The Judds

April 25, 1988
The Judds first hit the top 20 of Billboard magazine's country music charts in 1984, and their career does not yet have the requisite depth and richness for a biography. Although lean and not comprehensive, this is, nonetheless, an unauthorized, intriguing peek at the mother-daughter singing duo. Millard (Amy Grant), Nashville correspondent for Variety, commences with the birth of Naomi (nee Diana Ellen Judd) in 1946 and chronicles her family tragedies and troubles: the suicide of her grandfather who ``bought heaven with a pull of the trigger''; the slow death from cancer of her brother Brian; Naomi's pregnancy followed by elopement with Mike Ciminella at 17; the sundering of her marriage at age 26; the restless years when Naomi hauled her two daughters, Christina (later to become her partner Wynonna Judd) and Ashley, back and forth across the country; and her estrangement from her mother Polly. But the book only begins to sing when Wynonna's turn to music at age 11 sparks her mother's raw, brashly innocent ambition. The account of the mother-daughters relationship (Naomi's obsession with Wynonna and her painful exclusion of Ashley) will make readers yearn for a more thorough discussion of the intertwining personalities of the three women.