Elle King Makes Her Solo Grand Ole Opry Debut

Elle King made her solo Grand Ole Opry debut this week and took to her Instagram to post images from backstage with her son and husband before the Tuesday night (4/4) performance.

Elle posted photos of her and her son Lucky and a video of her checking into the Opry backstage. She captioned the post, "Official @opry Debut. I am honored to be a part of this incredible community of country music! The last time I sang on this stage, Lucky was in my stomach. Heart is full!" See that post here.

In a second post on Instagram, King posted more images of herself, her son Lucky and her husband posing on the Opry stage. She wrote, "Lucky makes his Debut at the beautiful @opry. Ps, he's wearing my hat from when I was little."

See that post here.

Elle first stepped on the Grand Ole Opry stage in October of 2016 and performed the duet "Different For Girls" with Dierks Bentley.

King said in an interview that Dierks Bentley is responsible for her switch to country music. We recently chatted with Dierks about his new album Gravel & Gold, and he told us how he found King for the 2016 collaboration "Different For Girls," which won a CMA Award in 2016 for Vocal Event of The Year. In 2017, the duet was nominated for a Grammy for Best Country Duo/Group Performance.

He told us, "When you've got a collaboration on a record, we had the song 'Different For Girls,' and I was looking for who could make the song bigger than it is. I'm lucky to have had collaborations with Maren (Morris ) and Kacey (Musgraves), but that one was just trying to find someone that no one else was using."

Bentley continued, "You know, you see Miranda on a lot of stuff, and it was like, 'Is there anyone out there no one is talking about, maybe in a different genre?' I knew the song 'X's and Oh's,' I was talking to my manager, and her name came up. And I said, 'How do we get in touch with her? She'd be awesome, although she seems kind of crazy, and she probably would hate us.'"

He continued, "And then I met her in Brooklyn to shoot the video and more hangs and more fun, and I really started liking her a lot. Then she came to Nashville for (CMA) Music Fest, and she was wearing a trucker's hat and tattoos, and it was just a really easy connection. We really get along well."

Elle King, who came to country music from the world of pop music, will be releasing her first full country album tomorrow (1/27) called Come Get Your Wife. She celebrated the new work with a listening party in Nashville on Tuesday (1/24), playing songs for friends in the industry, including Dierks Bentley, who came to celebrate and sing a duet with King on stage.

The album title reflects something a guy yelled out over her at a bar, and she never forgot it. Elle told us, "Even the album title, it comes from something some a--hole said to my partner one night. Something thrown off in a bar, intended to put me in my place… and he probably didn't think twice about it. But I did."

The album has twelve tracks on it, including her chart-topper with Miranda Lambert, "Drunk (And I Don't Want To Go Home)," and a new duet with Dierks Bentley called "Worth A Shot." King says of the new work, "Releasing my debut country album is packed full of emotions. Mostly excitement and full of a lot of gratitude because I really am just so blown away by country music fans and how they've, you know, accepted me and still let me continue to just be wild and rowdy and be myself. And it's just a blessing." She added, "I have poured my heart and a lot of tequila into this record. So I really hope that people like it because I'm really proud of it, and I can't wait to sing all these songs live, and I hope you guys want to sing them with me too."

Come Get Your Wife - Elle King - Track Listing: 

1. Ohio – Written by Elle King, Bobby Hamrick, Ella Langley & Matt McKinney

2. Before You Met Me – Written by Tofer Brown, Margaret McRee & Lauren Hungate

3. Try Jesus – Written by Elle King, Geoffrey Warburton, Casey Cathleen Smith, Ashley Gorley & Ben Johnson

4. Drunk (And I Don't Want To Go Home) with Miranda Lambert – Written by Elle King and Martin Johnson

5. Lucky – Written by Elle King, Bobby Hamrick, Ella Langley & Matt McKinney

6. Worth A Shot (featuring Dierks Bentley) Written by Shane McAnally, Ross Copperman, and Josh Osborne

7. Tulsa – Written by Elle King, Bobby Hamrick, Ella Langley & Matt McKinney

8. Crawlin' Mood – Written by Charlie Worsham & Jesse Frasure

9. Bonafide – Written by Elle King, Bobby Hamrick, Ella Langley & Matt McKinney

10. Blacked Out – Written by Elle King and Martin Johnson

11. Out Yonder – Written by Bobby Hamrick, Ella Langley & Matt McKinney

12. Love Go By – Written by Elle King, Geoffrey Warburton & Joe Janiak

To celebrate the album's release, we have gathered some images from Elle's career to date.