For the late country musician's birthday, her granddaughter performed the song “Want You” that she wrote.
Loretta Lynn's granddaughter Emmy Russell is still in the running for Season 22 winner American Idol, and the singer asked to keep her around as she debuted an original song on April 14. The date coincided with the country's 92nd birthday.
For the Top 20 round, Russell performed “Want You,” a soulful ballad about emotional reassurance. “I want you to want me like I want you/I want you to need me like I need you,” the 25-year-old sang for the judges. “If you're gonna leave me, then untie me/I want you to want me.”
On Instagram, Lynn's estate heaped praise on Russell for the performance. “What a birthday present! Loretta's granddaughter Emmy just made the Top 20 on @americanidol,” the caption read under a photo of Russell. “Emmy was born on Doo and Loretta's anniversary and now we have this milestone on Loretta's birthday! Loretta told everyone who would listen that Emmy had something special and now people are seeing for themselves. Congratulations, Amy!”
Russell comes from a long lineage of musicians, but the young musician is hyper-aware of the pressure that comes with it. “When I was 15, she put her guitar down on me at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. “'You're the only one I feel like you should carry this,' but at 15 you don't know how to carry such a heavy weight,” she said recently. Rolling rock. “And so my process was interesting. My musical journey has been very interesting in learning how to carry it properly instead of letting it crush me.”
He added: “Meemaw gave me that guitar so there's something to it. He saw something in me and he has a lot of grandchildren who sing, so there must be something there. I've always written, I've always been a creative person, and so maybe there's a legacy there that I can carry, but in a different way than I thought. I thought I had to be just like her. I feel like I'm more like her than when I was trying to be like her.”
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/emmy-russell-loretta-lynn-original-song-american-idol-1235004843/
