Ashley McBryde Gets Emotional for Her Grand Ole Opry Induction: The 'Biggest Moment of My Life'

Naturally, Ashley McBryde performed "Girl Goin' Nowhere," her autobiographical ballad about the improbable dream of a music career, during her induction into the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday. But then the time came to sing that final line about the triumph of a day such as this — "not bad for a girl goin' nowhere" — and she couldn't get the words out.

"Wow ... You do it," she said, her voice breaking as she tossed the finish to her duet partner, Terri Clark, who delivered it with a poignant flourish.

The line — written years ago on a wish and a prayer — has been steeped in irony ever since McBryde made her ascent, but never so much as on this Nashville night when she was being ushered into country music's hallowed inner circle. No wonder the 39-year-old singer-songwriter was riding such a wave of emotion.

CMA, ACM, CMT Awards and Grammy nominations: She's got them all. But this moment, McBryde declared, "is the biggest of my life."

Clark, a childhood hero-turned-friend, was the one who handed McBryde the trophy, which features a miniature Opry microphone.

"We've been friends for several years now," said Clark, 54, the Opry member that McBryde had selected to induct her, "and I have witnessed such a reverence and respect for the Opry, the music and the artists that came before you. And you are a perfect fit to be here and be inducted tonight. To me, the Opry is about family. It is a family, and my sister, you have earned your place at the table more than anybody that I know."

Tears were already streaming down McBryde's cheeks when it was her turn to speak. "If it's your first time to be at the Opry, this is what it feels like every time you are here," she told the sell-out crowd, who stood through the ceremony. "It looks like it's made of brick and mortar, but it is pure, pure love. That is what you are experiencing. … I know what this means. I know what my responsibilities are, and I take this very seriously. And God bless country music."

Earlier, during a backstage news conference, McBryde reminisced about her first visit to the Grand Ole Opry House at age 12. An Arkansas native who'd been raised on Opry radio shows, she was allowed onto its stage during a tour, and she even got to sing a song in the empty auditorium. (Her selection: "Peach Pickin' Time in Georgia," a vintage Jimmie Rodgers tune that required her to yodel, and she allowed, "I'm still not a gifted yodeler.")

In that heady moment, McBryde recalled looking out at the rows of pews, "and it's registering to me what this is. But at 12 years old, the full gravity of that is not present in your brain."

No doubt the "full gravity" arrived 21 years later, in 2017, when she made her Opry debut. By this past October, she had performed on the Opry more than 20 times when Garth Brooks, another hero-turned-friend, surprised McBryde with an invitation to become the Opry's newest member. The country superstar dropped in remotely, from the Opry stage, as McBryde was being interviewed on CBS Mornings about her now-Grammy-nominated album, Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville.

On Saturday night, another surprise awaited McBryde while in her dressing room: Wynonna Judd made a special visit to offer her best wishes.

"I said, 'I can't believe you're here,'" McBryde told her audience later about the visit. "And she said, 'I had to be here.'"

McBryde, who has been appearing on The Judds: The Final Tour, said she sought counsel from the country icon on whether to hold her feelings in check during her time onstage.

"She said, 'What does your gut say?'" McBryde recounted. "I said, 'Let what happens happen.' She said, 'That's the right answer.'"

McBryde obviously took the words to heart for more than her duet with Clark, delivering emotionally charged performances for three other intensely personal songs. Two describe her life on the road: a new one titled "Made for This" and "Sparrow," which she called "one of my favorite songs I've ever written."

She also had a surprise up her sleeve for the audience, bringing out one more hero-turned-friend, Eric Church, for a duet of "Bible and a .44." Five years ago, when McBryde was a relative unknown, Church invited her to sing the tribute to her father during a Chicago concert, an appearance that helped stoke early buzz about her.

"When Eric said he would come and join me for a song," McBryde explained during the press conference, "I thought, it's got to be 'Bible and a .44,' because that was the first time I had ever played in a stadium or used in-ear monitors or seen 19,000 people in the same room, and that was a moment."

McBryde now looks forward to the Grammys in February: Lindeville is up for country album of the year and "Never Wanted to Be That Girl," her No. 1 duet with Carly Pearce, is nominated for country duo/group performance. While she may soon be bringing home more trophies, there probably will never be any hardware that means more to McBryde than the one she received on Saturday.

Her other honors, she said before the show, are now on display on a bathroom shelf. "But I'm going to need a bigger shelf for this one — maybe in my bedroom," she said, "so I can go to sleep every night looking at it."