Dreams do come true. If you don’t believe it, just ask Kayla Slone. Kayla loves to sing. She loves it so much she often sings on the job at the Logan Walmart for customers in her checkout line.
Earlier this year a friend used a smart-phone to record video of her singing country music classics like Coal Miner’s Daughter and Coat of Many Colors. The tones sounded hauntingly like those of the original singers Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton.
The video went viral and Kayla’s story was soon featured on ABC’s World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer. The attention got Kayla invited to New York City to appear on Anderson Cooper Live and netted an invitation to the CMA’s from Dierks Bentley. However, this past weekend was the real prize for Kayla. Producers of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville heard Kayla say singing on the stage there would be the thrill of a lifetime.
She was invited to sing last Saturday night. She finished her shift at Walmart on Friday. Her husband, a coal miner, finished the evening shift at his mine and the two of them drove to Nashville at midnight on Friday.
She rehearsed in her room at the Opryland Hotel Saturday evening when the phone rang. It was Loretta Lynn.
“I think talking to Loretta helped me a lot,” Slone told ABC News. “She told me that she loved me, and she said she would be watching and I said it was an honor to sing her song. That’s the music that I grew up listening to and that’s what I want to sing.”
Kayla was introduced by country legend Jeannie Seely and received a standing ovation after belting out Coal Miner’s Daughter at the Mother Church of Country Music.
“I can never give up now,” Slone said. “This is what’s going to happen for me.”
However, for the time being–she’s scheduled to work at Walmart today.