UM. When my biological father died, I felt devastated and I felt like a part of my life I would never get back. Stuff like that, you know, where you just make really bad decisions financially the wrong people. I've been so severely to portrayed. Anytime you have that many people in your life, you're going to have issues with that. And I've just learned from every single person

I've ever met. It's been a gift, not exactly what I would want, but it was necessary for me to finally say no, I'm going to listen to my gut more, I'm going to say that doesn't work for me. By the way, it's changed my business model to say that doesn't work for me. Be a little more specific, how did it change your business model? Well, I'm I'm a people pleaser, and I tend to come to meetings wanting to be clever, cute, and adorable and want people to

work with me. And I had to learn to say no in a way that people would say, well, tell me more about that. And I learned that when you walk into a situation, whether it's you know, with a friend or someone in the White House, you have to say, you know what, I would love to do that and I can't, and they would say, well, what can you do? It's that way they're is a relationship there. It's not a dictatorship. It's a democracy. So that doesn't work for me.

Helps me with democracy because I'm definitely a team player. I'm not one of these it's why not it incorporated, But there's a lot incorporated into me and a lot of people running it. So when I say that doesn't work for me, Bob, that doesn't work for me talking about that or so far, I've been willing to talk

about everything we've talked about. But there are times when an interviews, for instance, I'll say, well, you know what, that doesn't really work for me to talk about that, and then they'll say, well, let's talk about this, and then we'll move on. Well, I think that's pretty clear. How much do you listen to music at home? And what music do you listen to all the time. My husband is one of those characters you would love him. By the way, is next time we talk, I want

him to be a part because he is. He goes back to the sixties. He's got a record collection unlike anyone I know, and he loves every single thing. And he knows more about music from the Easty Boys to the Birds. I mean, he is all in and he'll play something for me and I'll be like, oh my god, I had no idea. He played Blackbird for me and I went, huh, what the heck. He's a rock and roll genius when it comes to history, and he is

a maverick when it comes to music. So he's always playing stuff in the car and I'm always going who is that? Who is that? Who is that? And he lets me know that who's the character on Yellowstone that we just discovered the young the young kid who's playing and selling out everywhere. Zach Zach. Yeah he turned me on. Yeah, he just turned me on to Zach Brian. So he's always at the forefront and he's always bringing me behind him with grabbing my hands saying, here, we're gonna go

see this person. We're gonna go see this person. It was his idea of too for me to meet Robert were so here we are, you know, and now we're besties. Um. And he the way he texted me back within ten minutes, he most most people don't do that. Um. So I'm I listen to music so much. I'm more immersed in it than I've ever been. I will tell you straight up. I am an artist, not a celebrity. Some people are

famous for being famous. I am not. I am in it because I want to play these small We're playing small places as well as the big places this year. I'm not just one of those that I won't play it if it doesn't have three thousand seats. I will play green Hall every single time they invite me. In Austin, Texas. Okay, other than your property, are there any other luxuries, whether it be cars, flying, private clothes, jewelry, any other way? You say, Yeah, I got money, I'd like to do

it this way. You are so funny. You know what. I like to buy tractors. I'm working on a deal with t SC. So let me just tell you straight up. I don't do I don't fly privately and less it's offered to me or I go in with somebody. Um. I don't buy a lot of cars. I haven't driven in a while because of the pandemic. I now am driven because I don't know. I just like to sit in the back and call people and talk on the phone. Um luxuries. No, I don't wear jewelry because I'm a

guitar player. I've been playing since I was eight years old, so that's fifty years. I've been playing guitar and getting away with it. And I don't really buy a lot of clothes. If you look at most of my videos, it's like, oh, she's wearing the same thing over and over and over and over and over. I won't say that I don't care, but I think I probably should more now when it comes to hair, I think if I spend anything, I spend lots of money on extensions

and sparkles. That's the first time. It's the first time I've ever said the word extensions. I'm gonna let that lie good for you. Tell me about two tingle moments meeting people. Oh my gosh. Well, the first one was for me President Reagan, because he was my very first president that I met, and I was like, oh my god, this is like a movie. And I was just enamored with the whole way that things were done back then.

You know, everything was such a big deal, and the Secret Service and performing for him and going through the the whole thing that I had to go through to perform. That was number one, uh President's stuff. And then Super Bowl when they whisk you out and you have thirty seconds to get out there, do your thing and get the heck out of dodge. That's pretty tingly, you know, because you have only a certain amount of time to get your stuff done. Um, let's see, I bungee jumped.

That was exciting about that. Well, when I went solo, I took my whole band and we've bungee jumped at one of those what do you call those things sa Flags. I think it was at a six Flags. We had just done a show and I was like, we're in between Remember when we used to do two shows a night.

By the way, hello, we were doing two shows that night and I had time in between shows, and so I took everybody and said, whoever will bungee jump gets a hundred bucks, and I just I just remember that being a real moment for me because it was listen, I was single, I was rich, I was young, and I was in control, or so I thought, ha ha ha, big joke. But I remember thinking I am free, and so bungee jumping represented being free to me. It was one of the most terrifying things I've ever done, and

I'll never do it again. But are you that much of a risk taker? Definitely? So I think that's why I drove mother so crazy. Give me a couple of other examples. Oh, you know, buying houses with cash, um, picking the wrong guy to marry and ending up almost broke. Um. Oh, you name it. I think I've done it, dude. I think I've done some really stupid stuff and live to write about it. It's in my book. I talk about it very openly because I know that in our failures,

that's how we learn to set boundaries. And I have really good boundaries now, better than I did anyway. But generally speaking, are you impulsive? Yes, I'm so impulsive that my assistant locks the doors because she knows I'll jump out and run up and and knock on somebody's door. And you think I'm kidding, I will do it. I think that's because everybody's so freaking serious. I'm so tired

of everybody being so unhappy. I just want people to have some joy, you know, And if I can bring joy to somebody, I will, I will walk over to somebody. I did this the other day. Somebody was singing karaoke in a bar and somebody called me and said, they're doing your song and they really suck. And I said, give me give her the phone and I face timed her and she looked at me like I was an alien. And I loved it so much. I was like, let's do that again. Now. I love doing stuff like that.

And you obviously have this new record on the anti you're working on, but anything looking out the front window of the of life that you would like to accomplish in the time you have left. I want to, like John Lennon said, I just want to be remembered for being a good person, because I think this business is really hard and sometimes it takes the joy out of us. And you know what I want to do. I want to be self sufficient on the farm. I love, love, love the idea of growing my own food, and who

knows what will come of it. I'd like to have concerts on the farm. I'd love to invite the fans out for a fish fry and do their own fishing. I would like to get back down to re reel. I want real more than anything in this life. I want real. I think the business is incredibly fake sometimes with all the filters and the eyebrows are perfect and everything's in place, it's hard to believe anymore what's real.

So whatever I can do to be real. If I can start opening up the farm and doing concerts around the lake, come on, let's do it. I might even invite you. Well, it certainly sounds great. Shy of that, as we're in the middle of winter. Anything we didn't talk about that, you feel your fans need to know where you want to get off your chest or want to illuminate m hmm. Interesting timing that question is very interesting.

I had to cancel um a performance the other night because my body just said, you know what, no is a complete sentence. And of course, you know, things go viral and people talk and they wonder and they worry, and people are saying, oh, she just doesn't look well and is she okay? And I will tell you straight up, not only am I okay, I'm doing better than I actually thought I would be doing at this point in this process. I've got an incredibly strong will and an

incredible faith. Now I get hopeless, and I do have days where I just feel like, oh my god, I don't have the answer, and that's just part of it. But I would tell my fans that I'm in a process, and that process can be trusted, whether it's a doctor or a lawyer. Uh send lawyer, guns and money. UM. I want to be honest with fans and tell them that I struggle some days with feeling like it's too much. You know, this tour is a big tour, and I have to show up and kind of act like I

know what I'm doing. By the way, and I'm also the hostess for Ashley McBride and Brandy and Little Big Town and it's gonna be a lot. But I'm telling the fans everywhere I go, don't worry about me. You can pray for me. Um oh, you can see yourself and me. I'm struggling at times, I'm broken and I'm blessed. On that note, I think we've come to the end of the feeling. We've known, we've covered it. Why I want to thank you so much for taking the time

and being so honest and open and real. As you said, well, my life depends on it, so you're welcome until next time. This is Bob left sets h