Wynonnna - CMC Rocks The Hunter02.27.2012“I think because it’s my first time, I want to be written about for years to come,” she told Capital News. “I want to make such a ruckus that they go, ‘oh my gosh, we have to have her back because she’s so much fun’.”
Wynonna Judd’s career is littered with accolades, from her time as a teen traveling around America with mother Naomi as one half of The Judds, to her impressive solo career which followed.
There’s no questioning Wynonna’s credentials. The Judds are considered one of the most successful country duos of all time, amassing some 60 awards and selling more than 20 million albums.
Since going solo in 1992, following Naomi’s health problems, Wynonna has sold another 10 million albums and is constantly on demand.
In 2010 Wynonna and Naomi reunited on stage for a final Judds tour, dubbed, The Final Encore.
In the lead-up to the tour, their first in 10 years, the pair was filmed for a docu-series which aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network in the States. The series finale was declared the highest-rating program to air on the network.
There have been many well documented ups and downs throughout Wynonna’s 28-year career – many of which were publicly aired during her 18 appearances on Oprah Winfrey’s famous talk show – but she is a survivor and says she is now ready for the next step, international success.
So why has it taken so long to finally come to Australia?
“Life gets in the way,” she said. “You get so successful over here and become so busy – I’m booked like six months to a year in advance – and I get so hell bent on what’s in front of me, my destination, and of where I’m going tomorrow that I think it just got put over to the side.
“I just became overcome with opportunities here and I got so carried away and then I stopped and I thought, ‘you know what: I’m ready to go global’. And it’s not arrogance; it’s just the confidence of being at my age. When I was 25, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know whether I would have had the guts to come to Australia. I didn’t know that I had the guts to be here, so I think at 47 I’m ready to broaden my horizons.”
Despite years on the stage, Wynonna said the buzz of performance and nervous energy still got her blood racing.
“From the time I can remember I have an imprint on my brain that when it comes time for the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, I’m looking for exits,” she said. “I just have this overwhelming desire to run and I think it’s like that wild horse… I just feel like I want to break out because I’m such a free spirit.
“I don’t ever want to lose that feeling. I would be so bored. I think you never really get over that if you’re really interested in being your best and being in the moment.
“It’s such a moment. It’s like the Olympics. Now. You have to be excellent right this minute – go! What the heck am I going to do? I want to run. I want to cry, I want to go home, I want to be comfortable. I don’t want to be in this uncertain moment, but there’s something so powerful about that moment that once you jump off – it’s like bungee jumping – you just freefall. It’s the jumping off that’s the hardest. The rest they say is easy.”
Wynonna said much had changed in the music business since she and her mother started out in the 1980s.
“There were certain things that were very instant and some things we had to earn,” she said. “What people don’t know, who haven’t read the book or seen the movie, we had to work a year – back in the day we call it.
“We did not have the internet, we did not have YouTube, we did not have American Idol, we did not have all of the things that you can look at and go ‘wow’. We had a car, a driver and we would visit three to five radio stations a day to shake hands, to sing live on the air – which, by the way you don’t hear much any more.
“When I grew up in this business we didn’t have hairdressers, we didn’t have wardrobe assistants and designers. You know what we had … spandex. We didn’t have all of the comforts and ‘oh so and so’s flying in on their private jet’. What are you talking about, private jet? We had American Airlines and we got on the plane like everybody else – we just didn’t have the luxuries that we have today.”
Aside from spandex, Wynonna also had her mother by her side for the first stint of her career, something which at the time cramped her style, but she now keeps in complete perspective and is thankful for.
“We went from welfare to millionaire and spending the night in the Caesar’s Palace Casino opening for Merle Haggard with about $250 to $300 allowance and I’m all of a sudden America’s darling and I feel like I just won the lottery, but you know what I had which some people don’t have…you know how your mum looks at you with that, ‘I brought you in and I can take you out’ … that’s what I had,” Wynonna said.
“I’m the lead singer – I’m all that by the way – and my mother’s going, ‘no you’re not’, and she’s saying, ‘don’t you dare be late’, and I’m like, ‘I’m a rock star, excuse me’, and she’s like, ‘no, you’re my daughter and I’ll take you back to the mountain and you’re grounded’, and I was like, ‘you can’t ground me, I’m the lead singer’.
“It’s really a funny story because I was so successful and yet I’m like, ‘yes ma’am’. I was a kid and I had no clue and thank God I had my mother because it kept me out of rehab. I was very lucky and yet I cursed it every day. We’ve done tours now after she retired and I’m grateful and I thank God every day for her healing, I also have a daughter and paybacks are hell.”
On Christmas Eve last year Wynonna became engaged to boyfriend Cactus Moser of country band Highway 101.
