The singer and television star Naomi Judd, known as the matriarch of the country music group “the Judds,” died on Saturday (April 30) at the age of 76 years.
The Judds were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2021 alongside Ray Charles, drummer Eddie Bayers, and pedal steel guitarist Pete Drake last autumn. The mother-daughter team was formally inducted on May 1 during a ceremony in Nashville.
Naomi Judd was born Diana Ellen Judd in January 1946 in Ashland, Kentucky, where she grew up playing the piano at her local church. Judd married Michael Ciminella when she was seventeen, and their first child, country singer Wynonna Judd (née Christina Ciminella), was born the following year. Naomi Judd’s parents split shortly thereafter, and she relocated to Los Angeles, where she gave birth to her second child, actress and political activist Ashley Judd (née Ashley Tyler Ciminella).
Naomi Judd changed her initial name to Naomi after divorcing Ciminella in 1972, returned to Kentucky, and began her study to become a nurse. She started singing and performing music with Wynonna as a means of resolving mother-daughter conflicts. Along the way, she acquired second-hand vinyl albums of Hazel and Alice’s coal-mining songs.
Confident that her daughter has talent, Judd decided to relocate the family to Nashville and collaborate on a recording. In 1983, Judd persuaded a former customer, whose kid, she cared for as a nurse, to invite them to her house to hear them perform music. He was so taken with their performance that he assisted them in securing a live audition at RCA in front of studio chief Joe Galante and producer Tony Brown. The Judds were signed two hours later.
The Judds’ debut album, Wynonna & Naomi, was a critical and commercial triumph in 1984, courtesy of their first No. 1 song, “Mama He’s Crazy.” That same year, the pair released Why Not Me, which yielded three additional No. 1 singles (the title track, “Love Is Alive” and “Girls’ Night Out”), as well as 1985’s Rockin’ with the Rhythm. The Judds also released five further studio albums: Heartland and Christmas Time with the Judds in 1987, in addition to this River of Time in 1989, and Love Can Build a Bridge in 1990.
The Judds won five Grammy awards and eight Country Music Association Awards (CMA) and sold more than 20 million albums throughout their career. Naomi Judd later retired due to health concerns, and the team formally disbanded in 1991 with a farewell tour. The final broadcast show gathered the greatest pay-per-view audience in history. Following Naomi Judd’s healing, the Judds reunited for numerous further performances and, in 2011, appeared in their reality series on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
