Kathie Lee Gifford Expected to be Honored With A Lifetime Achievement Award
Kathie Lee Gifford, a former TV host of The Today Show and Today With Kathie Lee and Hoda; left New York and moved to Nashville which she now calls home. The 66-year-old now embraces herself in Nashville's music community.
As proof of her acceptance into Music City, Gifford will perform two shows with the Nashville Pops Orchestra, on Nov. 16 and 17. The first show, called An Evening With Kathie Lee, will benefit the Nashville Pops Orchestra. She will also walk away with the Lifetime Achievement Award that she 'doesn't think she deserves.'
"On the 16th, there's a gala," Gifford told PopCulture.com. "They're very sweetly giving me an award that I do not deserve, some Lifetime Achievement Award. Jeff Bown, who's the Pops conductor apparently thinks Gifford deserves the award.
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The Lifetime Achievement Award and Performance With The Nashville Pops Orchestra
Gifford will perform two shows with The Nashville Pops Orchestra.
"Yeah, I can't be rude, I just got here! " she added with a laugh. "And then the next night is the actual Christmas concert, the Nashville Pops Symphony and that's gonna be with this huge choir. My dear friend and co-writer Nicole C. Mullen is gonna perform our oratorio, The God Who Sees."
Giffords credits include performing at Carnegie Hall and on Broadway. "A lot of the great stages. But my performing in Nashville has been limited to a sitcom that I did in 1988 called "Hee Haw Honeys." That's when there was not one building in Nashville over two stories! TV Guide called it one of the worst sitcoms of all time," Gifford recalled.
Gifford Still Has Ties Back East
Gifford still has her home in Connecticut but mostly spends her time in Nashville.
"I still have my home in Connecticut and a little place in the Keys that we get away to, my family and I," Gifford said. "But I've been here a year now, even though I still stayed at the Today Show until April, I got a small place last October. And very quickly realized I want to be here a lot more than I thought I wanted to be. I didn't want to invest in something that I would have to get rid of 'cause I said, 'Oh, you know what, it didn't work out; it was an emotional decision.'
Gifford is working on a movie that she had written for Craig Ferguson and herself to do. "We did it and I co-wrote all the music with a great writer, Brett James. He's amazing. So I was coming down to write it all and then to do the videos that we did and then to record everything."