The Arts Council will host “A Salute to Conway & Loretta” on Wednesday, Nov. 13, at 7pm at the Coughlin-Saunders Performing Arts Center.
But Twitty & Lynn — and their internationally popular show “A Salute to Conway & Loretta” — aren’t impersonators. Tre doesn’t groom Seventies sideburns and perm his hair; Tayla doesn’t mimic her grandmother’s mannerisms. Rather, they are onstage celebrating country music, the lost art of duet singing, and the two beloved icons they refer to as “Poppy” and “Memaw.”
There’s a moment right at the very beginning of any Twitty and Lynn show that affords country music fans the chance to look back in time. Just after the band has played the signature intro to “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man,” Tre Twitty and Tayla Lynn shoot each other a glance that summons the electrifying chemistry of their grandparents: Tre is the grandson of Conway Twitty, Tayla is the granddaughter of Loretta Lynn.
“Fans have told Tayla and me that when they see us onstage singing, talking, and just looking at each other, they think, ‘Wow, there must be something genetic in those two families,’” Tre says. “It validates the experience of the concert for them. We’re telling our grandparents’ story through our story.”
“I think of us as the ambassadors of the Twitty and Lynn names — we’re just the new version of what they’ve already established,” Tre says. “But we also want to be caretakers of the past. At our shows, we get generations of fans because country music is passed down.”
“It’s about family — the fans’ families and our own,” Tayla says. “We have so much love and respect for Conway and Loretta, and we want to carry this on in such a way that we make our families proud.”
The duo credits their show’s popularity to the timeless songs of Conway and Loretta — duets like “After the Fire Is Gone” and “You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly” are all in the set, along with Conway and Loretta solo hits like “Hello, Darlin’” and “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” But they’re also giving audiences a chance to relive a moment in time that ended far too soon: Conway and Loretta stopped touring together full-time in 1981, and Conway died in 1993. “Conway has been gone 30 years,” Tre says. “Had Poppy lived, I think there would have been a great second act for him and Loretta. There’s a lot of people that wanted to see that, and we’re able to let them hear those songs and stories again.”