I called my mom, and I was so excited. I was telling her, 'I'm going to be on the Grand Ole Opry! This is crazy!' And she told me, 'Watch out for Jimmy Dickens, because he likes the pretty girls.
Jimmy Dickens was the essence of country music and the heart of the Grand Ole Opry.
When I was growing up, Nashville was the place to go if you had songs to sell and thought you had talent and wanted to tour and be on Grand Ole Opry [radio show]. It was the big deal back in those days to play the Grand Ole Opry. And you could travel around the world saying, "Hi, I'm Willie from the Grand Ole Opry".
I came out the back of the building and I was hollering, 'I've sung on the Grand Ole Opry! I've sung on the Grand Ole Opry!'
The Grand Ole Opry was my favorite. That's when I got to discover the stuff inside the Grand Ole Opry, like Hank Williams' clothes, the dressing room Taylor Swift stayed in and some other things. Then I got to perform.
.. the Grand Ole Opry used to come on, and I used to watch that. They used to have some pretty heavy cats, heavy guitar players
Love makes you weak. This I know for sure. Mom loved Roger. Roger loved Mom.And look what happpened there. She died. She thought her love made her strong. She kept telling me-after she was diagnosed-she ket telling me, "I'm going to beat this Kyra. I'm going to come out of it. I love you and I love your father and that love is my strength. You're my strength.
A friend of mine told a story about a date with a guy she was really excited about: He stood her up. He then called her, begging her forgiveness and giving some excuse. She told him to get lost, telling him that he only gets one shot with her, and he blew it.
Backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, I got on my knees and told her that I was going to marry her some day. We were both married to someone else at the time. ‘Ring Of Fire’—June and Merle Kilgore wrote that song for me-that’s the way our love affair was. We fell madly in love and we worked together all the time, toured together all the time, and when the tour was over we both had to go home to other people. It hurt.
The Grand Ole Opry, to a country singer, is what Yankee Stadium is to a baseball player. Broadway to an actor. It's the top of the ladder, the top of the mountain. You don't just play the Opry; you live it.
The first time I remember going to Nashville was in 1971 back when 'Snowbird' was a hit and I performed at the Grand Ole Opry.
My mom is from Jamaica and she was going to school in the morning, and in the evening she was working, and at night she would go to night school and then come in and go to sleep. So she would never watch the news and stuff like that and she didn't know what crack was. She didn't know nothing about it, but when I told her I was selling crack, she threatened to kick me out of the house. And then I just started paying for stuff - paying her bills and giving her money, so she'd just tell me to be careful because there was nothing she could do to stop it.
My dream is to sing at the Grand Ole Opry.
I told my mom: I said, 'Mom, I'm going to try out for WWE.' Her response was, 'The heck you are!' She was like, 'You are not doing that!' So I had to try out without her knowing, but now she's, like, the biggest supporter and so proud of me.
My mother told me one day I walked in to her and said, 'Mom, I'm not going to be sick anymore,' and she said 'Why?' and I said 'Because an angel told me so.' Now, I don't remember saying it; that's just what she told me.
My mom is a Twilight fan as well and she's just as excited because she's read all the books so I think she wants to see it come alive just like anybody else. My parents supported me from the get-go, they are very supportive which a lot of people don't get. I told my dad I got the part before I told anyone else and he cried and he's so proud and he's so excited. I mean he's amazing and I'm so glad that he's going to sit beside me and go through all of that with me.
Where I grew up in St. Louis, Saturday was country music day on television. We'd watch the Bill Anderson show, the Willie Nelson show, the Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner show, and always the Grand Ole Opry. My parents were fans of that music, and my friend's parents would pull the TV out and watch those shows on the porch.