Tanya Tucker Couldn’t Hold Back at Country Music Hall of Fame Medallion Ceremony

Tanya Tucker broke all of the rules during her induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and those in attendance couldn't have been happier about it.

Sunday night's (Oct. 22) Medallion Ceremony at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum welcomed Tucker, Patty Loveless and Bob McDill into the Hall. Each artist was lauded with several speeches and three tribute performances. It's typically a time when the honoree sits still and tries to hold emotions in check.

Not Tucker.

On two separate occasions, she jumped out of her seat and joined the artist singing her song. First it was Margo Price and Jessie Colter on "It's a Little Too Late." After returning to her seat, she again popped up to join Brandi Carlile midway through "Two Sparrows and a Hurricane."

"I've never been a good audience member," she'd say during her acceptance speech, "And I haven't been very good today, but it just kind of stuck with me."

Hall of Fame members Connie Smith and Brenda Lee officially presented Tucker with her medallion and stood alongside her as her bronze Hall of Fame plaque was revealed. The pair shared personal, hilarious anecdotes of times with Tucker while the singer herself was a bit more candid about her troubled past.

"Thank you for Brandi Carlile, one of my favorite singers in the whole world, and Shooter Jennings, who brought me back from the dead," Tucker said at one point, referring to the Grammy-winning While I'm Livin' album they all produced together in 2019.

"I really was kicking, but my career was pretty much in the hole."

In beginning the part of the show focused on Tucker, Hall of Fame CEO Kyle Young highlighted her personal and professional ups and downs, which included drug use and several years spent without a record label or a place to record new music. The remarks, while candid, were buffered by a greater understanding of how being pushed into the music business at age nine robbed her of a childhood.

Tucker also alluded to those early years and her father's form of encouragement: "He (Bo Tucker) was my first fan, and he wouldn't take no for an answer."

The singer's 14-minute speech followed performances by Carlile, Colter and Price, and Wynonna Judd, who performed "Delta Dawn." Tucker seemed inspired, humbled and blown away by the moment.

"I look back on these 52 years, it's hard to make sense of it all," she says. "But it doesn't really make sense, because, you know, if we lived in a world that made sense ... it would be a man who rode side-saddle."