Country Music Memories: Faith Hill Debuts on the Grand Ole Opry

Happy (Opry) anniversary to Faith Hill! It was on this day (Dec. 18) in 1993 that she made her debut on the Grand Ole Opry.

Hill’s appearance on the renowned stage came only two months after she released her debut album, Take Me as I Am; her first single, “Wild One,” was steadily climbing up the charts when she performed at the Opry, and it would become her first No. 1 by the beginning of 1994. However, the Mississippi native admits that she was unprepared for how difficult it would be to actually snag a performance at the revered hall.

“I really believed I’d just get on the Grand Ole Opry stage, start singin’ and be on a bus travelin’ the next day,” Hill told Entertainment Weekly in 1994.

Still, Hill had a pretty impressive start: “Wild One” stayed at No. 1 for the entire month of January, making Hill the first female country singer to achieve that success in 30 years.

Hill has gone on to sell more than 40 million records worldwide and win more than two dozen major awards, including five Grammys.

This story was originally written by Gayle Thompson, and revised by Annie Zaleski.

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