Naomi Judd, R.I.P.

Naomi Judd, loving mother and legendary country music performer, died yesterday at the age of 76.

Naomi Judd – life …

The celebrated Naomi Judd had two daughters, Wynonna, also a singer, and Ashley, an actress. The two issued an official statement on two Twitter accounts, Ashley’s and the official “Judds” account.

People will remember Naomi Judd for one thing above all: her music. If you recognize the name, you know the kind of music she made: country and western. Naomi and Wynonna Judd began recording in the Eighties. They won the first of many Grammy awards in 1984 for their hit tune, “Mama He’s Crazy.” It wasn’t easy to get to that point. Wynonna told The Wall Street Journal in 2017 about moving into a hotel in Nashville and everyone sleeping in one bed. By any reasonable measure, the struggle paid off. Naomi Judd was one of your editor’s favorite voices of the period.

Then in 1990 Naomi came down with Hepatitis C. She and Wynonna performed one more song, “Love Can Build a Bridge,” in that year. After that, the two rarely performed together, except for occasional reunions.

The source articles give a few more details, but one detail they leave out. Martha Williamson, who created the show Touched by an Angel, gave Wynonna Judd an interesting gig: two episodes, each in a different season. The second episode is the interesting one: Naomi Judd reunited with her daughter on that show. The two joined other country/western performers who got similar gigs, like Randy Travis.

… and death

Ironically, today Naomi and Wynonna Judd were to enter the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The two had also planned a last tour, to begin September 30 of this year, for ten days.

Alas, this is not to be.

Judd suffered from severe depression and anxiety. In fact she wrote a book about it: River of Time. In it she talks about times she didn’t even get out of bed for three weeks at a time.

How serious was this? Ashley Judd’s statement tells you how serious:

What exactly does that mean? Did she kill herself? Or did the complications of her mental illness wear her down physically? We cannot expect anyone to tell us for a long time.

All we know is that the world lost a legend, and one of the finest musicians of any genre of the last century. Furthermore, the world lost her before her time. But as long as we have her music, Naomi Judd will never die.

Sources and image

NPR, CNN, Variety, and The Tennessean (Nashville) all carried reports, presumably using the Associated Press as a common source.

The portrait of Naomi Judd, about to present the Military Dog Award at the American Humane Association meeting in 2012, comes from State Farm Insurance. It carries a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.