During the commercial break just before the winner of the sixth season of Nashville Star was announced Monday night, crew members pushed a big red Toyota Tundra pick-up truck onto the stage where the two remaining contestants stood, hoping to hear their name called by host Billy Ray Cyrus.
Would it go to Tex-Mex electrician-turned-musician Gabe Garcia or Melissa Lawson, a wife and mother of five boys? As it turns out, Lawson, 32, got the keys to the truck and the ticket to a recording contract with Warner Bros. Nashville. Garcia was disappointed about the pick-up, telling PEOPLE after the show, “I really wanted that truck. I was already thinking about how I was going to jack it up and trick it out.”
Still, Garcia was relatively satisfied with his second place finish and thrilled by the experience of competing on Nashville Star. “It’s been a great ride, from beginning to end,” he said after the show, still picking strips of silver confetti out of his hair. “But I’m looking forward to getting back to my own life for a few days. I haven’t made my own bed or driven myself in two months.”
Lawson plans to hand the keys to the Tundra over to husband Rick Lawson, who has been holding down the fort at home in Arlington, Texas, with their tribe of five boys — aged 11 months to 8 years — while Mom sung her way to the top of the pack of 12 acts vying to be the newest Nashville Star. “He has been driving a crummy little truck for so long so we could buy a car for me that was big enough to haul all the boys around,” she told PEOPLE after the show. “He deserves this truck!”
Shawn Mayer was the third place finisher, and just before she was eliminated Monday, she broke out a ferocious rendition of Miranda Lambert’s musical make-my-day challenge “Gunpowder and Lead.” When Billy Ray broke the news that her journey had ended, Mayer, who was often criticized by judge John Rich for being a crybaby, smiled and pointed out that Lambert hadn’t fared too badly since finishing third on Nashville Star in 2003.
It was a touchy-feely kind of night on the set and in the studio, where the finalists’ families — includling Lawson’s husband, boys and parents — made up loud cheering sections. Every member of the original cast returned for one last walk across the stage, one last perch in the elevated holding pen, one last song to sing, forming a charged-up choir for Billy Ray’s career-making hit, “Achy Breaky Heart.”
After each of the remaining three performed and Mayer said her goodbyes, the judges offered their congratulations were asked to predict the winner. Jewel first congratulated viewers on their votes, saying, “The two right people are still standing here,” but picked Lawson to take it. Songwriter Jeffrey Steele went with his future writing partner, Garcia. The famously outspoken Rich waffled, conceding only that, “It’s a horse race and I can’t wait to see who wins.”
He didn’t have long to wait for Billy Ray to deliver the verdict: “America, your new Nashville Star is Melissa Lawson!” As clouds of confetti blew through the Roy Acuff theater, Lawson debuted the single, “What If It All Goes Right” (produced by John Rich), which will be delivered to country radio Tuesday morning, as her husband brought her boys to the stage and her father wiped tears from his eyes.
“This was his dream as long as I can remember. Every time I got pregnant I know he was thinking it would never happen,” Lawson said. “His birthday was Sunday and this is the best gift I could ever give him.”
Lawson leaves Saturday for Beijing, China, and will perform her first single at the Olympics on August 12th. – Kay West
John Russell/NBC
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