In between the songs of warm and fuzzy Christmases past, country superstar Wynonna Judd is more than likely going to let out a rant or two when she plays Fox Tucson Theatre on Sunday.
She’ll tell the audience she’s glad they came because she sure could use the love. She has two teenagers at home who “have forgotten how fabulous I am.”
Then she’ll likely bring up those DIY holiday overachievers who want to make by hand everything from the dinner-table place cards to the wrapping paper.
And let us not forget that one person among us wearing “that freaking Christmas sweater that should not be worn in public,” she blurts out, and you get the feeling that as she speaks by cellphone on her tour bus on Thursday she is sitting in front of that very person.
It’s all part of her
Wynonna & the Big Noise “A Simpler Christmas” show, which will borrow from Christmas songs and her deep catalogue of hits.
“It’s a very personal stamp on my take of getting simpler at this time of year,” said Judd, 49.
This will be Judd’s first Tucson show since selling out Casino del Sol’s AVA in 2004.
Judd has long been called the “female Elvis” for her deeply nuanced, rich vocals, and her shows that draw from her 20-plus-year solo career and nearly a decade spent with her mother, Naomi, as The Judds. But by the end of Sunday’s show, some might be adding comedian when they describe her.
During the show, she and her husband, Big Noise drummer Michael “Cactus” Moser, get into a Lucy and Ricky give and take.
“My husband is a comedian. … I tell you I can barely get through it night after night,” she said. “And I’m telling you, people gravitate to that more than telling them” to be nice to one another.
The show will include acoustic moments, when Judd will sit on a stool and strum her guitar and invite her fans into the intimate depths of her heart. She will talk about her kids, her famous sister Ashley and her strained relationship with Ashley and her mom. And she’ll talk about husband Moser’s devastating 2012 motorcycle crash, which cost him his leg and crushed his hand.
“We went through nine months of real hell, I’ll be honest,” Judd confided as the tour bus made its way to Las Vegas for a pair of shows this weekend. “It was a really, really tough situation of a woman watching a man struggle through his recovery. He’s such a positive person that it overwhelmed me.”
Moser’s left hand was crushed and surgeons told him he would likely take months if not years to regain full use. He was back on the road with her and playing in the band within months.
“He comes out on stage and he’s like a cross between John Wayne and Bill Murray,” Judd said. “He has this larger-than-life spirit that’s just infectious. The crowd loves him.”
Being on the road with Moser fulfills Judd’s “inner peace,” she said.
“Any time I am on stage, I am in my element. The stage is my home,” she said. “To share it with someone I really love, whom I trust and who has my back … it’s an added bonus.”
