Month: August 2025

Connie Smith’s 60th anniversary Grand Ole Opry celebration has been postponed due to illness.

Smith’s team shared the news on her official social media accounts, revealing that a new date will be announced soon.

“Unfortunately, the special evening at the Grand Ole Opry planned for tomorrow night celebrating Connie Smith’s 60 years as an Opry member is postponed,” the statement reads. “We look forward to rescheduling this soon and also listening to the wonderful lineup of folks performing tomorrow night!”

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A post shared by Connie Smith (@realconniesmith)

The Opry also confirmed the news, revealing that both Connie Smith and her husband, Marty Stuart, have come down with COVID.

“Though we were so excited to celebrate 60 years of Grand Ole Opry membership with the great Connie Smith tomorrow night, Connie and her husband Marty Stuart must cancel their appearances on the show due to, as Marty said, ‘the unwelcome presence of COVID in our home.’ We will look forward to celebrating Connie’s 60th with her (and with Marty by her side) on a future date to be announced soon,” the Opry shared. “Marty will also be rescheduling his concert planned for this Saturday in Louisville. Meanwhile, the Wednesday Night Opry will continue, and we hope you can join us. We love you, Connie and Marty!”

While Smith and Stuart won’t be in attendance, the evening will still feature an impressive roster of performers. Vince Gill, The Whites, Sierra Ferrell, The Isaacs, Old Crow Medicine Show, Mandy Barnett, Dailey & Vincent, John Conlee, and Riders in the Sky are all scheduled to take the stage.

Connie Smith was inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry on August 21, 1965, after making her debut on July 18, 1964. She dreamed of performing on the Opry stage since she was a young girl and has been performing there for decades. Roy Acuff, the “King of Country Music,” honored Connie with the title “Sweetheart of the Grand Ole Opry.” 

Connie Smith shot to stardom with her debut single, “Once a Day,” which made history as the first debut single by a female country artist to hit No. 1. The song spent an impressive eight weeks at the top of the charts and earned a Grammy nomination. She went on to score several more hits, including “I Can’t Remember,” “Nobody but a Fool,” “Ain’t Had No Lovin’,” and “Cincinnati, Ohio.”

Smith is married to fellow Opry member, Marty Stuart. They tied the knot on July 8, 1997.

The post Connie Smith and Marty Stuart Cancel Opry Appearance Due to COVID appeared first on Country Now.

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Five-year-old Sawyer has endured so much while battling pediatric cancer in his first few years of life and HARDY’s music was there to help him along the way since day one. The young fan experienced a full-circle moment over the weekend when he got to meet his country music hero for the first time and attend his second-ever concert.

According to his mom, Jessica, Sawyer’s health journey began very early on when he was diagnosed with bilateral retinoblastoma, which is a form of cancer in the eyes. He went through various rounds of chemo over the span of four years and ended up having both eyes removed and replaced with prosthetics.

She told Country Now that his love and appreciation for live music began when he was just a year and a half old. Particularly, HARDY and Lainey Wilson’s CMA Award-winning collaboration “wait in the truck,” became a source of comfort for the young boy.

“It was right after his first eye was removed and we couldn’t get him to calm down but when the song ‘wait in the truck’ by HARDY and Lainey Wilson came on, he went completely silent and from then on we started to play HARDY after every surgery or chemo that he had so that he would be happy.”

HARDY was such a big part of Sawyer’s time in the hospital that the superstar quickly became his “all-time favorite country artist.” The plan to introduce the young fan to the Mississippi native began when Winston Academy, where Sawyer’s grandfather attended school, reached out asking to raise money for Make-A-Wish so that he could meet HARDY.  Jessica noted it was a “no brainer for us to say yes.”

From there, Make-A-Wish got in touch with HARDY’s team to set up a date and a once-in-a-lifetime meet and greet opportunity. When the day finally came, Jessica captured snippets of the experience in a video and shared it to TikTok. In the first clip, HARDY can be seen crouching down to Sawyers level as he introduced himself during their backstage interaction.

“Anyone who knows Sawyer knows that he is never speechless but in that moment Sawyer was definitely speechless and star struck,” Jessica said of her son’s reaction.

@jessicagoodin2675 Sawyer got to do a Make A Wish and that was to mee hardy!!!! HIS WISH CAME TRUE!!!! #hardy #rockstar ♬ original sound – sawyersmom2020

The video then cuts to the moment during the concert when HARDY tells the crowd about his meet and Greet with Sawyer.

“I got a story to tell,” HARDY began. “A couple weeks ago I got a call from the Make-A-Wish foundation…they said that there was a kid named Sawyer that wanted to meet me and Sawyer had some complications with childhood cancer and lost his sight.”

He called Sawyer and his family out in the crowd and shared a few of the topics they discussed, like hunting and fishing. But HARDY revealed that his favorite part of their conversation was when the boy shared that his favorite song was “Rockstar.” Although this track is no longer a part of his live set list, HARDY made an exception that night and performed it just for Sawyer.

“Sawyer, it’s for you,” he declared before breaking out into the hard-hitting tune. Sawyer was captured head banding and dancing around in his seat with a huge smile plastered on his face.

Jessica dubbed this a dream-come-true moment.

This wasn’t Sawyer’s first time seeing the country-rocker live as he also saw him in Starkville, MS, but every concert he’s attended in his life so far has featured Hardy as the headliner, and his most recent show may be the hardest one to top.

Jessica extended a “huge thank you” to HARDY, his team and all those at Make-A-Wish who made this once-in-a-lifetime night a reality.

“We want to say a massive thank you to HARDY alone for his music and giving sawyer peace and comfort through a 4 year battle!!  Sawyer will never stop listening to HARDY!!” she added.

Sawyer’s mom is happy to say that the five-year-old is currently cancer free.

The post HARDY Meets Five-Year-Old Cancer Survivor Sawyer, Who Found Comfort In His Music appeared first on Country Now.

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