Wynonna is bringing The Judds to Lexington’s Rupp Arena one last time

When plans were initially drawn up in April for where The Judds would make their last rounds as a touring and performance duo, Kentucky found itself locked out. The career-concluding concert run, billed by the Ashland-born platinum-selling mother/daughter country music stars as “The Final Tour,” would undertake a 10-city run that would open in Grand Rapids and close in Nashville.

But then, life interceded. Looks like The Judds, in a personnel configuration no one could have foreseen, will coming home after all to say their final goodbyes.

A matter of weeks after the initial tour schedule was announced, everything and everyone in the Judds camp was upended. That’s when news broke that Naomi Judd had taken her life following a longstanding battle with mental illness. Her death came a day before she and daughter Wynonna were to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

So where did that leave the tour? How do you proceed with the final chapter of a group’s career when there is so much shock, tragedy and simple emotional weight to contend with? By mid-May, the word from Wynonna was that, true to show business tradition, the show must go on. The Final Tour would commence in the fall as scheduled, but with one huge addendum.

The night after the previously announced finale date at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, the tour would make one more stop.

It would now finish in Kentucky. In Lexington. At Rupp Arena. The finale show was to be a homecoming in the most heartfelt and unplanned way, taking place in the state where everything began personally and professionally for The Judds.

But what of the show’s very intent and design? How can The Judds carry on with half of the famed duo absent? The answer was to adopt a team of six honorary Judds – specifically, a sisterhood sporting some of the most acclaimed female artists in or out of country music. The line-up, to put it mildly, was cross-generational country royalty.

Already on board was Martina McBride, the powerhouse belter who has been a hit-making force for over three decades. Among her most heralded singles is the tune that best embodies her soaring, anthemic vocal reach, 1994’s Gretchen Peters-penned “Independence Day.” McBride was confirmed as the tour’s opening act when dates were announced in April. She was now set to join Wynonna as a “Judd” during the headline set along with a featured artist enlisted to fill some of the void left by Naomi’s absence. Who signed up to be a Judd for a night? Brandi Carlile, Ashley McBryde, Little Big Town, Trisha Yearwood and Kelsea Ballerini. Each would share the stage with Wynonna on one or two tour stops.

The Lexington finale will be the only Final Tour date to feature singer and five-time Grammy winner Faith Hill, whose last two Rupp performances have been collaborative concerts with husband Tim McGraw.

“What a full-circle moment it will be to end the tour in Kentucky where it all began,” Wynonna said in a press statement after tour was re-confirmed in May. “It means so much to have my sisterfriend Faith join me for this musical celebration. It is pretty amazing – all of the people who have come forward to offer up their time and their gifts. I am feeling extra grateful.”

The Judds history

As Rupp Arena is where The Judds’ story will end, let us briefly look at where it began and how the duo’s country music legacy took hold.

An Ashland native, Naomi was born Diana Ellen Judd. She was 18 when daughter Wynonna was welcomed into the world in 1964. After moving to Los Angeles in 1968, a second daughter, soon-to-be actress and activist Ashley Judd, was born. A single mother after a 1972 divorce, the family relocated again to Tennessee at the end of the decade. Diane changed her name to Naomi and raised her daughters while attending nursing school.

Music entered into the story around this time with Naomi singing harmony in a duo setting with Wynonna handling lead vocals.

A record contract with RCA Record resulted in 1983. A debut single, “Had a Dream (for the Heart)” was released that December with a six-song EP album, “Wynonna & Naomi,” following in April 1984. The connection the duo made with audiences and on the charts was immediate.

Between 1984 and 1989, The Judds would send 14 singles to No. 1 – including assertive rockers like “Girls Night Out” and more roots-conscious recollections like “Grandpa (Tell Me ‘Bout the Good Old Days).” Such music made The Judds one of the leaders in a neo-traditionalist movement that began to take hold as Nashville began to move away, briefly, from more pop-oriented country works popularized in the wake of the 1980 film “Urban Cowboy.”

The glory days ended abruptly in 1991. Shortly after Naomi announced she had been diagnosed with Hepatitis C, The Judds mounted a commercially successful farewell tour and disbanded. But did they really?

A series of reunion shows dubbed The Power to Change Tour followed in 2000 with another farewell run, The Last Encore Tour, hitting the road in 2010 and 2011. So, yes, there is some staying power to The Judds. But with Naomi now gone, The Final Tour can’t help but be anything else.

“As I walk out on stage that first night, I’ll probably say something like, ‘It’s not supposed to be like this,’ because it’s not, right?” Wynonna told Lee Cowan in a feature on CBS Sunday Morning that aired in September. “It’s supposed to be the two of us. And I’m gonna be angry because she’s not there.”

Wynonna on continuing the tour

Wynonna summed her reasoning for proceeding with The Final Tour without her mother onstage last weekend in Fort Worth, Texas. From Natalie Weiner’s review in The Dallas Morning News:

“They said, ‘Do you still want to do this tour?’” Judd told the crowd during her set, which ran over two hours. “I said, ‘Heck no, why would I want to do it without her?

“But you,” she said, gesturing to the fans, “you have spoken and look what happened. It’s bigger than anything I could imagine.”

We’ll leave the show’s surprises for those heading to Rupp this weekend. Suffice to say, setlists from the tour have included nearly every hit in the Judds catalog. They also allow room for McBride to sit on a tune or two while providing even greater clearance for the various guest artists to enter and exit the show on any given night as the moods and songs seem fit.

It’s also a very safe bet that, despite Naomi’s physical absence, her presence — be it through group harmonies with the guests, accompanying video montages to the songs or the simple inspiration she gave to the Judds’ music — will be profoundly felt, making the concert as much a tribute to her as to the group’s legacy. But the show also seems to be a testament to family, a program that embraces a bond of generations. The Judds, throughout their career, may have been professional partners. Above and beyond that, though, they were mother and daughter.

“I love my mother and she makes me crazy still,” Wynonna told Kristen M. Hall of the Associated Press in September. “Your relationship with your mother never ends. I still talk to her and it’s awesome and it’s hard.”

The Judds: The Final Tour featuring Wynonna, Martina McBride and Faith Hill

When: 7:30 pm Oct. 29

Where: Rupp Arena, 430 W. Vine.

Tickets: $33-$199.50 through ticketmaster.com.