Wynonna Showcases Her Songwriting Talents, Shares Her ‘Hard Truth’ on New Album: ‘I Turned My Pain Into Purpose’
Categoria: Musica
Wynonna shares her first album since the passing of her mother and The Judds partner Naomi Judd.
Por Billboard | 01/10/2026
“This record is the most painful thing I’ve ever done and the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done,” Country Music Hall of Famer Wynonna , 62, says of her new album. The Hard Truth , her first project of new music in a decade, out Friday (Oct. 2), on ANTI-. The 10-track album includes some of the singer’s first-ever co-writing sessions — and is her first album of new music since the passing of her mother and her musical partner in The Judds, Naomi Judd. The album in part centers around Wynonna’s emotional journey after Naomi died by suicide at age 76 on April 30, 2022, just one day before The Judds were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. “My mom’s gone and that whole thing is just — I still go through denial sometimes. I just can’t believe it happened. It’s not supposed to end this way,” Wynonna says, adding, “I feel like I’m riding a roller coaster and I just went with it. I just couldn’t imagine my life without mom. And when she left, I was so lost and so broken. I had a hard time catching my breath. And yet I showed up the next day to the Hall of Fame and got inducted. And I thought about my mom, that’s the way she raised us. I turned my pain into purpose.” Wynonna crafted the new album with her husband, producer/musician/songwriter Cactus Moser, working together in a studio on their Franklin, Tennessee-area farm. “Everything,” which features Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood, takes an unflinching look at the heavy costs of being thrust into the spotlight as a teen. Wynonna was 19 when The Judds burst onto the music scene in the 1980s, earning 14 No. 1s on Billboard’ s Hot Country Songs chart in the span of a decade and winning five Grammys. Onstage, Wynonna’s commanding vocals and fierce stage presence were a potent counterpoint to Naomi’s effervescent, outgoing persona. However, offstage, mother and daughter often clashed, even as Wynonna was developing her own identity as an artist in the process. “When I was 17, they sent me to media school and tried really hard to teach me how to be famous, and it was quite the journey. I never was the extrovert that mother is and I just don’t remember ever wanting to do anything but play guitar and sing. So the struggle was showing up on time, knowing the answer to the questions. My outfit had to match my mother’s — or else. I just remember struggling, because I wasn’t prepared and had no idea how to even balance a checkbook, barely. I just went into fame mode and it was everything, all at once. “It was like drinking from a fire hose,” she continues. “I don’t remember a lot of what happened, because I was so traumatized, yet I knew I had a gift. So I showed up, and that’s what I’ve been doing for 43 years.” Elsewhere on the new album, the song “Drive” touches on intergenerational dynamics, centering on Wynonna driving to visit her daughter Grace Kelley, 30, during a jail sentence. Kelley is currently serving a 15-month sentence in a Virginia jail aft