Three years after a stroke threatened to silence his legendary voice, Randy Travis, who was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, brought the crowd to tears with a sing-along rendition of “Amazing Grace.”
Travis gave one more performance at the medallion ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was inducted alongside fiddler Charlie Daniels and music producer Fred Foster. Travis is 57 years old.
Several artists paid tribute to the three awardees musically, including Kris Kristofferson, Dolly Parton, Alan Jackson, Brad Paisley, Garth Brooks, and many others.
Travis’s wife, Mary Davis-Travis, has made public remarks regarding the six months Travis was hospitalized for following a stroke brought on by a viral illness. Travis is a vocalist who has won a Grammy.
“Randy stared death in the face, but death blinked,” Davis-Travis said. “Today, God’s proof of a miracle stands before you.”
Being the first country performer to have a debut album (‘Storms of Life’) certified platinum within its first year of release, Travis was acknowledged for creating a new standard. For neo-traditional musicians like Alan Jackson, Clint Black, and Brooks, he blazed the path in the 1990s.
Jackson, who performed “On the Other Hand,” toured with Travis in the early 1990s; during that period, Jackson was compared to Elvis.
“When he sang, the women were screaming and fainting, and it was crazy,” Jackson said. “I loved it. Someone singing real country music and having that effect and selling all those records, it just made me so happy.”
The fiddler behind “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” Daniels, was praised for his ability to combine Southern rock, bluegrass, gospel, and country into a singular sound.
“A plaque on this wall is not just another award or accolade,” Daniels said. “It’s a page in a history book. An unending history book.”
While Jamey Johnson performed “Long Haired Country Boy,” Trace Adkins and fiddler Andrea Zonn sang “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
Amazing Grace is sung by Randy Travis during George Jones’ funeral
Foster was the head of the influential Monument Records, which helped performers like Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and Kris Kristofferson establish their careers. Kris Kristofferson sang his timeless song “Me and Bobby McGee,” which Foster co-wrote and produced, and Foster also worked on Dolly Parton’s debut album.
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