Being inducted into the Grand Ole Opry is a bucket list item for country singers, and now Chris Young knows what it feels like.
The “Losing Sleep” singer was inducted into the Opry Tuesday night (Oct. 17). Young’s parents, grandfather and many friends were there, and he got a standing ovation as Brad Paisley handed him the statue to commemorate the honor.
“This is a really big deal,” Paisley told an emotional Young. “You are a part of something that’s living and breathing. You will have a home on this stage the rest of your life.”
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Backstage before he was inducted, Young traced his memories of the Opry back to when he was four or five, listening to the show on the radio with his grandfather and inspiring his love of country music in the process. He attend his first Opry show just a few years later, recalling special memories like when he got to give flowers to Loretta Lynn and the night he made his own debut. He got lost backstage that night and didn’t know how to find the stage when it was time for him to perform.
But the impact of his formal induction into the Opry hit the singer when he was sitting on the bus with his band, reminiscing about the times they played the most deplorable bars and how he would soon be a member of country music’s most hallowed institution. “The only way that I know how to make anybody understand what the level of meaning that is, at least to me, is there’s some other things that I can think of as a bucket list as an artist you could put up in that level, maybe …” Young says.
“Is there anything that I feel like I could put over this for relevance and the mount of how big an honor it is to be asked to be a member of the Grand Ole Opry? No,” he adds humbly. “I’ve watched people that I look up to play that stage and know how important it is.”
Young — who won the reality show Nashville Star in 2006 — admires the Opry’s connection to history and how it unites the future with the past. “I got started really, really early as far as having a respect for country music and not only what I was currently hearing on the radio, but what had come before that,” he explains. “I felt really, really lucky the more I got into country and started playing shows to actually know that and have that love for it and it’s one of the reasons that this is such a big honor for me. You get a glimpse of kind of all sides and all parts of country music in every show at the Opry and one that’s one of the reasons that I love it.”
Young got to perform on Tuesday, too, singing a medley of his hits in addition to covers of Marty Robbins’ “Devil Woman” and “When You Say Nothing at All” by Keith Whitley.
“Chris is one of those people that will make the most of this,” Paisley said as he honored Young onstage. “You are a great guy, I say that with all my heart. This is a great human being, that’s what the Opry needs — it needs people like Chris Young.”
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This Article Was Originally Posted at www.TasteofCountry.com
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