1992 Gold Guitar Award winner Kylie Harris is touring New Zealand and Australia this month with Dion Pride, son of Charley.
Pride senior was thought of as the first African-American star of country music.
The tour completes the circle because, as well as listening to Pride’s records when she was young, Kylie met and toured with him after she won the Gold Guitar award and got a record deal in the 1990s.
"He came into my dressing room and it was like seeing this legend that I’d just seen on LPs that my parents owned," she said.
Ms Harris also "got on like a house on fire" with Pride’s long-standing manager John Daines, which worked in her favour.
Daines was a British expat who helped Ms Harris with her United States visa after she moved to Nashville, with nothing but a phone number in her back pocket and a guitar and a suitcase, she said.
Whenever they were back in town, Daines and Pride would make sure Harris would play with them at The Grand Ole Opry, the country music capital’s internationally known live radio broadcast.
The Kiwi expat ended up thriving in Nashville and then settled down, got married and had two girls.
But, she said, during a unhappy marriage and difficult divorce she lost the will to sing and did not pick up the microphone again for eight years.
"I just kind of convinced myself that I didn’t want to do it any more. I was kind of just survival mode, I think."
After rediscovering her voice in 2017 Ms Harris relocated to Boston and got divorced. Two years ago, she quit her 9-5 job and at 50, has been fulltime touring ever since.
"I probably performed over 100 dates last year, just solo."
She said that post divorce she had much more appreciation for performing and what she had been through helped her relate on a new, higher level to the tragedy and power of classic country music.
"Yeah, suffering and heartbreak" she said, singing the Tammy Wynette classic: D-I-V-O-R-C-E.
"I can just relate to them so much more now that I’m older and the lyrics mean so much more than they ever did."
An old friend, Dunedin promoter Dennis Brown, suggested she go on tour with Pride’s son Dion and perform the Charley Pride classics.
The pair will be joined by three members of Charlie’s original band as well as Dunedin native Bevan Gardiner, who is the star of a popular John Denver tribute group, Denver and Beyond.
The show will be performed in Christchurch on Friday, March 28, Dunedin the following Saturday and Invercargill on the Sunday.
Tickets are available on Dion Pride’s website or at bandsintown.com.
Ms Harris hinted that there might be a collaboration in the works with Gardiner soon, too.
