Trisha Yearwood - Homecoming Special

I knew from the minute I can remember anything that I wanted to be a singer and the guitar gave her the ability to pick out anything she wanted to sing you'd go to church on Sunday and Shirley Jones would be there Wow she does have some voice there I talked my parents into going to Nashville for a vacation but my ulterior motive was to meet these people who were gonna make me a star at 15 years old that was in my head I don't care if we don't have $5,000 you know sell the house we have to do this cuz that's what I wanted to do I can just remember hearing that voice and tears come with demise because I thought she's really done it monticello will always be home and I'm proud to be from here she's married that boys I was born in Monticello Georgia Jasper County population 2,500 when you see shows on television that portray family and community and you think there's no place like that in the world there's no Andy Griffith there's no Waltons and that doesn't exist it does and this is a town that's just like that I liked everything about growing up here I liked how small it was you just knew everybody and there was a great sense of community because of that it was also the thing that I liked the least how small it was I had this goal to be in the music industry and to be a singer is such a huge dream I knew somewhere deep inside nobody's gonna find me here I'm gonna have to find them now you got to understand that the city for ourselves a very very special place we have great southern hospitality our people are so warm and genuine and friendly we still kind of have it all so southern habit southern manners if you will the weather is beautiful here well there's always lovely it's just an exciting place to be is it we're home this is that's always always feel good to be here whether I was coming home from college coming home from being on the road it's just a good thing Monticello is named after Jefferson's home the most people that would be Monticello but it's Monticello to us and we like to say that we have just southern eyes Monticello and call it Monticello this is our town square you can get your marriage license or driver's license you can get flowers you can get genes for work and get a good haircut get everything you need right here the square was sort of the place to hang out if you were up to no good or basically for kids who didn't have to be home by a certain time which wasn't me I was never up here I didn't hang up here I was a good girl you believe that this is the Dairy Queen famous for lots of things we've been selected the cleanest air acquainting Georgia famous for having to be the place where you have to go get your keep you check into the Munsell motel if you don't get into a twelve o'clock I don't know what you do because the dickweed closes fear also famous for being a hang out after school and for me famous for the fact that my grandmother worked here which was not cool cuz when I would come here after school she would decide whether I could have ice cream or not would you like a dip calm not cool this is Jasper Memorial Hospital the birthplace that Patricia Lanier would it's also the place where I had my stomach pumped when I was two for eating a really pretty red mushroom out of the front yard i crown the right is my church that i was baptized in and I'm still a member of the Monticello first United went to lots of Bible schools there this is the Bank of Monticello my dad worked there for I want to say close to 30 years that's the Tillman house Tillman house is the best restaurant on the planet I love their fried chicken I love their mashed potatoes let the cornbread is all good I'll just go down here and turn around cuz nothing more to say it's all very quick ticket for me as a child your world is where you live in a small town there wasn't a lot of need to go beyond the city limits and so I didn't know there was anything past the city limit sign for a long long time then when I realized there was stuff past the city limits I did know how to get there we moved from the big town out to the country two miles outside the city limits when I was six my house is very special to me that I grew up in because I really say that my dad built that house we started on it in the fall of 69 we moved in in December of 1970 so we've been out here nearly 35 years now I like going back home there and knowing that he built that porch and he laid those bricks and he helped do this that house will be long-standing after all of us are gone because my dad made it if he makes something it's gonna stay for a long time and I like that there's something really stable about going home - how she grew up and it's still being there I'm so glad that my mom and dad still live here I mean a lot of people when they grow up and go off to college their parents move so yeah this is always home good to see you good to see you I remember music in my house from the moment I can remember anything my parents had a great love of music the only way to have half music was your own you sing along with the radio well we had an AM radio in the car and it only reached so many miles so when we traveled from what I sell it to South Georgia you had to pick up what little stations you could now Tricia will say we're not singing here woods but but we did do a lot of gospel music country music just for our own pleasure my dad was a county agent but he also calls square dances so he had this record player with a microphone and he had at least 45s he had these great records so the first music that I remember listening to were those 45s that they had and I remember when I heard Elvis for the first time being mesmerized by his voice he had this magical voice I remember writing in a letter when I was about six and I think I asked him to marry me but he didn't write me back I knew from the minute I can remember anything that I wanted to be a singer and that was the kind of artist I wanted to be this is it this is the bedroom I don't remember when I got my own room I think it was on Beth went off to college but this was my room this was where I played my Linda Ronstadt records until I was blue in the face this was that I did everything I played sports and I was involved in school activities but music was what I always knew I wanted to do I mean always this was a really prized possession I got an eight-track player for Christmas one year and my dad made the cabinet for it and um and I had on my favorite eight Tracy I got Linda Ronstadt and George Jones and a little bit of everything back in the day you could get records off the cereal box this is the Archies and um I can't I think it's hey sugar sugar maybe but anyway it played pretty good but it was off my cereal box I love music since I was five but probably about 14 I discovered Linder on set and when I discovered her I decided that's who I wanted to be and I loved her because it sounded like country music to me but it had something else it had steel and pedal on all the cuts but it has an edge to it then I left and she had this huge voice and I just all these posters on the wall were ones that I got in various places and hung up and you know just a preteen and teenagers idea of funny inspiring silly cool it's more hunger it's the hang I always like that one says I'm afraid of tomorrow and then down here it's Jesus saying don't worry I've been there before I really wanted to be a singer and I I really was afraid I wasn't gonna be able to when you're a kid and you don't know how to go about making your dreams come true it just um those were inspiring to me at that time and still are I think I knew even then that she was very talented oh we know man we had a friend told us about a man who had a little recording studio in a trailer I think it was the first time that I thought there might be you know a chance CMT is about education was number one with Jack and me about girls and so when I was in the third grade we joined with about a hundred other families and built a school I mean literally built the school Piedmont Academy Peyman Academy was built in 1970 I think I would have been five years old six years old almost I do remember the bricks going up I remember that the second grade teacher had a daughter who's my age and she and I would run through the school and play like remember our parents up here laying blocking actually constructing the grounds are working on the building everybody sort of brought their skills to the table whatever they did I know how to do wiring so I'll do this or I know how to lay brick I'll do this it was built on the premise of education we want quality teachers for our children that's what this Google was Piedmont had a very family type atmosphere there were small classes all the students were very close to each other it was like a family most people talked about going to their highschool reunions and I'm like how big is your class Oh 300 people I'm like that's that's why a--let's ridiculous I can't imagine there were 300 people in my school K through 12 you everybody says when I go home everything feels smaller but this still feels really big I've been to every graduation since I was in the first grade through 12th grade cuz my mom was school teacher so we had to be here lots of basketball games I think the first time I was on this stage was in the fifth grade I remember being Dorothy and Christmas and Oz land I'm sure my face was red and everything I did because I was always just so self-conscious and I feel better now my other impressions of Trisha were really just being one of the gang and fitting in and being well-rounded just spending a lot of extracurricular activities I remember she was on the softball team and she was a water girl for the football team she was an editor of our yearbook she was in the trio for Piedmont for literary and she sang in youth groups there's quite a lot that Tricia was involved in it said annual staff one two three four retrospect editor for newspaper staff two three four there weren't very many people in the school so you needed a yearbook staff you needed a student council you needed you know all these clubs and so yeah everybody sort of was involved in everything junior Beta Club one Beta Club two three four she was a member of the key Wynette's statistician - I think she was involved in everything that we had to offer frankly she was most likely to succeed most intelligent and most talented for in a small town if you were musically inclined the choices were to lead the church choir or to teach music but as an aspiring singer it was very limiting to me and I was an A student so I think most people thought she'll go on to get her degree and show teach but I didn't want to be a teacher I didn't want to lead the church choir and I remember thinking I can't have this desire so strongly and not be able to do it and I remember praying about it and saying God if I can't do this if this is not gonna work out for me then make me want to do something else give me the passion to do something else and I'll go do that but the drive never went away and there was never anything else that I wanted to do and so I felt like well that means this is what I'm supposed to do and I'm gonna find the way to do it when I was 14 I had a bum foot I was on crutches for a while so I couldn't go out and play I couldn't do very much and that summer we had a youth leader who came and she had a guitar she was just very kind to me she gave me lessons basically to that point we've been singing in choirs and she's been singing probably with maybe the music chorus at school that kind of thing always group singing and typically with piano accompaniment or something like that and the guitar gave her the ability to just pick out anything she wanted to sing this is late seventies early 80s there aren't very many Donna Summer songs you could play on acoustic guitar you know he just I like I know all the words to hot stuff but I couldn't play it on my guitar so I gravitated towards songs that I could figure out the chords too and I would just play the records and figure out what the chords weren't and close enough that I could sing the songs and those songs ended up being Linda Ronstadt Emmylou Harris Carole King so it opened up a whole new world for me to be able to play that guitar daddy loves country music he loves to hear me sing he loves to hear me sing with my sister no one would ever have described Trisha as pushy at all about her talent in fact daddy would have to sort of nudge her a little bit and serve insist sometimes to get her to sing when they folks were at town we always looked for songs that had a pretty good harmony all the way through we had a four or five song repertoire there was a Linda Ronstadt song called I never will marry that was our standard do it they say then was a gentle thing but it's only caused me pain for the only man I it's gone on Andre I never will marry I'll be no man's wife I expect to live sing all the days of my we had a friend mr. Jim Arnold he just really loved to hear our girls sing together he always talked about sibling harmony and he told us about a man here who had a little recording studio in a trailer mattresses on the walls you know for acoustics and that sort of thing and got him to do a tape of Tricia baby can't wait baby got to go got to do number on The Late Late Show do the song do little dance wants to make the best of her big chance it was magic it was like I'm recording my voice I'm hearing it and headphones for the first time and it sounds real it sounds professional it was the first time that I heard the potential I think it was the first time that I thought there might be you know a chance this gentleman Franklin Blanche knew someone at fireside studios in Nashville I talked my parents into going to Nashville for vacation I told how great it would be to go to Opryland but my ulterior motive was to meet these people who were gonna make me start at 15 years old that was in my head we just walked in like we belong there and we're very naive we were very naive early on they said she's great she's really great we think we can get her a record deal very quickly all you need to do is record her again here in Nashville because it needs to be professional and we need to get her something on tape that we could take around her record labels and it's only gonna cost you $5,000 and of course I'm like I don't care if we don't have $5,000 you know sell the house we have to do this cuz that's what I wanted to do we didn't feel like she was ready for anything like that we knew she was not ready to to leave home at the age of 14 or 15 and you know go to Nashville and get on the road as much as I'm saying you know I would have chucked it all I wasn't ready I would have been terrified at 15 if I'd gotten a record deal I've always admired her being her age being 15 and wanting to sing so badly and being in Nashville being in this guy's office and having him listening to her music of coming back home going back to school and you know being water girl and finishing high school and all the things that she did I think it probably speaks to how we were raised just keep singing and just look for the next opening the great thing that came of all that was this tape this reel-to-reel that I had of me singing it was just a real stepping stone for me because it was an encouragement that okay I can do this and I'm gonna make this happen Tricia's relationship with her daddy was very special she had her fun she loves him dearly always has he is a true example of the kind of person to be just like my father's uh a lot of people go through Monticello to go to other places most people on me if they know where it is they usually say I've been through they're going somewhere else it's a teenager everybody says there's nothing to do because they're really there truly wasn't I mean there wasn't a movie theater there wasn't a pizza place there wasn't anywhere to go I mean you had to go at least 30 miles to the nearest fast-food restaurant to the nearest movie theater and so was a teenager it was sort of limited it was like there's nothing to do here we had the Dairy Queen and we had a couple other places but other than that a lot of our fun was riding from one end of the town to the other end and then turning back around and going going back again my best friend Melinda her brother Todd had a cherry red 66 Mustang it was the baddest car on the planet I just fell in love with that car that became my dream car I heard about 66 Mustang that was baby blue and it was sitting in the front yard of a schoolteachers house and I'm sport and him had a learner's permit but I kept talking about it with my dad and talked about he says well we'll just go out there and talk to him and see if he's interested in selling it Tricia's relationship with her daddy was very special she loves him dearly always has and she was able to wrap him around her little finger and Jack knew the man who owned it and he bought it gave it to her I think you've had $800 for it and didn't run mice had eaten the seats it was a mess we spent probably as much money on it as we had paid to what we I say we he spend about as much money as he had paid for it to fix it up for me it was on the side of the road much more than it was on the road and it had a really bad transmission fluid leak and I would carry a case of transmission fluid in the backseat so it was not a great car for a kid but it was it was awesome I couldn't leave I had this car it wasn't the most dependable of vehicles but uh we look cool riding around in it and I think that's all that really mattered we would cram as many people as we could into it and it was really ridiculous because we would go to windi's a lot in Macon and usually I would have to call home and say I'm at Wendy's my girls start someone would have to come you know help me Macon was the place to go it had the malls and the movie theaters and you had more selection there that was a big deal for us because it's just nothing that we were used to here it was the closest thing to being anonymous and none of us knew what that was like because every store every place you go in this town everybody knows you we played the pranks when we're out got the last just typical teenager stuff I dare you to do this and I dare you to do that and of course you'd have to follow through so you could you know be the top man I loved that car I had to sell it when I went off to college because it wasn't reliable and it was it was just traumatic I didn't want to get rid of that car was the first thing that I bought when I had a hit record it was the first purchase I made was another Mustang another 66 you are pretty much known in Monticello by which church you go to if someone is running for office for example one of the first questions you'll be asked is well what church do you go to him oh well he goes to the Presbyterian Church so he's got the Presbyterians wrapped up you know that type attitude churches are very very I mean just a part of our lives well in my family there were some things you did and didn't do you went to church on Sunday mornings whether you wanted to or not there were lots of Sunday mornings I did not want to get up and go to church but I did both Beth and Tricia sang in the choir with me and they were Sopranos of course Tricia was singing in the cantata with us and she was singing a solo but they could not get her to sing loud enough and they kept prompting her to sing loud and she just wouldn't do it I did sing in the choir at church briefly but I didn't like all the really high-pitched stoic kind of stuff and most of the Christian music was just not my thing I was about 14 or 15 when Amy Grant came along and she was the first contemporary Christian artist that had cool records and she had a song cause eyes the words kind of have a double meaning because a daughter wants to be look really good in her earthly father's eyes but she especially wants to look good in her heavenly father's eyes and so it's a great song great song I may not be others dream for her little girl and my face may not grace the mind of everyone in the world that's all right as long as I can't have one wish I pray when people look inside my I'm a wine them say she's got her father's our fathers as if I find the source of help when help just can't be fine all eyes full of compassion see knowing what you're going to and feeling at the same I did it every father's day for several years and even now it's hard for me not to get emotional because I do have such a close relationship with my dad he is all of the things that you would aspire to be just like my father my father my father's just like my father's we had a Methodist minister who really enjoyed that song and I remember it very well what wanting to be an entertainer an artist is a big dream with no game plan the closest person to that in my life was Shirley Jones strangely enough her childhood friend lived here Betty Maxwell and she would always come here to sort of get away from the crazy life that she led it was such a relief it was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders when I came to visit Betty in Monticello and I still feel that and even as a kid I remember you know like during the Partridge Family years you know you'd go to church on Sunday and Shirley Jones would be there and it was just bizarre you know in a town like this that's something that would happen and this is how I got interested in Trisha was her singing in our Methodist Church and I thought my goodness what a voice and that's when I asked Trisha to come to my house one day and sing for Shirley so when Betty Maxwell calls me on the phone and says Shirley's over here and she wants you to come over and I want you to play her a couple songs you don't say no you say yes ma'am I'll be there in a few minutes and then you hang up and you know you begin to panic the thing that impressed me most is that she was not scared I mean she was right out there and she got a guitar out and she you know sometimes kids are a little you know frightened about doing that in front of people and she had none of that she was right out there and she took the guitar out she played and she's saying I don't remember what I sang for I remember you know playing a turn seeing and being bright red and that's about a lot I remember she had that certain thing that you don't see too often she knew who she was she had a lot of self presence and I turned to Betty and I said wow she does have some voice there when you have that and then you have the talent which is what she had it's a great combination she didn't say you're gonna be famous gonna be a big star you got everything ahead of you she didn't say that she said you have a great voice that's a wonderful thing but there are a lot of other elements to this business I think she was great she was very realistic with me she was the closest person that I could imagine that had any experience outside of these City Limits they could tell me anything that just continued to encourage me you know to go for it I spent a couple I wanted to go to Nashville immediately out of high school and I got scared I didn't want to go that far from home it was a six-hour Drive and it was forever away and I was just you know I didn't want to do it my sister had gone to Young Harris college which was in North Georgia it was about three hours away it was a two-year junior college so I got a two-year degree in business coming from the size a high school she did it was a perfect transition and many of those students go on to the University of Georgia so she tried the University of Georgia for a quarter it's 28,000 students I think it was huge and it was just overwhelming and I was a business major and I was miserable it was sort of I think following that logical path trying really hard to do the logical thing because again I had no idea how to be an entertainer I didn't know how to do it I could see myself singing on stage but I couldn't see how I got to the stage I couldn't figure that part out but I found out about Belmont College in Nashville which was a school that offered a music business program and I thought this is my shot I don't want to wake up in 20 years and wonder what would have happened if I would have gone in Nashville and so I applied to Belmont College and I said if I get accepted then that means I'm supposed to go there and I was supposed to do this and I got accepted and and I got to Belmont we were just a hundred percent behind her I don't think you can tell your child that they cannot do something that you feel they have their heart set on I think you need to support from the time they're little owned up love them encourage them support them guide them firmly and when they get ready to go turn them loose we let her follow her dreams they always felt like if she didn't didn't try it she'd never know whether she could have done it or not now I got to tell you when we left her at Belmont that January it was cold it was ice on the ground it was wet it was raining we walked a plank across a muddy ditch to get her in the dormitory we didn't know anybody in Nashville she knew nobody in Nashville another cousin not an uncle a lot of long-lost aunt I cried all the way home because here she was 300 miles from home and I had left her in this desolate place it's very scary to go to a new place anyway now I'm here in Nashville where nobody knows me at all I've got to earn everything that I get I've got to earn respect I've got to earn my ground people don't automatically assume well she's Jack and Gwen's daughter she's probably okay we'll give her a job cuz we you know that doesn't fly in a community where nobody knows you I became a music business major because I already had two years of business classes behind me I didn't want to be in college forever and it was the beginning of of my future because it was where I met songwriters it was where I met a songwriter introduced me to another songwriter who introduced me to camp Blasi who introduced me to Garth Brooks who introduced me you know it's just like a chain of events that happened over the course of the time that I was in college there in addition to going to college and working on the degrees she was getting to know the inner workings of the business and because she had a good voice and was a quick study she got work as a demo singer she wasn't an overnight success but by doing the demos people were hearing her voice these songs were coming across all the best desk friend Nashville what I remember about the early years the five or six years of national before I signed with MCA was calling home and it didn't matter if I had sung on a demo in somebody's attic for ten bucks that day or if I had done a local jingle for Goody's headache powder which I did they would always say you're gonna make it it's just a matter of time every conversation was encouragement when Tricia one where the Nashville people never stopped asking about her and everybody was always interested in anything she did you know we've been there with her from the very beginning and we loved keeping up with what she was doing and we said who she met lately oh she's met oh oh maybe she's met Garth Brooks oh she's met Reba McEntire oh well she tells all about him what does she have on and what does she look like is she really a neat lady or what I'm sure they're big fans all over the place but her biggest fans have got to be right here in this town because they wanted it for her before it happened I was 26 years old when I first album came out when she's in love with a boy came out and by 26 I knew exactly what I wanted to do musically I knew exactly the kind of things that were me and the things that weren't me and so everything happened when it was supposed to Katie sitting on a row from coach watching the chickens peck the ground there ain't a whole lot going on tonight in this one more stand over yonder coming up the road and a beat-up Chevy truck her boyfriend Tommy is laying on the horn splashing through the mud and the mud her daddy says he ain't worth a lick when it comes to brains he got the short end of the stick Katie's young and me she just don't care she Tommy she'sa she's a anyone if they have to run marry that boy son I can remember the first time she performed and of course it was a big deal here in Monticello there was chartered buses taking them to the venue in Atlanta where she was an opening act and they announced her and she comes out and I don't even recall the first song but I can just remember hearing that voice and tears coming to my eyes because I thought she's really done it she's a star my daddy said you wasn't worth a lick when it came to brains you got the short end of the stick he was wrong honey you are too Katie looks at Thomas every artist you talked to has a different story of how they made it the people that I needed to meet crossed my path and I do really believe that it was destiny I believe that this is what I was called to do what's meant to be will always find a way she's gonna marry that boy son for several years now I've wanted to find the hometown would die for Tricia there and needless to say Trisha has well remembered her hometown I've always felt that this whole hometown has rooted for me from day one every time I would come home there was a great welcome and if people knew I was coming home they'd paint the windows and around the square you drive up in the square and say welcome home Tricia if they found out there are a lot of businesses here that she'd signed an autograph fina for their business and it's proudly displayed in a prominent place either right by the door by the cash register as you walk in the back of the bank things like that people are very proud that she's from here and that they know her we were very proud that we Knight Latricia you would park away for her she's a very special sister I think they've enjoyed the success about as much as we have over here you can mention you from - Ellen themselves that's what Richie you would from she is a grand ambassador for the Seif Monticello she represents to us what we want people to think of when they think about small-town Georgia that's Trisha Yearwood and I broke my finger right after I got engaged so I had to speak splint on this finger which was not attractive and early on you know people would come up to me that I've known my whole life and say you probably don't remember me and I'm like well you taught me in the second grade miss Perry and I've known you my whole life and you know they expected that I would become successful and and forget where I came from and it took him a little while to learn that I was still gonna go to the grocery store and I was still gonna go to the gas station I will still go to church on Sunday when I come home nothing changes here and so they know now that that I'm just Trisha and that I just get to do something really cool for a living but then I'm the same you have to work tonight and you meet her you think you've known her forever and I think Monticello had a lot to do with that and I think that's why she enjoys coming back here well I think the person that I am now is very similar to the person that grew up here as you get older you sort of get back to what matters and here was such a sense of family a real sense of community a real sense of people matter more than things and I definitely feel that I take them with me or where I go I mean it doesn't matter where in the world I've been I'm still responsible to these people here I still feel that sense of responsibility and accountability she is a true Georgia girl she's true to her parents her her town she don't forget it and I don't think she ever will for several years now I've wanted to find a song about Georgia a song about home and when I heard Georgia rain I thought it was perfect it's the great story song like she's in love with a boy it's the great relationship song about young love and it happens in Georgia on a dirt road in the rain and it's a story it paints a picture this is the album where I pay tribute to this town this is where I thank them for all of their support over the years and this is where I tell them how much their support means to me teenage kids sneaking out again we were falling the moment when it all came pouring the Georgia as per cow couldn't wash away one just you and me down an older nothing in our way except for the Georgia rain you cotton fields remember when flash of lightning drover we were soaked down to the skin by the time we climbed inside and I don't remember what was pounding more heart in my chest the hood of that as a sky felling in the storm clouds poured worlds away outside the Georgia desper County clay couldn't wash away Oh we may there was a time when some time during the years when Trish she was doing demo work and beginning to get into the music business that she said I wonder if I'm a little too normal to be in country music or be in the music business there weren't any skeletons in the closet for anybody to fund there's always late you can never go back home but I think that's one thing that coming from on a cell in a small community that's one thing that Tricia has she has the ability to go back home Monticello will always be home anytime someone asked me where I'm from I'd say Georgia I'm from here and from Jasper County I'm proud to be from here and it will always be home the Georgia rain if the season

Channel: Pillsbury Giggles

Views: 186,381

Rating: 4.7716484 out of 5

Keywords: trisha yearwood, homecoming, special, biography

Id: MzNaPudr8sE

Length: 41min 12sec (2472 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 23 2013