Taylor Hughes occasionally sings with former UK basketball player Bobby Perry, left, and the Commonwealth Band (her brother-in-law is the band’s guitarist).
She was born and raised in Lexington, attended the University of Kentucky and has a whole family of UK sports fans.
That’s why getting to sing the national anthem before Saturday night’s Mississippi State-Kentucky game at Kroger Field is so exciting to country artist/songwriter Taylor Hughes of Nashville.
“I have lived in Nashville about five years now but still go back to Kentucky to play a lot of shows. My husband is a huge UK basketball fan and we all bleed blue in my family,” she said. “Football season is my favorite time of year. My family is always tailgating (at UK games) and I am sure they will for this game. I am no stranger to UK football and that makes this very exciting.”
Her father was actually trying to get game tickets for her and her husband from a friend at UK when he mentioned his daughter was a singer he would love to see get a chance to sing the national anthem. That started the process that led to her singing the national anthem Saturday night which she admits will be a “little bit of pressure, little bit of fun” for her.
“I have a lot of family and friends and fans of my music who live in the area or are Kentucky-based. Singing the national anthem is a huge honor, especially at a SEC game, but it definitely has some pressure,” she said. “No one wants to mess up the national anthem. It’s a very difficult song to sign. It requires a lot of practice and rehearsal that I have been doing.”
She says most of her wardrobe is blue and she will be decked out in blue for the game.
“I am packing a few outfits in case of rain or cold,” she said. “But I will not be missing my blue. I have always got the Wildcats’ back. I play shows here (in Tennessee) and there are a lot of UK fans in the area.”
“Mark Stoops has been a huge blessing for UK football and the university as a whole. I love football and it is exciting to see people taking UK football so seriously because we are here to compete and we are really good.”
Hughes has an athletic background. She played volleyball two years at Lexington Catholic before transferring to Henry Clay for her junior and senior years.
“I had plans of going to college on a volleyball scholarship and had a few schools reach out before I blew my knee out my junior year and was unable to fully recover,” she said.
She turned to music after her injury and asked her parents if she could take guitar lessons. That led to her instructor, Paulie Felice, advising Hughes her future was in singing.
“He said, ‘We are taking you to Nashville,’” Hughes, who had been involved in choir, said. “He was the reason I stepped on a stage for the first time on my own at age 18.”
Her performance went so well that her parents asked if she was “lip syncing” rather than singing.
“That is how I got my start and then we started coming to Nashville every few months,” Hughes said.
She released her debut single “Good Taste” in 2020 and followed with “Praying’ To The Whiskey” in 2021. She was nominated for the Southern Fellow’s “Country Artist of the Year” and finished in the top 5 (her second year in a row).
Her most recent single is “High on Something” and she has been nominated for her first Josie Music Awards for “Female Country Vocalist of the Year.”
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Hughes will perform at the Elkhorn Tavern in Lexington tonight and then be in Richmond Oct. 26 for the BBH Spotlight Series. The singer will be in Danville Oct. 29 at The Still at Blue Rook Distillery.
For more information on Hughes, go to https://www.taylorhughesmusic.com/.
