Neal McCoy on receiving his invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry: ‘They totally surprised me!’

Country artist Neal McCoy will become one of the newest members of the Grand Ole Opry after a surprise announcement that he said made the invitation feel like a "full circle moment." 

McCoy received the invitation from Opry member Pam Tillis during a show honoring the late Charley Pride at the Grand Ole Opry House on Sept. 22. 

What He's Saying:

It is an honor he told Live Now from FOX’s Ryan Smeltz that he had been waiting for all his life.

"I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll never get there. I’ll never be big enough or hang around long enough," he said. 

But the 15-album artist known for his number one hits "No Doubt About It" and "Wink" said an early lesson helped him find success: "Treat people nice." 

"I think that’ll get you further than anything. Put on a great show and treat people nice," he said. 

He knew the Opry was interested in inducting him at some point, but finding the right place and time was always the big question. 

That right moment came during a tribute concert for the man he called his mentor. 

"I was just showing up for a tribute, a Charley Pride tribute night," McCoy said. Pride died in 2020 from COVID, but his widow, Rozene, attended the concert. "And then they just, out of the blue, I heard Pam say, ‘Congratulations, you’re the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry family.’ Wow. That’s pretty cool."

The backstory:

McCoy said the Prides played a big part in his life. McCoy released his own tribute album to the artist, "Pride: A Tribute to Charley Pride," in 2013.

"He’s the guy that got me started in country music in 1981," McCoy said, "so it had kind of, for lack of a better description, it felt like full circle because I started there and now I’m here." 

He said even Rozene Pride didn’t know about the surprise until she arrived at the tribute and McCoy said when she learned of the plan, she started crying. 

"They were always kind of like our parents to us, my wife and I," McCoy said. 

After the big moment, Pride called McCoy’s wife, Melinda, to give her the news. 

"And so Rozene called and had her on speakerphone, and said, ‘Hey, Melinda, I’ve been crying all day.’ And Melinda thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, what’s the matter?" McCoy said. "She was tearing up talking to her and she said, ‘We just invited Neal to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry." 

‘We’ve taken the right path'

McCoy said he would make stops at the Opry as often as his schedule allowed, trying to make sure he was doing things right to warrant the big invitation. 

"So they had seen that we had been making the effort," he said. "We kind of showed them that we really wanted to be in there." 

Asked about what he’d like his Opry legacy to be, McCoy said he followed sage advice he'd received over the years, saying, "We’ve taken the right path on this thing. We haven’t rushed, we haven’t — and I’m sure I’ve screwed up a few times somewhere, but overall, we’re nice people that know how to treat people, and we put on great shows every night, and I think that’s what I wanted to be. I just want people to say, ‘You know what? He earned his way there.’"

He said he has the greatest fans in the world and says that unlike today’s younger fans, who don’t have as much time to get to know individual performers like older fans could, his fans really got to know him. 

"And so they became Neal McCoy fans and will be a Neal McCoy fan until they die or I die because they like who we are and what we represent, and the way we raise our families and things we’ve done," he said. 

Big picture view:

Among his accomplishments beyond the Country charts is his humanitarian efforts. He has completed 17 USO tours and earned multiple humanitarian honors. The Grand Ole Opry’s website states he has raised more than $11 million for East Texas families through his East Texas Angel Network charity. 

‘Know your God, love your country’

He has also touched a chord with his daily reciting of the "Pledge of Allegiance" on his Facebook page, which he started in January of 2016 and has been doing daily for nearly 11 years. 

"My mom is from the Philippines. My father met her in the service. And so our mom taught us, I’m the youngest of three, taught us kids, she said, ‘The only thing I really want you all to know is I want you to know your God and love your country," he said. "That’s all we can ask for because if you do that, I think you’ll be OK. And they raised us like that."

He said the daily pledge did catch some off guard and even prompted some to ask if he was ill because it came out of the blue.

But with an election then on the way and both political parties already "trying to gnaw each other’s heads off," he said he wanted people to know "where we are." 

"We love our country and we respect our flag," he said.

The Grand Ole Opry has not yet announced an official date for McCoy’s induction, but he says his family was "tickled to death" by the invitation and plan to be there for the official induction. 

 

 

Entertainment