Lee Greenwood Talks about Inauguration Invitations
Lee Greenwood performed at President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration Make America Great Again Welcome Celebration yesterday (Jan. 19th) and had some advice to offer those who performed & those who declined to take part in performing during any part of the inauguration...
Lee Greenwood has performed “God Bless the USA” for five sitting Presidents (Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush) and at three presidential inaugurations, plus the Make America Great Again Welcome Celebration just one day ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Greenwood has some advice for his fellow performers, saying...“I would advise inauguration performers to live the moment … It will be a moment that they just have to bathe in,” Greenwood tells Variety, adding, “Remember what you have to do — and do it with eloquence.”
Greenwood performed “God Bless the USA” at the Welcome Celebration; he was “thrilled” to do so, and “had no trouble” with President-elect Trump using the song during his campaign. In fact, Greenwood says that he believes the numerous artists who have declined to be part of Trump’s inauguration festivities will 'regret not going in the future'...going on to say 'You don’t get this invitation very often,” later adding, “I feel sorry for people who would turn down this invitation.”
Greenwood continues, “You need to support Trump and all the things he plans to do for America, and not bow down to what is said on social media and gossip … I live here in a rural community in Nashville, and I frequent a lot of local places … No one comes up to me and says, ‘Why are you going? Why are you singing for the president?’”