Carly Pearce, Trisha Yearwood And Jeannie Seely Sing Kitty Wells’ “Making Believe” At The Grand Ole Opry

A group of women singing into microphones

Three generations of country music queens all on one stage… it really and truly doesn’t get any better than that.

Last week, after over 80 performances, and years of hard work, Carly Pearce was officially (and finally) inducted to the Grand Ole Opry.

It was a beautiful night, and after one of her childhood icons, Dolly Parton, surprised her with the news she would become a member back in June, her other childhood icon, Trisha Yearwood, officially inducted her on August 3rd.

Carly had another special person join her on stage, Mrs. Jeannie Seely, who’s also her neighbor, and someone who has helped her really get her foot in the door in Nashville:

“I feel so lucky for what’s about to happen up here. I am neighbors with Jeannie Seely, and Jeannie used to get me in on her backstage list, before I ever had a record deal, to see Carrie Underwood.

Jeannie has become such a pillar for me in this industry and somebody that I look up so much to as an artist, as a women in country music and Trisha Yearwood obviously is one of my biggest influences in the entire world.

And so you’re about to see three generations of female Opry members come together.”

Jeannie responded by welcoming Carly home to the Opry, which has been a lifelong dream of hers ever since she dropped out of high school at the age of 16 and moved to Tennessee to perform at Dollywood:

“Let me be the first to say welcome home to the Grand Ole Opry. ‘Cuz it’s home. Should we keep her?”

After agreeing that they should, in fact, keep her, Trisha let Jeannie introduce their next song.

Jeannie felt it was important to tip the cap to one of the very first female country music superstars in Kitty Wells:

“Well I thought it might be appropriate to do this and pay a nod to Kitty Wells and the generation before ours.

So it’s a very special, and just for me personally, I have to tell you, I’m wearing Jan Howard’s jacket, Jean Shepard’s ring, and of course, I sang the Dottie West song earlier.

So girls, this circle will not be broken. We are here, okay?”

They did a rendition of Kitty’s 1955 hit “Making Believe.” The song peaked at #2 on the Billboard U.S. Hot Country Songs chart that same year, but was originally written and recorded by Jimmy Work.

Over the years, it has been covered by countless other artists like Merle Haggard, Ernest Tubb, and even as a duet by Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty in 1988, used as the title track for their final album together.

It’s so cool to see the dedication each one of these women has had throughout their respective careers to keeping the traditions over country music alive and well. Personally, I couldn’t be more excited to see where Carly goes from here… this is just the beginning for her.

She even has more new music coming soon as an extension to her awesome 29 EP, a record called 29: Written In Stonewhich is due out on September 17th.

Take a few minutes to watch three incredible generations of country music ladies absolutely crush this cover (and if you have an hour to spare, it’s worth it to watch the entire 60 minutes of Carly’s induction):

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