Twitty & Lynn Salute Conway & Loretta

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Courtesy Harvester Performance Center

There’s a moment right at the very beginning of any Twitty & 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.

Audiences can’t believe their eyes. From that moment, for the next 90 minutes, they’re in the presence of living country music history. “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.”

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.”

“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.”

Loretta herself was impressed. The Country Music Hall of Fame member helped her granddaughter and Tre with their show and had the same time-traveling experience that today’s audiences do while watching them perform. “Memaw just loved it. It brought up so many memories of Conway for her and took her back to a place in her life when they were building their careers. She’d always say that Tre has Conway’s heart,” says Tayla, who lives at Lynn’s Tennessee ranch and used to tour with her grandmother, cuddling up together in the bus’s bedroom to watch old movies while on the road. “We were very close,” she says.

Tayla first had the idea for the show after witnessing Tre perform Conway’s songs during a concert at the ranch. She approached him about teaming up and, after a few shows to test the waters, they embarked on a tour of Canada in 2018. “Even though we didn’t grow up together, meeting each other wasn’t like meeting strangers,” Tayla says. “It was like we had always known each other because we had the same experiences.”

Now together as “Twitty & Lynn” for five years and poised to launch a huge summertime tour, the duo has cultivated an audience and caught the attention of Nashville along the way. In 2022, they made their debut on the world-famous Grand Ole Opry, singing “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man” on the very same circle of wood where Conway and Loretta once stood.

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