{"id":2318290,"date":"2026-03-08T13:21:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T13:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2318290"},"modified":"2026-03-08T13:21:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T13:21:22","slug":"opry-announcer-kelly-sutton-to-appear-on-american-idol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/opry-announcer-kelly-sutton-to-appear-on-american-idol\/","title":{"rendered":"Opry announcer Kelly Sutton to appear on &#8216;American Idol&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p><story-emphasis util-module-path=\"elements\/story\" section=\"entertainment\" link=\"\/entertainment\"\/><\/p>\n<hr class=\"colorbar\" style=\"background:#009bff\"\/>\n<h2 class=\"display-5 subhead spacer-small\">A Nashville TV and radio personality for decades, Sutton makes her national TV reality debut as a country music &#8216;industry tastemaker&#8217;<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"videoWrap\" class=\"spacer-large videoWrap\" style=\"position:relative\"><media-video video-id=\"88422532007\" title=\"'American Idol' audition shocks judges with jazzy 'Baby Got Back'\" poster=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/authoring\/authoring-images\/2026\/01\/30\/USAT\/88422694007-180141-1578.jpg?crop=1644,925,x1194,y186\" util-module-path=\"elements\/media\" placement=\"snow-video-story-priority\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"uwVideoPlaceholder\" slot=\"placeholder\" style=\"z-index:19;width:100%;padding-bottom:56.25%;position:relative\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"vidplaybtn\" style=\"display:-moz-box;display:-ms-flexbox;display:-webkit-flex;display:flex;background-color:rgba(0,0,0,.4);border:2px solid #fff;border-radius:80px;cursor:pointer;height:80px;width:80px;position:absolute;top:50%;left:50%;transform:translate(-50%,-50%);z-index:10\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"vidplayicon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\" alt=\"play\" style=\"height:40px;margin:auto 18px auto 27px;width:40px\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div slot=\"videoDetails\" id=\"videoDetails\" class=\"videoDetails\" style=\"padding-top:8px;padding-bottom:8px\">\n<div id=\"videoDetailsContainer\" class=\"videoDetailsContainer\" hidden=\"\">\n<p>&#8216;American Idol&#8217; audition shocks judges with jazzy &#8216;Baby Got Back&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Trace Casanova pulled Carrie Underwood for a dance and inspired Luke Bryan to join a jazzy duet of &#8220;Baby Got Back&#8221; during &#8220;American Idol&#8221; auditions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/media-video><\/div>\n<p>One of Nashville&#8217;s own will appear on &#8220;American Idol.&#8221; Kelly Sutton hosted the Fox 17 morning show in Nashville for 12 years and co-hosted Channel 4&#8217;s midday show for four years. These days, Sutton is a Grand Ole Opry live show announcer, a WSM-AM morning show sidekick, a national Amazon Music country channel host, a podcaster, and an actor.<\/p>\n<partner-banner util-module-path=\"elements\/partner\" class=\"spacer-large\" min-height=\"600\" fluid=\"\" outstream=\"\" momentum=\"\"\/>\n<p>Add to that list &#8220;music industry tastemaker&#8221; for the March 9 episode of ABC&#8217;s &#8220;American Idol,&#8221; which features two of her longtime friends, country stars Carrie Underwood and Luke Bryan, as judges.<\/p>\n<p>For years, Sutton has been on ABC Country Music Association awards specials as an industry insider. She has interviewed every country music star and celebrity in Nashville you can think of. Literally. Her next move? Reality TV. The top 30 idol contestants will perform for Sutton and seven fellow tastemakers, who will eliminate 10 contestants from that pool.<\/p>\n<p><media-image image-set=\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/authoring\/authoring-images\/2026\/03\/05\/PNAS\/88993381007-kelly-sutton-american-idol.jpeg bestCrop, https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/authoring\/authoring-images\/2026\/03\/05\/PNAS\/88993381007-kelly-sutton-american-idol.jpeg?crop=541,407,x0,y70 4:3, https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/authoring\/authoring-images\/2026\/03\/05\/PNAS\/88993381007-kelly-sutton-american-idol.jpeg?crop=530,706,x11,y0 3:4, https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/authoring\/authoring-images\/2026\/03\/05\/PNAS\/88993381007-kelly-sutton-american-idol.jpeg?crop=541,305,x0,y70 16:9\" image-alt=\"\" credit=\"Provided by Kelly Sutton\" caption=\"Grand Ole Opry announcer and WSM-AM morning radio show sidekick Kelly Sutton poses on the 'American Idol' set in Hawaii in February 2026 before taping a segment as a music industry tastemaker for the ABC singing contest. Sutton's episode airs locally at 7 p.m. March 9 on News 2.\" orientation=\"vertical\" class=\"spacer-large\" util-module-path=\"elements\/media\"\/><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This was such a thrill!&#8221; Sutton said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I\u2019ve been covering &#8216;American Idol&#8217; since Season 1, so to get to be a part of the tastemaker industry panel was really full circle for me. The contestants are so insanely talented this year! I know now how tough it is for Carrie, Luke and Lionel [Richie] to make those early cuts.&#8221;<\/p>\n<partner-banner util-module-path=\"elements\/partner\" fluid=\"\" bottom=\"\" lazy=\"\" class=\"spacer-large\" min-height=\"390\" outstream=\"\"\/>\n<p>The episode airs locally at 7 p.m. March 9 on News 2.<\/p>\n<p><em>Reach Brad Schmitt at <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"mailto:brad@tennessean.com\">brad@tennessean.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<lit-timestamp class=\"column ten-column no-gutter spacer-small\" slot=\"timestamp\" publishdate=\"2026-03-08 10:01:03.481604029 +0000 UTC\" updatedate=\"2026-03-08 10:01:03.481604029 +0000 UTC\"\/><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.tennessean.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Nashville TV and radio personality for decades, Sutton makes her national TV reality debut as a country music &#8216;industry tastemaker&#8217; &#8216;American Idol&#8217; audition shocks judges with jazzy &#8216;Baby Got Back&#8217; Trace Casanova pulled Carrie Underwood for a dance and inspired Luke Bryan to join a jazzy duet of &#8220;Baby Got Back&#8221; during &#8220;American Idol&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2318291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[39915,22220,356489,305461,22844,21751,239390,23849,22846,6297,21741,37767,39367,21739,298114,371201,305131,21800,23510,21738,359178,355000,239343,239347,23759,29945,24431,21913,239471,239344,305462],"class_list":["post-2318290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-affiliate","tag-arts","tag-bryan","tag-carrie","tag-carrie-underwood","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrities-u0026-entertainment-news","tag-country","tag-country-music","tag-eamotion","tag-entertainment","tag-grand","tag-grand-ole-opry","tag-local","tag-local-affiliate-arts-u0026-entertainment","tag-luke","tag-luke-bryan","tag-music","tag-nashville","tag-news","tag-ole","tag-opry","tag-overall","tag-overall-positive","tag-positive","tag-programs","tag-shows","tag-tv","tag-tv-shows-u0026-programs","tag-u0026","tag-underwood"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Opry-announcer-Kelly-Sutton-to-appear-on-American-Idol.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2318290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2318292,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2318290\/revisions\/2318292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2318291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2318290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2318290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2318290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}