Kyndle Wylde reacts to winning "CBS Mornings" Mixtape Music Competition: "Very surreal"
You voted, and the results are in. "CBS Mornings" announced Tuesday the winner of its Mixtape Music Competition is Kyndle Wylde.
"This has been such a journey to get to this point right here and it's very surreal, but very grateful," Wylde said on "CBS Mornings" after she was announced as the winner.
The singer-songwriter grew up outside of Memphis. She sang in her family's worship band at church and moved to Nashville to pursue her dreams of a career in music.
For the competition, talented musicians from across the country sent their covers of Johnny Nash's legendary song "I Can See Clearly Now."
Hundreds of entries in the competition were narrowed down to 14 semifinalists and three finalists before Wylde was crowned the winner.
"There's so many talented people out in America and I knew that going into it, and so I definitely wanted to give my best foot forward with something I felt really confident about," she said.
Her husband, Adam, is the one who came up with the soul-style arrangement for the song that she and her band performed.
"Everything that we are and grew up listening to, we just put who we are in that," she said.
Prior to the announcement on Tuesday, "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King called Wylde to tell her that she won.
"We set it up and you thought you were going to be talking to somebody about marketing or advertising, so she didn't know it was a call to say she won," King explained.
Wylde joked that she was able to successfully keep the secret after she was told she was the winner.
"No. 1 person I could not tell was my grandmother because if she knew then everyone would know," Wylde said.
Wylde will be featured in a new national promotional campaign for "CBS Mornings."