CMA Fest kicks off today (June 6) with shows across Nashville. However, the Grand Ole Opry got an early start on things on Tuesday (June 4). The oldest institution in country music held an “unofficial kickoff” for the four-day festival with a star-studded lineup. Carrie Underwood, Lauren Alaina, Kip Moore, and many others took the Opry stage to kick off this week’s festivities.
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Underwood performed “Smoke Break,” “Drunk and Hungover,” and other hits from her catalog. She also paid tribute to late country hitmaker Joe Diffie during her Opry set with a rendition of “Home.” The Grand Ole Opry shared a snippet of the performance on its Instagram stories.
Carrie Underwood Performs a Record-Breaking Joe Diffie Hit
Joe Diffie has several memorable songs in his discography. Tracks like “John Deere Green,” “Pickup Man” and “If the Devil Danced (In Empty Pockets)” are all standouts. However, Carrie Underwood chose to perform the hit that put Diffie on the map.
Co-penned by Fred Lehner and Andy Spooner, Diffie released “Home” as his debut single in August 1990. The track’s performance set a high bar for the rest of his career. At the time, there were three major country charts—Billboard, Mediabase (formerly Radio & Records), and the Gavin Report. “Home” was the first debut single to top all three charts simultaneously.
Underwood’s Other Recent Opry Tribute
Earlier this year, Underwood took the Grand Ole Opry stage to pay tribute to another late country star. Back in April, she performed “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” in honor of Toby Keith. The two performances have one major thing in common. Both songs were hit debut singles.
Keith wrote “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” and released it as the lead single from his self-titled debut album in 1993. It topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, broke into the publication’s all-genre Hot 100 chart, and went on to be one of Keith’s signature songs.
Performing debut hits on the Opry stage seems to point to Underwood’s respect for the history of the genre and the songs that helped launch artists to stardom.
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