a woman,” Margi Cheske, president
of Tucker’s label, Fantasy Records,
says without hesitation. “Any of
the guys who did the things she did
would get a fist bump.”
Tucker laughs (and sings) about
it now, but that “bad girl” dismissal
was part of the reason her career
stayed stuck for so long. Prior to
While I’m Livin’, which became her
highest-charting studio album on the
Billboard 200 since 1992, it had been
17 years since she had released an
album of original material. (2009’s My
Turn was a covers project.) During a
January performance at Nashville’s
famed Ryman Auditorium, she spoke
candidly about her struggle to even get
a record deal in the later stage of her
career. As many of her peers benefited
from entering that silver “legend”
phase, Tucker, still a good bit younger
than Nelson and Dolly Parton, was just
an aging woman lost in the middle.
There’s a perfect poetic justice in
Jennings, son of country legends Jessi
Colter and the late Waylon Jennings,
taking the lead in reprogramming that
narrative: If anyone knows outlaws,
it’s him. “We had both grown up in the
same world,” says Jennings. “My dad
loved Tanya. My mama loves Tanya.
So there is a natural connection there.
I just saw this unbelievable singer and
talent who didn’t have an album out
there, and I felt she was way overdue.”
Jennings was working with Carlile
on By the Way, I Forgive You, and, upon
discovering how much of a Tucker fan
she was, recruited her to co-produce
what would become While I’m Livin’.
“We could have gone in and just cut a
handful of ‘outlaw country’-style songs
and made a fine album,” he says. “But
I like connecting people. And bringing
Brandi in was the perfect ingredient to
add to that cauldron.”
Tucker wasn’t so sure at first — “I
was just ‘that Brandi bitch,’ ” says
Carlile — but a night drinking with
Jennings convinced her. Once they got
to work, it was an instant connection.
“There wasn’t one thing I didn’t like
about either of them,” says Tucker. “We
were in the studio for three weeks, and
it was just an incredible experience. I
kind of just let go.”
Tucker was particularly impressed
with how Carlile and the Hanseroths
wrote songs that felt “custom made”
to her life story. Prior to entering the
studio, Carlile had sought advice about
working with a country legend from
Rick Rubin, who famously helped
revitalize Johnny Cash’s career as the
producer of his acclaimed American
album series. “[Rubin] said that it’s
all about the lyrics,” recalls Carlile.
“Reilluminating a national treasure
like Tanya is all about giving her strong
and important words to sing.”
Since then, Carlile has made
advocating for Tucker a life mission.
Despite an immensely busy schedule
after last year’s Grammy wins, she has
been active in every step of making
and releasing While I’m Livin’, even
shopping prospective record labels. “I
needed to know that the label signing
Tanya understood who she is in this
world and what this moment repre-
sented,” says Carlile. “Margi had me
convinced when she said this album
would be a ‘cultural event.’ ” At a time
when women are grossly under-
represented on country radio, that
means turning the genre’s attention
back to the women who built it — and
reevaluating why we discounted some
but not others.
Carlile calls Tucker an “accidental
and unwilling feminist,” one who
neglects to use the F-word but simply
leads by example and is committed
to uplifting the next generation: Her
management team is almost entirely
women, and she’ll take artists like
Aubrie Sellers and Brandy Clark on
the road with her as she headlines the
CMT Next Women of Country Tour,
which starts in February and hits most-
ly theaters. “It’s in the way she moves
her hips, the way she sings, the way
she raised her kids and never got mar-
ried,” says Carlile. “She kicked drugs,
she rides cutting horses in rodeos. If
feminism by definition is the belief that
a woman can and should be able to do
anything a man can do, then Tanya’s a
raging feminist. But she’ll deny it.”
It’s why The Highwomen — Carlile’s
supergroup with Natalie Hemby,
Maren Morris and Amanda Shires —
cast Tucker in the star-studded video
for “Redesigning Women,” where
she drives a truck pulling some of
country’s brightest female talent: They
wouldn’t be here without her.
I
NEED A SHARP KNIFE!”
yells Tucker across the
kitchen, looking puzzled at
an egg and piece of toasted
baguette in a takeout box that
seems impossible to conquer whole.
“Grayson, baby, can you cut this up?
You are strong and mighty.” Grayson
shuffles around the kitchen opening
drawers before pulling out something
more akin to a butter knife, which
prompts Tucker to cackle and give
some knowing-mom side eye. “You’re
going to need a sharper knife, baby,”
she adds before turning to me. “You
see how things go around here? I
might starve to death first.”
Tucker makes a lot of jokes about
how her time is short, but this comes
less from age and more from how she
thought about quitting recording alto-
gether once her parents had both died
(father Beau in 2006 and mother Juan-
ita in 2012). She told Carlile, “ ‘When
they died, I just figured there was a lot
more love behind me than ahead of
me,’ ” Carlile recalls her saying. “My
hope is that she doesn’t believe that
anymore. Even if some of us forgot,
we’ve always loved her.”
If phase one of Tucker’s career
renaissance was reigniting the fandom
in those who cherished her all along,
phase two is about putting her up
on the same cultural icon pedestal
as Cash, Nelson and Parton. “I met
someone who told me they were a
huge Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks
fan,” says Cheske. “But she said she
didn’t know Tanya Tucker. How does
that happen? There is still a lot of
education to do.”
The education will continue with
more music. In addition to “One of the
Boys,” Tucker already has a handful
of songs ready to go — two albums’
worth, actually, including a project
she plans to call Messes. There’s one
tune in the can with David Allan Coe
(“It’s fucking phenomenal — so me,
so him,” she says), one with Colter (a
version of Colter’s hit “Storms Never
Last,” with a previously unheard
verse), something called “Little Miss
Dynamite” with fellow ex-child star
Brenda Lee and a project with Johnny
Rodriguez. “It’s just the beginning,”
says Cheske.
Tucker, done with her breakfast-
as-late-lunch at 5 p.m., decides to
play me another song called “On My
Way to Heaven,” which was written
by Dennis Quaid — yes, that Dennis
Quaid, who is also a musician and has
become a close friend and collabora-
tor — and features vocals from her
old bud Kris Kristofferson. She’s al-
ready thinking about what she wants
to do for the music video — maybe
she’ll go to Hawaii and shoot it in a
jail cell.
“I’m on my way to heaven, so
I can’t be staying long,” she sings
through the speaker, her voice melt-
ing alongside Kristofferson’s. Tucker
squeals and pumps her arm like she
just won an Olympic sprint, repeat-
ing a line a cappella: “I’m on my way
to heaven, would you like to come
along?” Tucker, a Grammy hopeful
who’s writing some of the best music
of her career and still does splits bet-
ter than a teenager, has an answer to
that. “No damn way!” she says with a
shimmy, her turquoise earrings sway-
ing. “Not right now!” PE
RFORMANCE:^ MICHAELOCHS^ARCHIVES/GETTYIMAGESTucker onstage in
- Below: Her
1978 album, TNT.
150 BILLBOARD • JANUARY 25, 2020