I had to go to all the way to New York City to find my country people.
One night a Judds song came on, I forget which one, and one of my new friends began singing along. There, I cultivated a new circle of friends, many of them also from Michigan. Like Naomi, I had persevered and made it out. I went off to college, got married (well, committed - same-sex marriage wasn’t yet legal in those days) and ended up in New York. When cancer visited one of my leg bones after my senior year in high school, I thought of Naomi and her hepatitis diagnosis. Naomi’s single motherhood, a nurse trying to score a recording contract, clicked with my view of my newly widowed mother, another country woman, trying to keep it together while still raising children. And would Ashley have made it in Hollywood without her mother’s support?Īs I grew older, the story of the Judds impressed me, and I saw bits of it in my own life. But without Naomi’s harmonies and stage presence, I doubt her daughter ever would have become the one-name star she is. Wynonna was clearly the bigger voice of the duo. For a lonely gay boy in the rural Midwest, they were a calling card, and a lifeline of sorts. But I still always think of my grandpa.)Īnd after my father died, I wanted to be at that breakfast table they sang about in “Love Is Alive,” soaking up all the love that sat there. (The song has since lost its luster for me a bit - the good old days weren’t really that good. When I was a preteen beginning to reckon with my sexuality and dealing with bullies, and the Judds sang “Mama He’s Crazy,” I understood the narrator’s insecurities - why would anyone want me?Īfter my grandfather died, I listened to “Grandpa” over and over, crying that he would no longer be able to tell me about the good old days, which he actually used to do. My first (and only) sighting of them is forever etched in my mind.Īfter word Saturday of Naomi’s death, I’m now realizing how much I’ve been through with them.
I’m not sure what it was, but for me and for most people, the chemistry between Naomi and Wynonna and the feelings they stirred inside the listener were almost tangible. Then, his mother calls to him: “Jeff, get in the car! It’s time to go.” Soon, though, a gentle strumming and Wynonna’s throaty voice carry to him: “I would whisper love so loudly, every heart could understand that love and only love can join the tribes of man.” Naomi, the mother of the duo and the de facto emcee, says something, but even amplified, her words float away in the hot August night. From this distance, illuminated by a spotlight, they are a blur of sparkling sequins and red hair. They step into view briefly, gliding on high heels to the edge of the grandstand stage. He is angling for a distant, and free, glimpse of Naomi and Wynonna Judd. Somewhere in Michigan in the early 1990s, a teenage farm boy clings to a chain-link fence at the edge of the county fairgrounds. Business & Finance Click to expand menu.