One of country music’s great rags-to-riches family stories will be brought to life by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum starting next month, as it opens a new exhibit chronicling the lives of mother-daughter duo Naomi and Wynonna Judd.
Due to open August 10th and run for 11 months until July 14th, 2019, The Judds: Dream Chasers will follow the path of single mother Naomi from Kentucky to Los Angeles to Music City as she and Wynonna worked against the odds to break into the music industry. Those efforts of course paid off, as the Judds became one of country’s most beloved vocal duos, notching 14 Number One hits and another half-dozen Top 20 hits between 1983 and 1991.
Dream Chasers will feature artifacts that stretch all the way back to Naomi’s childhood, including a handwritten letter to Santa Claus. The exhibit will also include the uniform that she wore while she worked as a registered nurse before she and Wynonna landed their RCA Records contract with the aid of a homemade demo tape. It also wouldn’t be a Judds tribute without silk and rhinestones, and there will be several such outfits on display, including the jacket Wynonna wore for the group’s farewell concert in the early Nineties and the gown Naomi wore for their Las Vegas residency in 2015.
During their career, the Judds accrued several Grammy, CMA, and ACM awards, many of which will be on display at the Hall of Fame. The exhibit will run alongside other current exhibits like Outlaw and Armadillos: Country’s Roaring ’70s, which opened in May.