PERSONALITY PEEKS:
PAM TILLIS, Country Singer
by FRANK O'DONNELL
August 24, 2007
When I caught up with her, country star Pam Tillis was getting ready for vacation.
“I’m just crazed,” she said on the phone from her Nashville home. “It’s been a wild day. I’m trying to get everything together to leave tomorrow. It’s a race to get everything done.”
Tillis and her family were heading for the Caribbean. “It’s a much-deserved vacation,” she said. I wonder if she’s worried about the hurricanes. As we chatted, Hurricane Dean was pounding the Yucatan Peninsula. “No, the hurricanes skipped where we’re going.”
Tillis will be in Rhode Island on Friday, September 7, in concert at Twin River in Lincoln. “Rhode Island’s a nice place to get to visit,” she says. “It’s absolutely beautiful there.” This is one of a handful of shows she’ll be doing in the Northeast. “I’m ready to get out of the heat. We’re just dying down here.”
Tillis is the oldest of six children. One might think that her father, country singer Mel Tillis, pushed his daughter into the business. “There was no pressure from him to do what I’m doing now,” says Tillis. “Dad wanted me to be a choir director or maybe a piano teacher.”
Of course, the industry was a lot tougher on women back in her father’s day. “The road, the travel was tough. They didn’t have the big fancy buses, no nannies. Plus, he didn’t want his daughter around musicians.”
When all was said and done, “it was always just my decision. But thanks to my dad, I went into it with my eyes wide open.”
Tillis is proud to say she’s been making her living with music since she was 21 years old. “I’m very fortunate to be a songwriter,” she says. Her songs have been recorded by artists as diverse as Martina McBride, Conway Twitty and Chaka Khan. “I spent a lot of time in Nashville doing commercials and jingles and demos. I enjoyed that time of my life very much.”
She’s also proud to say she’s one of the first female country artists to produce her own album. “The labels just didn’t hand females the reins.”
For women, the early 90’s were a watershed time in the world of country music, says Tillis. “I was proud to be part of the first all-female country tour.” It was 1996, and she hit the road with Lorrie Morgan and Carlene Carter.
Her new album, “Rhinestoned,” was recorded on Tillis’s own label, Stellar Cat Records. “We’re getting great reviews. It’s number one with the European Country Music Association. We’re number two in Norway, and in the Top Ten in Italy and France. It’s got a real retro sound, and they love that over there.”
Tillis is grateful for what she calls a “wonderful, settled personal life. I love my home, I’m pretty domestic. I like to cook, I love to garden, some pretty boring stuff. It keeps me real balanced.”
I end the interview wondering if there’s any question she’s been dying for someone to ask. She thinks for a minute, then says, “Ask me about my pet peeve.”
Her pet peeve is the way that some folks in some parts of the country stereotype country singers. “People assume things about country singers, and we’re still suffering under labels other people have made up. I’m not stereotypical. I don’t think anyone is.”
Tillis wants people to know there’s “more to my music than meets the radio. If you only know me from what you hear on the radio, you need to come see my show. There’s so much more.”
[Pam Tillis performs at the Twin River Event Center, Friday, September 7 at 9PM. For information and tickets, check out www.twinriver.com.]
Reprinted with permission from The Valley Breeze
