Country legend Randy Travis is being celebrated by all of country music as the industry seeks to show their support for the star, who has been suffering from aphasia since 2013. The singer who’s known for hit songs like “Forever and Ever, Amen” spent time talking about the upcoming event in an interview with Fox News Digital.
Randy was alongside his wife Mary Travis who has helped him battle through the speech limitations that are the result of a 2013 stroke. Mary started by explaining how grateful Randy is to have his music being played after all these years. She said, “It means a lot to him. I mean, just to know that he made the music that he made and that it stands the test of time.”
As Randy made clear through smiles and nods that he agreed, his wife continued, “And then to have tributes to you when you can’t sing the music, but somebody else will come in, step in for you, and some of the great artists that do step in, you know, that say, ‘Hey, I want to be one of those that sings your music’ when they have a whole catalog of their own music. But it’s like, ‘I just I want to give this time and this energy to singing your music because it made a difference in my life.’”
Mary mentioned that Randy finds great joy in knowing that these other big-name country stars used to sing along to his tunes. She said, “They could all be busy doing something else. They could not identify with the music well enough to even know the song. Because when you think about it, as I said, they have their own catalog of music”
“So these people that are coming along to sing tribute to Randy… somewhere along the line, sitting on the foot of their bed, strumming their guitar when they’re 13 years old, singing ‘Forever and Ever, Amen’ or ‘Digging Up Bones’ or ‘1982,’ it made a difference in their life.”
While country music has been under attack recently as the media attacked Jason Aldean, Mary says that this is really what country music stands for. “This is what country music is all about. This is what music’s all about. You know, it comes out the best in all of us. And just the kindness and the gentleness and the heart. It’s all heart. And so that meant a lot to us. And we can’t thank Tim enough just for that moment in time.”
When asked how she and Randy made it through the trials that came with his battles with illness, Mary said that the couple relied on God. “He’s very faithful. We, you know, we leaned hard on God. It’s been 10 years now since the stroke, and that’s hard to believe… There’s really no words for it and there’s not a day that goes by that I just don’t thank God for his grace and his mercy.”
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