Wynonna Judd

She's honest, real and articulate. You want to listen to this, whether you're a fan or not!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is the one and only why Noona Judd,
which thanks the first question. I always thought it was Winona?
Is it Winona or why Nona? Seriously, it's what okay?

(00:30):
I I heard that the inspiration was the song Rude
sixty six. Is that true? It is true that it's
the Root sixties six. I was named after Whynny Harris Um,
a black blues man, and Ray Benson gave me my
name back when I was twelve or thirteen. Okay, how

(00:55):
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

(01:17):
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

(01:39):
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

(02:02):
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,

(02:23):
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

(02:46):
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.

(03:10):
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,

(03:31):
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,

(03:52):
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,

(04:19):
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

(04:41):
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

(05:01):
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,

(05:21):
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

(05:42):
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?

(06:03):
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.

(06:27):
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,

(06:50):
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.

(07:11):
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

(07:33):
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,

(07:53):
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

(08:14):
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.

(08:35):
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

(08:57):
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

(09:21):
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

(09:43):
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

(10:05):
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

(10:26):
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

(10:47):
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

(11:07):
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

(11:29):
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.

(11:52):
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

(12:14):
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.

(12:35):
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,

(13:02):
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.

(13:26):
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

(13:47):
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

(14:08):
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

(14:29):
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

(14:52):
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,

(15:13):
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.

(15:36):
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

(15:59):
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,

(16:21):
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

(16:43):
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,

(17:06):
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?

(17:30):
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

(17:50):
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

(18:12):
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

(18:32):
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,

(18:53):
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.

(19:16):
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

(19:40):
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

(20:02):
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

(20:22):
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

(20:46):
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

(21:06):
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

(21:28):
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

(21:50):
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

(22:11):
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.

(22:34):
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

(22:54):
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

(23:17):
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

(23:37):
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

(24:00):
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

(24:21):
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

(24:48):
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,

(25:12):
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

(25:33):
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.

(25:55):
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,

(26:16):
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,

(26:40):
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

(27:01):
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

(27:21):
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,

(27:44):
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

(28:08):
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

(28:29):
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.

(28:50):
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

(29:10):
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,

(29:31):
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

(29:53):
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

(30:16):
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

(30:38):
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

(30:58):
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

(31:22):
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

(31:44):
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

(32:04):
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

(32:30):
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.

(32:57):
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

(33:18):
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

(33:39):
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

(34:01):
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

(34:23):
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

(34:43):
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

(35:04):
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

(35:28):
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

(35:50):
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

(36:12):
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

(36:32):
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,

(36:55):
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

(37:18):
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

(37:39):
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

(38:04):
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

(38:25):
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.

(38:45):
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

(39:08):
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

(39:31):
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

(39:52):
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

(40:14):
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

(40:37):
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

(41:01):
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

(41:23):
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.

(41:46):
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

(42:08):
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

(42:31):
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.

(42:56):
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,

(43:19):
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

(43:40):
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,

(44:04):
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

(44:24):
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

(44:48):
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

(45:11):
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

(45:33):
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,

(46:00):
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

(46:21):
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

(46:46):
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

(47:10):
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,

(47:32):
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?

(47:54):
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

(48:15):
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.

(48:38):
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

(48:59):
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,

(49:24):
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.

(49:45):
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,

(50:09):
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

(50:33):
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

(50:55):
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

(51:15):
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?

(51:36):
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

(51:56):
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.

(52:22):
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

(52:43):
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

(53:04):
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

(53:26):
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

(53:46):
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

(54:08):
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

(54:30):
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

(54:51):
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

(55:12):
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

(55:34):
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

(55:54):
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

(56:16):
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

(56:38):
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

(56:58):
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

(57:25):
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

(57:45):
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

(58:09):
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

(58:33):
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

(58:59):
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

(59:21):
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.

(59:42):
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

(01:00:05):
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

(01:00:26):
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

(01:00:46):
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,

(01:01:09):
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

(01:01:29):
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

(01:01:52):
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,

(01:02:15):
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,

(01:02:39):
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.

(01:03:02):
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

(01:03:22):
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

(01:03:44):
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

(01:04:06):
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,

(01:04:26):
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

(01:04:49):
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

(01:05:13):
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,

(01:05:37):
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,

(01:06:08):
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,

(01:06:30):
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

(01:06:54):
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

(01:07:16):
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,

(01:07:40):
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

(01:08:02):
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

(01:08:22):
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

(01:08:46):
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

(01:09:06):
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,

(01:09:27):
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

(01:09:50):
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

(01:10:15):
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

(01:10:36):
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

(01:10:56):
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

(01:11:17):
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

(01:11:40):
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.

(01:12:01):
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

(01:12:24):
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,

(01:12:44):
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

(01:13:07):
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

(01:13:31):
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

(01:13:53):
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,

(01:14:15):
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

(01:14:37):
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

(01:14:58):
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,

(01:15:20):
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

(01:15:42):
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

(01:16:04):
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

(01:16:26):
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

(01:16:49):
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?

(01:17:09):
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?

(01:17:35):
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

(01:17:57):
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.

(01:18:19):
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

(01:18:45):
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.

(01:19:07):
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

(01:19:28):
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

(01:19:50):
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

(01:20:13):
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

(01:20:34):
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,

(01:20:55):
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

(01:21:15):
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

(01:21:37):
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

(01:21:59):
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.

(01:22:21):
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.

(01:22:43):
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,

(01:23:04):
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

(01:23:27):
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

(01:23:47):
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.

(01:24:07):
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

(01:24:35):
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

(01:24:55):
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,

(01:25:17):
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

(01:25:40):
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,

(01:26:00):
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

(01:26:28):
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,

(01:26:49):
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

(01:27:10):
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

(01:27:32):
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

(01:27:53):
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,

(01:28:13):
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,

(01:28:34):
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?

(01:28:59):
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

(01:29:23):
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

(01:29:45):
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

(01:30:07):
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

(01:30:30):
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

(01:30:50):
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

(01:31:14):
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

(01:31:34):
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.

(01:32:00):
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.

(01:32:22):
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

(01:32:44):
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,

(01:33:05):
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,

(01:33:26):
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

(01:33:46):
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

(01:34:08):
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

(01:34:29):
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

(01:34:50):
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,

(01:35:11):
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

(01:35:31):
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

(01:35:53):
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

(01:36:15):
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,

(01:36:41):
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,

(01:37:02):
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.

(01:37:25):
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?

(01:37:45):
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

(01:38:06):
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

(01:38:26):
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

(01:38:48):
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,

(01:39:11):
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

(01:39:34):
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

(01:39:57):
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

(01:40:20):
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

(01:40:43):
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

(01:41:03):
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

(01:41:24):
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.

(01:41:47):
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.

(01:42:09):
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

(01:42:29):
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.

(01:42:51):
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

(01:43:11):
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

(01:43:32):
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

(01:43:54):
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

(01:44:14):
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

(01:44:36):
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

(01:44:58):
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,

(01:45:23):
my life depends on it, so you're welcome until next time.
This is Bob left sets h