Tami Neilson performs with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. Photo: by Doug Peters Ambient Light
Kiwi country music queen Tami Neilson is heading to Nashville to play the Grand Ole Opry. Only the elite in country music get to play and you have to be invited to perform.
The Opry is the radio show that made country music famous and has been running for 98 years.
It's launched the careers of Dolly Parton, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and Willie Nelson.
It's 30 years since she attended the Opry with her family, she told RNZ's Nine to Noon.
"I was 16 years old, I was living in Nashville with my family. We were playing shows there, and we were living in our motor home in a trailer park. I mean, does it get more country than that?"
For country musicians the Opry is "our Carnegie Hall," she said.
"I still have the ticket stub from when we attended. It's in my scrapbook from when I was a teenager, and it was exactly 30 years ago this year - I'm a 30-year overnight sensation."
She got the news when she was playing shows in New Orleans, she said.
"I was in this little jazz club in New Orleans, standing with my brother, listening to some music, and my manager turned to me, and she's like, 'you've just been invited'. You're officially invited to play the Grand Ole Opry.
"And my brother, Jay and I just looked at each other, and just both of us started to cry and just hugged. "
The invite is a testament, she said, to tenacity in a business that can be fickle.
Tami Neilson bound for Grand Ole Opry
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"I think when you're a woman in her mid-40s, you're a mom that lives on the other side of the world, you have a lot of obstacles, and you get told no, a lot.
"And you know, this is just to me, it's a testament - I'm a tortoise, not a hare!"
The dream is all the sweeter for being so long in the making she said.
"To me, all that much sweeter when you've achieved a dream and gotten to that mountain top after 30 years of climbing."
Neilson is also playing shows at Dollywood while she's in the US in September.
"I can't wait, I'm like a kid in a candy store. Honestly, it's like the grown-up Disneyland for me, I can't wait.
"There's a dolly Museum, It has all her rhinestones and her costumes, and it's got a replica of the little one-room cabin she grew up in."
She's happy to "sing for her supper," she said.
"I'll sing every night at Dollywood for a week, just so I can, like at the park like a crazed fan."