first time in 1973, for “Delta Dawn,”
and remembers thinking in 2004,
when June Carter Cash won post-
humously for Wildwood Flower, that
maybe she would have to be dead be-
fore she could take one home herself.
“I said then, ‘If that’s what you have
to do to get the award, I don’t want
one,’ ” she says, laughing. “Brandi said
the good news was that all the people
I said that to are probably dead.”
Tucker and her team were hopeful
that While I’m Livin’ would receive
some recognition from the Record-
ing Academy, but they didn’t expect
four nominations — and they certainly
didn’t expect the gorgeous piano bal-
lad “Bring My Flowers Now” to wind
up a contender for song of the year
alongside Billie Eilish and Taylor
Swift. Like “One of the Boys,” the song
she plays me in her kitchen, “Bring My
Flowers Now” is another tune that has
been a long time coming: Tucker, who
has mostly sang material written by
other people throughout her career,
first mentioned an idea for the chorus
to Loretta Lynn back in the ’70s, and
Carlile — alongside her bandmates,
twins Tim and Phil Hanseroth —
helped give it life.
“I’ve done some great songs,” says
Tucker. “But I feel like I’ve really done
something with ‘Flowers.’ Being able
to finish that song was a weight off my
shoulders. And I remember my dad
saying years ago that one of the best
songs I’m ever going to have is one I
wrote myself. I thought, ‘OK, he’s still
coming through.’ ”
I tell her I teared up the first time I
heard it because the message — about
recognizing what (and who) mat-
ters most before it’s too late — struck
hard. “Oh goodness, you gave me
chills,” she says. A second later, that
tenderness turns to toughness. “Don’t
get me crying,” she orders. “You’ll
ruin my bad reputation.”
I
T’S HARD TO TRACE THE
exact moment that Tanya
Tucker earned her reputation,
fair or not, as the bad girl of
country. It could have been
when she posed for the cover of TNT
with a microphone cord between her
legs. Or in the ’80s, when she started
dating Campbell, many years her
senior, and endured more than her fair
share of tabloid scrutiny. Or maybe it
was even earlier than that, when she
made it clear that she liked the fun
parts of music — the liquor, the leather,
the libido — not just the chaste ones,
though not more or less than any other
major male star in the ’70s and ’80s.
Tucker just thought she was being
“one of the boys” — not because she
didn’t relate to women, but because
the roles and room offered to female
artists in country weren’t in line with
the way she wanted to come across
onstage or in her music. She slith-
ered like Mick Jagger, swiveled like
her hero Elvis Presley and did splits
onstage. (She still does, actually.)
But while the Merles and Waylons
became heroes through jail time,
addiction and redemption, country
music often chastises — sometimes
permanently — women who trans-
gress or express themselves sexually:
consider LeAnn Rimes, the Dixie
Chicks, Gretchen Wilson. “The rea-
son she didn’t get the same attention
as the ‘outlaws’ was because she was
148 BILLBOARD • JANUARY 25, 2020