Wynonna Judd

Wynonna Judd rose to fame as one half of the Judds, establishing herself among the era’s most admired and commercially successful women in country music. Working independently from the early 1990s onward, she pursued an increasingly wide-ranging style that puzzled many traditional country listeners and programmers while still sustaining a devoted following. Across her solo releases she sometimes stayed close to the country-pop sound associated with the Judds, yet at other times explored roots rock, blues, gospel, adult-contemporary pop, folk, and Southern R&B.

Born Christina Ciminella in Ashland, Kentucky, on May 30, 1964, she entered the world while her mother, then known by her birth name Diana, was still in high school; her biological father left almost at once. Diana soon married Michael Ciminella, forming a conventional household that relocated to Los Angeles in 1968 before the union dissolved in 1972. Wynonna experienced periods on welfare during the next several years, then returned to Kentucky with her mother in 1976. The pair settled in a remote mountain house lacking both telephone and television, where country radio became their chief entertainment. After receiving a guitar as a gift, Wynonna taught herself to play and began harmonizing closely with her mother; by her mid-teens her vocal ability was unmistakable. In 1979 the family moved to Nashville to pursue a music career, and in 1983 Naomi and Wynonna secured a contract with RCA. Through the rest of the decade they became the best-selling duo in country history, a distinction later claimed by Brooks & Dunn. Less driven by ambition than her mother, who largely managed the act, Wynonna grew increasingly restless until Naomi received a hepatitis C diagnosis in 1990 and retired after a farewell tour the following year.

Initially uncertain about continuing alone, Wynonna soon launched a solo career and signed with MCA. Her self-titled debut appeared in 1992, quickly selling more than three million copies, topping the country chart, reaching the pop Top Five, and drawing strong critical praise. The first three singles—“She Is His Only Need,” “I Saw the Light,” and “No One Else on Earth”—all reached number one on the country chart, while “My Strongest Weakness” climbed to the Top Five. The 1993 follow-up Tell Me Why also achieved platinum status and topped the country chart while landing in the pop Top Five; its five additional Top Ten singles included the title track, “Only Love,” “Girls with Guitars,” “Rock Bottom,” and “Is It Over Yet.” Career momentum faltered, however, when tabloids reported that Wynonna, like her mother before her, was expecting a child outside marriage, prompting criticism from some conservative fans who viewed her as an unsuitable role model.

She married the child’s father, Nashville businessman Arch Kelly, in 1996, the same year she issued her third album, Revelations. This more reflective project yielded the number-one single “To Be Loved by You” and eventually earned platinum certification, though no further Top Ten hits followed. For the next release, 1997’s The Other Side, she shifted toward a blues-inflected, rock-oriented roots blend frequently compared with Bonnie Raitt’s work; the album reached the country Top Five yet became her first solo project not to sell a million copies. She subsequently left MCA for Mercury. By then the mother of two children, she saw her marriage end in 1998. Rather than issue another solo album immediately, she rejoined her mother for a New Year’s Eve concert that ushered in 2000. A full tour followed later that year, and four new Judds recordings appeared on a bonus disc packaged with Wynonna’s Mercury debut, New Day Dawning. Co-produced by Judd herself and her most stylistically varied effort to date, the set included covers of Joni Mitchell and the Fabulous Thunderbirds; although it generated no major singles, it again entered the country Top Five.

She returned to country material with 2003’s What the World Needs Now Is Love, which featured a reunion with her mother on the track “Flies on the Butter.” The live collection Her Story: Scenes from a Lifetime, issued in both CD and DVD formats in 2005, peaked at number two on the Top Country Albums chart. Just in time for the holidays the next year she released the seasonal album Classic Christmas. In 2009 she issued Sing: Chapter 1, an album of covers and standards.

The Judds reunited in 2010, issuing the single “I Will Stand by You” on October 4. After a farewell tour the following year, Wynonna published her first novel, Restless Heart, through NAL. A six-episode reality series titled The Judds aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network in April, followed in May by the single “Love It Out Loud.” In November she and her new band, Wynonna & the Big Noise—whose members included her husband, drummer and producer Cactus Moser—made their concert debut in Nashville. The band’s first single, “Something You Can’t Live Without,” arrived in 2013, marking Judd’s initial new solo material in four years. That same year she appeared on albums by Willie Nelson and Colt Ford and competed on Dancing with the Stars. After another extended hiatus, the full-length Wynonna & the Big Noise, produced by Moser, was released in February 2016 by Curb Records.