John Rich’s Grandmother Ann ‘Granny’ Rich Dies at 88

John Rich of Big & Rich fame is mourning the loss of his beloved grandmother, Ann "Granny" Rich. The singer-songwriter revealed on social media on Tuesday afternoon (July 28) that his grandmother had died a month after suffering a stroke.

"I lost a giant of a lady in my life today," Rich writes. "Granny Rich went to be with Jesus after battling hard for a month from a stroke. She was a Mother to me, and I'll strive to live up to her example.

"She was strong, funny, caring and an unapologetic American to the end," he states, adding the hashtag #RIPGrannyRich along with a black-and-white photograph of his grandmother.

Ann Rich was known to Rich's fans as Granny Rich, the inspiration for his whiskey line, Granny Rich Reserve. She celebrated her 87th birthday on Valentine's Day in 2019 by attending the launch of the 86-proof whiskey at a bar in Nashville, where her famous grandson proudly told the crowd that she still worked 40 hours a week at her alterations shop in the small rural town of Ashland City, Tenn., outside of Nashville. In fact, she sewed his stage costumes from his early days as a member of Lonestar on.

“She’s the epitome of ‘work hard, play hard,’” Rich said (quote via Billboard), adding, “My Granny Rich has lived through the Dust Bowl days, the Great Depression and World War II. Through it all, she’s remained a work hard, play hard, freedom-loving woman.”

“It’s what you get up for every day,” Ann Rich said of working so far past the usual age of retirement. “If you’ve got a job to do that you enjoy doing, it’s so much more fun than it is to sit in the house and look at four walls. I’d be dead and gone if I did that but here I am.”

"We were blessed to grow up around a woman like this. She’s the person we look up to. She’s the person we want to be like,” Rich finished. “I want to be 87 years old, drinking whiskey down on Broadway and launching something new. This is the American dream!”

Funeral plans for Ann Rich have not yet been announced.

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