The song she’s playing is an unre-
leased one, though technically it’s not
new: She wrote it several years ago
with Layla’s father, songwriter-pro-
ducer Jerry Laseter, and it features
Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and
George Jones. It’s called “One of
the Boys,” and Tucker says it’s her
anthem. Full of swing and steel guitar,
the track is classic country music,
pure and simple.
“I’m a little misunderstood,” Tucker
sings along as it hits the bridge. “They
say I’m too bad for my own damn
good.” And when the late Haggard and
Jones parts kick in, she glances over at
me mischievously, giving Layla a little
dip. Only Tanya Tucker could collect
vocals from the genre’s greatest and
save them all for a rainy day.
“I think the world needs to hear
that song, whether it’s while I’m
living or not,” she says in that unmis-
takable husky drawl, sitting back at
the kitchen counter and tapping out
her cigarette. She’s dressed casually
— silky gray top, black pants, furry
slippers — though a pair of dangly tur-
quoise earrings pop next to her freshly
pink-tipped hair. “I’d prefer while I’m
living, but you never can tell.”
While I’m Livin’ is also the title
of Tucker’s most recent album, a
record that catapulted her back into
public consciousness after a 10-year
gap between studio albums and gave
her a complete career renaissance at
61 with four Grammy nominations,
including one for song of the year.
Produced by Shooter Jennings and
Brandi Carlile — a Grammys success
story herself following 2018’s widely
acclaimed By the Way, I Forgive You
— While I’m Livin’ is a thoroughly
modern reintroduction to one of the
genre’s greatest voices who, for far
too long, was dismissed as “washed
up” by an industry that elevates male
stars into legends as they age while
diminishing women for the same
reason. But nearly 50 years after she
released her breakthrough single,
1972’s “Delta Dawn,” Tucker is more
interested in writing her next chapter
than throwing in the towel.
And here, surrounded by her kids
and music, is Tucker as she likes it: a
matriarch on her own terms at home
(a mother of three, she never married)
and a matriarch to the genre, even if
she hasn’t always been acknowledged
as such. “Tanya Tucker had a major
influence on me growing up,” says
Margo Price, another artist who gets
labeled as an outlaw for simply forging
her own path through the industry. “I
was drawn to her songs and her vocal
delivery. Whenever I describe Tanya,
I use the term ‘live wire’ because she
just radiates this energy. She always
has and always will.”
Yet the very things that artists like
Price and Carlile celebrate about
Tucker — her grit, her penchant for
rock’n’roll shimmy, her refusal to play
by the rules — often have taken a back
seat to whatever vague “bad girl” im-
age she carried as a result of a cocaine
addiction, subsequent rehab and
some years of partying back when her
career took her to Hollywood in the
late ’70s. It all served as an easy way
for risk-averse Nashville to steer clear
of her, and it made her a juicy target
for the press. A 1988 People article
that touched on her struggles noted
that she “has had more boyfriends
than some people have had hot
meals.” In 2017, the Orange County
Register referred to her in a headline
only as “Glen Campbell’s former
fling” and assumed she was retired.
It’s perhaps because of narratives
like those that the Seminole, Texas-
born Tucker has yet to be inducted
into the Country Music Hall of Fame,
an honor bestowed upon peers like
Garth Brooks (even though Tucker
already had released 15 albums by
the time he put out his debut) and
Brooks & Dunn (who have fewer en-
tries on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs
chart) or even Campbell himself
(who dealt with the same addiction
struggles but whose reputation never
quite suffered in the same way). “This
record is important because it has
caused us to ask ourselves why we let
Tanya go in the first place,” says Car-
lile. “Are we willing to hold her in the
same high regard that we do her male
counterparts? If not, how come?”
Tucker is used to both the lulls and
the fits of activity, having reinvented
herself more like Madonna than a
country star through childhood fame,
a rock album (1978’s TNT) and a pop-
pier phase in the ’80s. The day before
we met, she sang the national anthem
at a Tennessee Titans football game
— fun, but not really a big deal when
you’ve played the Super Bowl halftime
show, as she did in 1994 while rocking
a black leather suit, a choker and Pat
Benatar hair.
That gig is just one notch in a career
of many sweeping achievements.
Since she began performing at age 9,
she has released 25 studio albums,
enjoyed 40 top 10 hits on Hot Country
Songs, starred in her own reality show
(Tuckerville, which ran on TLC from
2005 to 2006) and been nominated
for 14 Grammy Awards. One thing that
has evaded her, though, is an actual
Grammy. She was nominated for the
around her West Nashville home to her own music, an American Spirit cigarette in one
hand and her 20-year-old daughter Layla’s shoulder in the other. A few minutes ago, Tucker
introduced the song playing as her “masterpiece.” She fetched a small speaker and pulled
her youngest child into a modified waltz as the tune played around the kitchen — the only
corner of her new house that feels particularly lived in. According to her 28-year-old son,
Grayson, who also drifts in and out on this rainy December afternoon, hanging out around
the counter like this is her favorite thing to do. Well, next to singing and watching horse
racing. (Just don’t offer her a mint julep: Tucker’s a tequila girl, all the way.)
“She didn’t get the same
attention as the ‘outlaws’ because
she was a woman. Any of the
guys who did the things she did
would get a fist bump.”
—MARGI CHESKE, FANTASY RECORDS
HA
IR
B
Y^
LA
KI
N^
SH
AP
IR
O.
M
AK
EU
P^
BY
C
HA
RL
IE
B
OE
HM
.^ S
TY
LI
NG
B
Y^
DO
UB
LE
D
R
AN
CH
.^ O
N-
SI
TE
P
RO
DU
CE
R:
A
SH
LE
Y^
HO
RN
E^
HE
RR
IN
G.
JANUARY 25, 2020 • WWW.BILLBOARD.COM 147