Lorrie Morgan

“You can’t imagine how it felt the night I became a member of the Opry,” Lorrie Morgan says. “The first time I could really call this place home. I couldn’t stop shaking or trembling or crying.”

That Saturday night more than 20 years ago might have been Lorrie’s first night as an official member, but it certainly wasn’t her first night at the Opry. Lorrie grew up backstage at the Opry, the daughter of Country Music Hall of Famer George Morgan, a 26-year member known everywhere for his smash 1949 hit “Candy Kisses.”

Born in 1959, Lorrie made her Opry stage debut early, introduced at the Ryman Auditorium by her proud father. “My little 13-year-old knees were absolutely knocking,” she recalls. “But I saw Dad standing there just bawling, and those people gave me a standing ovation. I thought, ‘This is what I’m doing the rest of my life.’”

George Morgan died when Lorrie was 16, but she still carries in her heart two pieces of advice he left her: “Never say, ‘I can’t,’” and “Always remember your manners.”

Morgan’s vocal style, combining country sincerity and pop sophistication, really took off in 1989 with the emotion-filled hit “Dear Me.” She won a CMA Award in 1990 for her work with her late husband, Keith Whitley, the great country traditionalist who had died the year before. Her three subsequent albums—Leave the Light On, Something in Red, and Watch Me—all sold more than a million copies.

She’s released hit after hit in a distinctive style steeped in passion and believability—“I Guess You Had to Be There,” “What Part of No,” “Except for Monday,” “Something In Red,” “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength,” “Half Enough,” and others.

Throughout her career, Morgan says, she’s thought of the Opry as home.

“The Opry gave me my start in country music,” she says. “It’s a place we all need to go from time to time to remember why we’re here and what gave us the opportunity to be here.”

Morgan has recorded duets with singers ranging from Frank Sinatra to Johnny Mathis to Dolly Parton to husband Sammy Kershaw. Inspired by George Morgan’s love of spicy chicken, Lorrie recently joined Kershaw in starting hotchickens.com, a restaurant and mail-order operation. When she’s not on the road, Lorrie spends time with her kids—daughter Morgan and son Jesse—in the studio, or at home on the Opry stage.