She had a flare for the dramatics, and I’m here for it. Of course, legendary country duo Brooks & Dunn  burst onto the scene with their hit debut song “Brand New Man” topped the charts in 1991, after they had been working together writing songs because songwriter and industry executive Tim DuBois wanted them to work as a duo. Both Ronnie Dunn and Kix Brooks moved to Nashville as solo artists and were pursuing solo careers, but were put together in an arranged musical marriage of sorts, and they famously split in August of 2009 after 20 years as a duo, but it was only for several years, as they reunited in 2015 for a Las Vegas residency with Reba McEntire called “Reba, Brooks & Dunn: Together in Vegas.” They’ve seen a huge resurgence in their commercial career with great project like the two Reboot albums they’ve put out over the last several years with some of country’s current big stars, and in 1992, they won their first ACM awards for both Top New Duo and Duo of the Year, beating out The Judds, who had consistently won those awards and had been at the top of their career in the years leading up to the early 90’s During a recent interview, they opened up about their early years and how the burst onto the scene in the early 90’s with their aforementioned hit and debut album, which happened as The Judds were breaking up: “I think The Judds were breaking up at that point for whatever reason. They were kind of the ruling duo.” Ronnie explained that he didn’t think it was the catalyst for them to step in, it was just the timing of it all, and Kix recalled a great story from the 1992 ACM Awards, when they were excited to be there and have such a big night. They were getting on the bus to go to some show that weekend once it ended, and a worker walked up to Kix and said Naomi wanted to talk to him. He followed the guy to this set of bleachers, where Naomi was standing underneath them in her evening gown ready, telling him they were ready to officially “pass the torch” to Brooks & Dunn that night. He was taken aback by what she said, explaining that they were really in no position for that yet and were still very, very early into anything like that in terms of surpassing The Judds at that particular time: “This is the truth, though. I remember the first Duo of the Year that we won at the ACMs, we were leaving, had our families there and we were excited and whatever. And walking out the door, one of the concierge came up said ‘Would you mind coming with me? Naomi Judd would like to have a word with you. And I went, ‘Okay.’ I had met Naomi, we didn’t really know each other. It’s when it was at Universal, and she was down underneath the stands. There was like you know grandstand you would have like a temporary kind of stand set up at Universal the way it was. Went in there, she stood under in her beautiful evening gown, it was like this thing out of a movie, and I said, ‘Hey, Naomi.’ She said, ‘I just wanted you to come down. I just wanna let you know that we’re passing the torch to you guys tonight.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, I don’t know if we’re really torch passing or anything, but thank you.’ She was a pretty dramatic personality. I didn’t really have a good response for her other than, ‘I appreciate you feeling that way, but there’s a lot of great duos out there.'” Ronnie laughed, saying it might’ve been a bit of a “power play” considering The Judds had been so dominant for many years: “It might’ve been a power play. I remember you came walking up on the bus, we were headed for somewhere like all award shows. You do what you gotta do, then you take off and end up in Fresno tomorrow. But he goes, ‘You won’t believe what happened.’ And he told the story.” Kix admitted that he hasn’t told that story much, but it was a “very surreal moment'” in his career and it has clearly stuck with him so many decades later: “I haven’t told that story a lot, but it was a very surreal moment… and we’re only a couple of year in, this isn’t like we’re really comfortable in our skis here.” It’s a great story about some country legends, and regardless what her intentions were telling him that, it’s clear she was right about how Brooks & Dunn would go onto be a huge part of the resurgence of country in the ’90s in terms of the commercial success, and they’re still doing it now. “Brand New Man” The post Kix Brooks Recalls “Surreal” Moment With Naomi Judd After 1992 ACM Awards: “She Was A Pretty Dramatic Personality” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.