RCAJust days before the release of his new album, Losing Sleep, Chris Young marks a career milestone tonight in Nashville, as he’s officially inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry.
For the Murfreesboro, Tennessee native, it’s the pinnacle of more than a decade of Opry memories.
“I think it was Jean Shephard one time that asked me to do… one more song,” Chris remembers, recalling the late Opry pioneer. “The Opry band had not played with me enough for me to know, off the top of my head… something that I was 100-percent certain that they were gonna know and I was gonna nail. [I] did [an] acoustic [version of] ‘Begging to You’ by Marty Robbins, and that was the only time, honest-to-God, everybody in the room was standing up. It was just a cool moment, and it’s something that I’ll always remember.”
Chris admits he’s had his share of humorous moments on the Opry stage too, particularly one involving a Cajun country music legend.
“Probably the funniest thing that happened to me at the Opry was Jimmy C. Newman loaned me a guitar strap one time, and I didn’t check it before I went onstage,” Chris explains. “And it looked like I was playing a mandolin… But seriously, it’s been something that I’ve been lucky… I signed my record deal eleven years ago, and the Opry has let me play so many times.”
Brad Paisley, Dustin Lynch, Tracy Lawrence and Chris’s “Think of You” duet partner Cassadee Pope are all set to play Tuesday night’s Opry. Chris’s new album, which takes its title from his latest top-20 hit, “Losing Sleep,” comes out on Friday.
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