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\"She just wanted to do this honestly -- 'This is who I am and this is what I do and this is my heart,'\" Russell's mom Patsy Lynn, one-half of the country music duo The Lynns with her twin sister Peggy Lynn, said outside the audition room. \"I think that when you come from a musical family, the shadow is so big. How do I fill those shoes? Well the deal is, you don't. You make your own shadow.\"

After performing, Perry called Russell an \"A+ songwriter\" just like her grandmother and said \"you've got the gift.\"

\"I don't think you need to compare yourself to what grandma was -- you're totally different,\" she added. \"You shouldn't give yourself all that pressure.\"

Richie said Russell had \"promise\" and asked her to put the big shoes of her family back in the closet, saying \"that's not your size.\"

\"We've just got to lift you up and get you more confident, and you just need to own it,\" Bryan added.

\"PHOTO:
Eric Mccandless/Disney
PHOTO: EMMY RUSSELL
>

All three judges gave Russell a yes, sending her forward to the Hollywood round.

\"I was thinking about my grandma, but I was also like, 'Emmy, she's with you. Now it's your turn,'\" Russell said after her audition. \"I think I'm more like her now than I was whenever I was trying to be like her.\"

Lynn, best known for songs such as \"Coal Miner's Daughter\" and \"You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man),\" died in October 2022 at the age of 90.

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