“Oh, please. You’re not supposed to clap until after the show – and only if you liked the show,” Trisha Yearwood said with a jovial laugh as she nearly slipped into a room of her fans – clapping at her appearance – unnoticed backstage at the Honeywell Center.
Ironically, a major talent like Trisha Yearwood likes to make a minor entrance. Yearwood bopped through the door entry in jeans and sneakers, smiling like she was about to slip on an apron and cook with her friends – rather than meet a group of strangers.
“When is your birthday?” She asked one fan, when he talked about her German Chocolate Cake recipe. Then she took his business card. “I might send you one for your birthday.”
About 30 minutes later, Yearwood took the stage in a different attire – but, same down-home, off-the-cuff persona.
“Hi, this is my biggest fan. It’s literally a fan because I’m going through menopause and having hot flashes,” Yearwood said on Honeywell Center’s stage as she bent over a fan. Yearwood’s personality onstage is more reflective of how one would expect her demeanor to be in her living room at home – which could be dangerous territory she warns us. “Menopause can make me a b**** sometimes.”
The crowd laughed like Trisha Yearwood was its favorite girlfriend to sip cocktails with.
“Oops, I know there are kids in the audience; so I won’t cuss again. Well, I can’t promise that. Things get a little crazy with me.”
Although Yearwood’s vocal chords could move smooth skin into a landscape of goose bumps as her belting voice echoes though the walls of an intimate venue like Honeywell Center, it’s her storytelling and self-deprecating sense of humor that captures audience’s amazement.
Her thoughts on going on tour with her husband, Garth Brooks, for example:
“He’s the love of my life, but I endearingly call that thing [the tour] ‘The Freakshow,’” she laughs. “I wanted to get out on the road and get to these intimate places first. I’m not promoting anything new, I just wanted to get out and sing for fans in smaller venues.”
Yearwood is hardly a stranger to the kitchen, with a top-selling cookbook “Cooking with Trisha Yearwood: Stories and Recipes to Share with Your Friends and Family” and her Food Network cooking show, “Trisha’s Southern Kitchen”. However, she says Garth has some special duties in the kitchen.
“He makes me coffee every morning, but he doesn’t drink coffee,” Yearwood says as her smile gently beams. “We call him Mr. Yearwood around the house; he’s probably at home doing laundry right now. He’s cool like that.”
Yearwood and Brooks live on a ranch in Ossawa, Okla. and recently purchased a home in Nashville, Tenn. as they embark on a world tour later this year.
Despite, living life on a ranch, the road and Nashville, Yearwood said she still cherishes how simply her singing started.
“I used to come home from [middle school] and just go straight to my room and sing Linda Ronstadt, like my life was so dramatic. How dramatic can a 13-year-old’s life really be, you know?” Yearwood said before playing a set of Ronstadt songs.
“This is like my karaoke, it’s a self-indulgent moment when I sing these [Linda Ronstadt] songs. I don’t really change them; I just sing them,” Yearwood said. “Sorry if it’s a little karaoke.”
She belts out the first notes of a Ronstadt number and automatically the crowd is wondering where she’s watching karaoke.
Yearwood also isn’t shy to mention her weaknesses, while she’s standing on the stage – the medium that holds her strongest strength.
“I’m not a good songwriter, I pick songs someone else has written – well, Garth says I should never say I’m not good; I’m just not a confident songwriter,” Yearwood says as she corrects herself. “I also have a book of poems I wrote when I was 14 that no one will ever see.”
The way Yearwood says she picks her songs is, simply, by feel.
“Sometimes I hear a song and think, ‘That’s my life’ and I record it for that reason because it means something to me,” Yearwood said.
However, with the song “She’s In Love with a Boy” the reason for recording it was a tad different.
“I heard this song and I couldn’t get it out of my head, that usually means it’s one you want to record,” Yearwood said – not forgetting to mention the song she didn’t record: “’Strawberry Wine’; yeah, I passed on that one. Big mistake.”
At one point, during a Yearwood show, she just starts taking requests from the audience.
After two power ballads in a row were requested: “Oh, we can’t do that; people will be depressed. But, I do love the horribly sad depressing break-up songs.”
Two and a half hours later, fans of Yearwood felt more like her friends from the warmth Yearwood shared onstage and the passion she exudes for her craft.
