Everyone is Tanya Tucker crazy right now. A new album that’s getting great reviews. Grammy nominations. Starring role in the next Mandolorian season. No? Well, you can’t trust Facebook.
She deserves it. She got a little lost for a while but there aren’t many singers who can deliver a song like Tanya. Imagine having a hit with a mature song like “Delta Dawn” when you are only 3 and a half years old.
No? Damn Facebook again.
I have a Tanya Tucker story.
Full disclosure. She recorded a song I wrote with Victoria Shaw many years ago called “We Don’t Have To Do This.”
Is Victoria reading this? No? Well then I wrote it myself.
No, seriously, I wrote it in Miami with Vic while we were eating. We wrote most of it on the menu and the rest on the drive back home. I still have the menu. Did you know you could get a cheeseburger in 1993 for $1.75? Jeez.
It wasn’t a huge hit for Tanya but we were proud to be small links in her musical chain.
So my story is this. She was known as quite the wild child for a period of time. I had been hired by Disney to produce an album for them. They wanted an album of country stars singing famous Disney songs. I loved the challenge. I got to pick the songs. I got to pick the artists. It’s a wonderful record if you’ve never heard it. Faith sang “Part of Your World” with a full orchestra. (That was a scary afternoon. My first orchestral session. I had them all wear tuxedos and red fake noses. Wait, that was the Beatles. I am getting my legends mixed up.) I had Alison Krauss sing “Baby Mine.” Gorgeous.
I had George Jones and Kathy Mattea sing a duet on “You’ve Got A Friend In Me.” It was so fun producing the vocal on George Jones. And by producing I mean getting coffee when he asked. Actually one of my finest producing moments came when I asked George to “Sing this line starting up high and then go low.”
He said “Oh… you want me to George Jones it, do ya?”
When that track was finished I went in and sang Kathy Mattea’s part and put it on a cassette so I have a version of it with ME singing with George. I sort of sang with George Jones. Move over Tammy.
Back to Tanya.
I wanted Tanya to be on the record. I knew she had to sing something fun and uptempo. So I took the famous song “Someday My Prince Will Come” and I made it a roadhouse rocker!! Check it out here:
I was worried. She had a bit of a reputation that she was living down to. She had already bailed twice and I was running out of time. I had sent her the song but couldn’t get her into the room to sing. Finally her manager called to say that 11 PM on Saturday night she will be there. Now if you know musicians at all you would probably think…”Hmmm. Saturday night at 11….she should be well rested.” I got nervous.
About twenty after eleven I was waiting at the studio door when a large black limo pulled up. Like that scene in “Fast Times At Ridgemont High”… the back door opened and smoke billowed out. Now I’m not a chemist so I am in no position to analyze the composition of said smoke but there was a butt load of it. The smoke was followed by four laughing women who spilled out onto the pavement with shoes and purses flying.
Tanya straightened up and announced she was here and, “Let’s get ‘er done!!”
To quote a later song of hers… I was fairly sure I was in “Some Kind Of Trouble.” It had become a complicated song after a massive rewrite of the arrangement.
She went into the vocal booth, put on her headphones, we rolled tape and she proceeded to sing the song perfectly from top to bottom.
Just to sound like I knew what I was doing I said, “Let’s get one more to be safe” and she did it again.
Perfectly. Better, even.
I said, “We got it.”
She said, “All right, darlin’”
She walked outside to her waiting friends, got back into the limo whooping and hollering and drove back off into the night. Not getting into the limo with them was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done.
The point to this musing?
Tanya is and always has been a pro.
I am and always have been a fan.
I hope she wins a Grammy.