ABC/Mark LevineLots of us remember a favorite present we received at the holidays, but for Trisha Yearwood, one of her best memories is about a gift she was able to give, after she had her first hit in 1991.
“I grew up in a family where my mom and dad sacrificed to send my sister and I to college, helped us after college, long after we should have been off the payroll,” she explains. “And they were always there for us.”
“And so one of the very first things that I bought when I had some success with ‘She’s in Love with the Boy’ was a Chevy truck for my dad.”
The two-time CMA Female Vocalist of the Year then set out for her hometown of Monticello, Georgia with her surprise.
“I drove it home at Christmas,” Trisha tells ABC Audio. “And I was so excited and I had my cassette playing in the cassette player to drive it up and to give him.”
“And it was really hard for him to accept the gift,” she reveals, “because he was a dad and he did everything he did because he loved me. But it was important for me to say thank you for everything that he did.”
“And that was one of the coolest things in the world to be able to do… something I wanted to do my whole life. And I love my dad,” she adds.
Jack Yearwood passed away in 2005, followed by her mother, Gwen, in 2011. Trisha memorialized her mom by naming her label, Gwendolyn Records, in her honor.
Trisha finishes 2019 with a top thirty hit, “Every Girl in This Town,” the lead single from her Every Girl album.
This year’s CMA Country Christmas special, hosted by Trisha, re-airs December 24 on ABC.
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