Conway Twitty may have left the stage, but the songs that soothed and stirred a nation are rising again — sung now by his son, his grandson and his daughter in a tour that reads like a family promise kept.
Fans can expect the familiar warmth of “Hello Darlin’” and the raw ache of “It’s Only Make Believe,” delivered not as museum pieces but as living music. Michael Twitty and his son Tre join Joni Lee to rework a program that honors the man who became a hometown king of country and pop. Each night is designed as a tribute — a hand reaching back to a golden past and a bridge carrying that past forward.
The tour is less about spectacle and more about memory. Onstage, the arrangements lean toward intimacy: a plain piano, a single guitar, and three voices that move between harmony and personal remembrance. Audiences will hear the hits they know, but also stories—short, quiet moments that place each song in the life it sprang from. The result is reminiscent, and immediate.
We wanted to make sure people felt him in the room again — not a lookalike, but his spirit and his songs. This is our way of letting him speak through us, night after night, Michael Twitty, son of Conway Twitty and one of the tour’s lead performers.
The decision to put family at the center is deliberate. Michael brings the memory; Tre brings a younger voice and fresh energy; Joni Lee brings the family connection that spans generations of fans. Together they shape the show to appeal to listeners who remember the original records and to those who are discovering them for the first time.
The evenings mix the hits with lesser-known numbers that long-time listeners will recognize as deep cuts, the songs that shaped family kitchens and small-town dances. There are quiet anecdotes between tracks — a line about an early recording session, a laugh about a hair-raising tour bus moment — that stitch the performance into something more than a concert. It becomes a living archive.
My father’s songs lived with people in their most private moments. We owe it to those memories to sing them with care and truth, Joni Lee, Conway Twitty’s daughter and longtime collaborator.
Key facts are simple and stark: the tour is a family project led by Michael Twitty, with his son Tre and Joni Lee joining on stage. The program reimagines classic songs while keeping their originals intact. Shows are set to travel through theaters and community halls, aiming for venues that let listeners lean in rather than shout over the sound. The emphasis is on voice and story, not on flashy production.
For older fans, the format is familiar and comforting. The songs trigger recollection—weddings, dances, slow nights on the porch—and the family’s presence on stage adds a private dimension to public memory. For younger listeners, the performances serve as an introduction to a catalog that shaped American popular music across decades.
Behind the scenes, the work has been painstaking and personal. Arrangements were chosen with care, songs were re-ordered to reflect a narrative arc, and a few numbers were stripped back to reveal raw vocal emotion. Rehearsals focused on timing and tone; the family agreed early on that fidelity to feeling mattered more than imitati
