Wynonna Judd: No Chalk, Lots Of Talk

Wynonna photo courtesy of Curb Records.

Feb. 11, 2009 — Wynonna Judd dropped by Nashville’s Belmont University Monday night to deliver a bit of education to several hundred students and alumni of the school, noted for its music business program.

There were no conventional professor tools — no chalkboard, no overhead projector — but she did make a point of telling the students that they should seek out a mentor or an elder, someone who provides honest feedback, good or bad.

"I had a woman in my life," Wy said, who "would tell you you need a breath mint, and would tell you [the importance of] hard work and work ethic."

Wynonna earned her first hit 25 years ago while she was still in high school. She freely admits that she was a handful for her mother and duet partner, Naomi, but the words from her mentor, Margaret Allen, proved significant to Wy.

"It sometimes feels like someone’s preachin’," she admitted. "But I had someone teach me. She said, ‘The space between the notes is equally as important as the notes themselves.’ You can’t learn that in a classroom. You have to get with an elder or someone that you trust that’s been there, has wisdom and experience. [She] basically said, ‘Feel it. Don’t just play, feel it.’ And I never had heard that before."

Wynonna feels like it’s time for her to become a mentor, which is part of the reason she agreed to appear at Belmont. The school’s music business program has become an important supplier of artistic talent and behind-the-scenes personnel for the country music industry. Among Belmont’s former students are Brad Paisley, Trisha Yearwood, Josh Turner and Lee Ann Womack.

Wy’s also hoping her new album, Sing: Chapter 1, will inspire a little more study about music’s past. It’s loaded with remakes of songs first made famous by the likes of Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Nat King Cole.