Kip Moore Makes Opry Debut

(Photo Credit: Joel Dennis)

MCA Nashville singer/songwriter Kip Moore made his Grand Ole Opry debut Saturday, performing two songs on the historic stage.

“In the one brief moment that I stood in the circle, I reflected on everything that I had gone through for the last nine years,” says Kip, who performed his current single, “Mary Was The Marrying Kind,” and “Crazy One More Time.”

About three months after moving from Tifton, Ga., on Jan. 1, 2004, Kip attended the Opry and spent some time with an usher named Goldie. “I told her I just moved to town and was trying to pursue country music,” he recalls. “I told her I would play on that stage one day and she laughed and said, ‘I’m sure you will.’ I told her I was dead serious and she laughed and said, ‘We’ll see.’

“Right before I started my performance, I said, ‘Here I am, Goldie.’”

Kip was overcome with emotion as he took the famed stage. “I was so nervous that I could barely plug in my guitar cord to the amp because my hand was shaking so badly,” he says. “I was honored to get to do it.

“It was very humbling for me thinking about all of the people that stood in that circle. I wondered, ‘How did I make it to this point?’ I reflected on nine years in that one moment. I could feel the presence of the people who had played there before.”

Kip is spending much of the summer on the road, performing on shows with artists such as Carrie Underwood, Trace Adkins and Billy Currington. He recently finished recording his debut album for MCA Nashville. He wrote or co-wrote every song on the album that was produced by Brett James.