Adam Wainwright Makes Grand Ole Opry Debut, Teases New Country Music Album
"The only thing I ever wanted to be in my whole life was a Major League Baseball player."
That's what Adam Wainwright told a sold-out crowd in Nashville on Saturday night. And, well, mission accomplished. After 18 prolific seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals, the 42-year-old pitcher hung up his cleats for good this past fall — closing the chapter on his childhood dream come true.
So now it's time for a new dream: country music stardom. And the Grand Ole Opry is a heck of a place to start.
Wainright started playing the guitar in 2001, and he's been honing his craft ever since. As he took the stage at one of country music's most iconic venues, all those nights picking strings in his hotel room between starts finally paid off.
"I always sang for my summer baseball teams. They were stuck with me singing to them all the time," he said. "In the Minor Leagues and in the Major Leagues — as many times as I could, I was trying to sing in front of people. But I never, ever, ever thought it would lead me here."
The Opry is a bucket list experience for any country artist. For nearly 100 years, the biggest stars in the industry have stood on that very stage. Wainwright was lucky enough to earn the opportunity just one day after the release of his debut single, "Hey Y'all."
The track is an homage to Wainwright's Georgia roots — all about southern hospitality, family values and those colloquialisms that have become so emblematic of the South.
Adam Wainwright Tells The Stories Behind The Songs
He also treated the crowd to a tune called "A Song Will Bring You Back," a tribute to the country music he grew up blasting in his '89 Jeep Cherokee with the purple tint windows — "the coolest car in the world," according to a young Adam. George Strait was his favorite.
"I really fell in love with George Strait's music when I used to drive up to see my wife in college at Georgia Southern," he recalled. "It was two hours away, and I would listen to George Strait music there and all the way back."
(Photo credit: © Grand Ole Opry, photos by Chris Hollo)
The song also gives a nod to Garth Brooks and Brooks & Dunn. And, of course, Alabama — whose song "Dixieland Delight" blared on repeat 25 years ago when Georgia baseball players made Adam ride around in the back of a truck, waving a Bulldogs flag, on a recruiting trip.
And finally, the Cardinals legend mentioned one more song, "One Day They Won't" — about valuing life's little moments because kids grow up too fast. A father of five, Wainwright noted that his house is usually "like a tornado" with kids running around.
"It's haywire. It's pandemonium. And I look at my wife and I go, ‘Its nuts in here,’" Wainwright said, recalling one particularly chaotic day. "And then my daughter Sadee came and got my lap. I said, 'But you know what? One day they won't do that right there.'' And I went, 'Oh, that's a good song!'"
Wainwright didn't play that one at the Opry. But it will be on the new album.
Adam Wainwright Teases New Album
Although he's tight-lipped on the exact release date, Wainwright is releasing his debut album soon.
And he's collaborating with one of the industry's best — Gary Baker — to make it happen. Baker is a GRAMMY-winning songwriter with No. 1 hits, like "I Swear" (recorded by John Michael Montgomery and All-4-One) and "I'm Already There" (recorded by Lonestar).
The two met in 2017. Baker's son just happens to live next door to one of Wainwright's good friends, former MLB pitcher Matt Holliday. To help get him started, Baker told Adam to send him some songs. He'd look them over and offer feedback.
"It took me about a year or two to kind of build up the gumption to do that because, I mean, it's a Hall of Fame writer, and it takes a little bit of something to put yourself out there like that. To write your own stuff in front of the world's best," Wainwright said.
"And so, finally, I came up with a couple of really good ideas, I thought, and wrote them down. I sent them to him. And he's like, 'Yeah, that's pretty good stuff. Not bad!'"
(Photo credit: © Grand Ole Opry, photos by Chris Hollo)
Now that he got the courage to share his "not bad" music with an award-winning songwriter, he's finally ready to share it with the world. No doubt his fans — especially the hundreds who flooded into the Opryhouse wearing No. 50 Cardinals jerseys on Saturday — will be ready to listen.
"All those songs are just stories. That's what you're going to hear on the record," Wainwright said. "It's all real stuff for me. It's real stories that happened in my life, and I'm so glad and blessed that I get to write all of them."
Well, look at that. Another dream come true.