LDL. A DREAM FULFILLED: Kathy Mattea Officially Inducted Into the Grand Ole Opry Family. LDL

Kathy Mattea officially became a member of the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night, October 11.

Kathy Mattea was officially welcomed to the Opry family, two months after Charlie McCoy surprised her with an invitation. Mattea became the 234th member of the hallowed institution, and the 76th active living member.

Mattea, 66, rose to fame in the early ’80s with the relase of her debut album and four subsequent albums during that decade. Her fourth album, Untasted Honey, brought Mattea her first chart topping singles, “Goin’ Gone” and “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses.”

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Numerous albums and charting singles followed until she left Mercury Records in 2000. Kathy returned to her folk and bluegrass roots after leaving Mercury and started working with Narada Productions.

To date, Kathy Mattea has released 17 albums that have produced four Billboard No. 1 hits. She was a two-time CMA Female Vocalist of The Year, is the recipients of four ACM Awards, and earned two Grammys.

Kathy Mattea’s induction into the Grand Ole Opry is long overdue.

Longtime country music fans had one question when Kathy Mattea received her Opry invite. “What took so long?” Mattea has performed at the Opry roughly 170 times and has a resume that rivals other country artists who were inducted long before she was. Because of this, Kathy’s induction felt overdue and well-deserved.

Ahead of her official induction ceremony, Mattea marked the occasion by adding her member plaque to the gallery wall.

Longtime Opry member Terri Clark had the honor of welcoming Kathy Mattea to the Opry family. Clark praised Mattea’s influence on country music, and agreed with the sentiment that “it’s about time.”

Kathy Mattea addressed the audience, humbly sharing her excitement over the honor.

“If you get lucky enough to do this, it’s your dream that something you put into the world will mean something to someone else. If that happens … that’s what we all want, right? We all want to have sense that something we did meant something to someone else and enrich somebody else’s life in some way,” Mattea said.

She added, “I think music is more needed in this world today than ever before. As I tell my audiences every night, when you’re sitting next to someone you’ve never met before and you both know the song ‘Eighteen Wheels,’ and you’re both sitting there singing it, you have no idea who that person next to you voted for. And you don’t care at that point, because really we’re all the same at the heart.”

Watch Kathy Mattea’s historic Opry induction below: