Carrie Underwood will be back on a very special stage this Friday.
On Nov. 6, the Grand Ole Opry, country music’s most famous radio show, broadcast from the Opry House in Nashville, has two shows at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Central for National Adoption Month. They’re regular Opry nights with a theme, part of the Opry’s 100th year celebration. And $5 from every ticket sold for both shows goes to Show Hope.
Show Hope is a nonprofit in Franklin, Tennessee. Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth, started it in 2003 after their own family’s adoption journey. It gives Adoption Aid grants that help families cover the cost of adopting, and it has helped about 10,000 children in 65 countries.
Carrie shares Friday’s lineup with Steven Curtis Chapman, who became an Opry member himself in 2024. Colony House is a rock band from Franklin led by two of his sons, Caleb and Will Chapman. Bill Anderson is the country songwriter and Opry member known as “Whisperin’ Bill.” Country singer Mark Wills had 1990s hits like “Wish You Were Here” and “19 Somethin’.” Louis York is the Nashville duo of hit songwriters Claude Kelly and Chuck Harmony.
For Carrie, though, that wooden stage holds a memory nobody else on the lineup has.
Carrie won “American Idol” in 2005. She’s a small-town girl from Checotah, Oklahoma, and she first sang on the Opry on June 10, 2005, just two weeks after her big win.
On Saturday, March 15, 2008, she was back for a sold-out show that aired on GAC, the Great American Country channel. Carrie, then 25, sang “I Told You So.”
That song belonged to Randy Travis, a beloved country legend. He wrote it himself, and his version went to No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart in June 1988. Carrie had recorded it on her 2007 album “Carnival Ride.” Here’s Randy’s original, so you can hear the song she sang that night.
Randy Travis sings the original “I Told You So”
As Carrie finished, Randy walked up behind her.
“That’s a better performance than I will ever do of that song,” he told her. Then he asked the big one. “I was asked by the management of the Grand Ole Opry to come out here and ask you if you would like to be their next member.”
Carrie smiled and teased him with “Let me think about it.” Then she said yes right away, wiping tears from her eyes.
“It was fun to get to do the little sneaking up behind her somewhat, then watch her and see her response,” he said later. Carrie’s reaction is worth seeing for yourself.
Randy Travis surprises Carrie on the Opry stage
“This is one of the best nights of my life, and it’s certainly something I’ll never forget,” Carrie told the crowd.
It became official on May 10, 2008. Country superstar Garth Brooks inducted her as a member of the Grand Ole Opry, and news cameras were there to catch it.
Carrie officially joins the Grand Ole Opry
The friendship stuck. In 2009 Carrie and Randy put out “I Told You So” as a duet, and it won the Grammy for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals.
And this past August, Carrie turned the tables. She surprised Randy on the Opry stage to celebrate his 40 years as a member, bringing him a scarf made by famous Nashville designer Manuel Cuevas.
Randy wrote on social media that she’s his “longtime friend Carrie, who I had the honor of inviting to the Opry in 2008.” Carrie wrote on Instagram, “I still can’t believe this man even knows my name.”