The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Wynonna Judd is back, and ready to wow folks Gordy, Robinson honored at reunion of Motown stars
Wynonna Judd was almost late for her date to sing with Joni Mitchell. It was July 2022, and the country star had rented a yacht off the Rhode Island coast while she rehearsed for her idol’s first public performance since a 2015brain aneurysm. That Sunday afternoon, the captain struggled to find a dock, forcing Judd to race to the Newport Folk Festival. She arrived a minute before showtime, squeezed into a spot toward the rear of the onstage throng and sighed with relief. Maybe people wouldn’t know she was there. A dozen songs into the secret set, Mitchell began to purr “Both Sides Now,” the tune Judd — who with her mother, Naomi, made up one of Nashville’s most indelible duos — had sung during her debut performance, at eighth grade graduation. Cameras caught her over Mitchell’s right shoulder, often sobbing as she occasionally harmonized. Honest and unmitigated, the footage went viral. Everyone knew that Wynonna was there. “It flipped me like a pancake, man, everything coming out. I was such a beautiful little mess,” she said on a recent Saturday afternoon in Nashville. Last month, Wynonna Judd began what may prove the pivotal phase of putting the past to rest: the second leg of the Final Tour, a sweeping survey of the Judds’ bygone country supremacy, performed over 15dates across the United States. “It’s made me even more determined to be myself,” Wynonna said of her mother’s death. “It’s given me a louder voice. I want to do stuff that makes people say, ‘What are you doing?’” The Temptations, the Isley Brothers and the Four Tops turned back time, singing and dancing as if in their prime. The occasion was to honor Motown Records founder Berry Gordy and singer-songwriter Smokey Robinson for their musical achievements and philanthropic efforts as Musicares Persons of the Year on Friday night in Los Angeles. “When I first met this man it was the beginning of my dream come true,” Robinson told the crowd at the Los Angeles Convention Center. “I wanted to be a singer, I wanted to be in show business, I wanted to write songs and make music. I never thought it would be possible for me from where I grew up. But then I got there because I met Berry Gordy. He took me under his wing. He is my mentor.” Gordy later took the stage with Robinson to accept their awards. “I’m happy to be here with my best friend. Damn,” Gordy said.