Pam Tillis discusses songwriting, sharing the
stage in Greenville
By Lance Martin
Special for the Kenneth Threadgill Concert Series
On a rainy morning, talking by phone from her
home near Nashville, Pam Tillis is working on her first cup
of coffee as she starts discussing her upcoming “An
Acoustic Evening with Pam Tillis” as part of the Kenneth
Threadgill Concert Series in Greenville. As soon as she is
reminded that artists Leslie Satcher and Carrie Rodriguez
will be opening the show, she no longer needs the coffee.
“You just really don’t want to
miss that,” Tillis, the platinum-selling, Grand Old
Opry member, said. “I’m a huge fan of those ladies.”
Tillis said she’s known Paris, Texas
native Satcher “for a long time” and that for
a period of time, “I wouldn’t even imagine doing
an album without a Leslie Satcher song ... she said I helped
buy her a swimming pool.”
Rodriguez, Tillis remembers first hearing on
National Public Radio with Chip Taylor, and being immediately
hooked. “I heard 30 seconds of ‘The Trouble With
Humans’ and that was that. Rarely does something have
that kind of impact on me.”
And while Tillis is known for impacting the
charts herself by singing hits including “Shake the
Sugar Tree,” “Mi Vida Loca,” “Maybe
It was Memphis,” and “Cleopatra (Queen of Denial),”
she is an accomplished songwriter as well who appreciates
the work of women like Satcher and Rodriguez.
“Other people’s music keeps me
inspired,” Tillis said. “Without that, you get
tired of hearing your own thoughts. There’s a language
of music and when you hear somebody else’s poetry or
melodies, it just takes you to a new place, a place that you
wouldn’t have gone.”
During much of the ‘80s, Tillis worked as a staff writer,
authoring songs for artists as varied as Conway Twitty, Chaka
Kahn, Juice Newton and Martina McBride. Her first chart success
came when Highway 101 took her, “Someone Else’s
Trouble Now,” to country music’s top five in 1990.
The next year, her talent as a singer took
her back to the top five with “Don’t Tell Me What
to Do.” Over the next decade, Tillis’ vocal work
earned her an audience, awards and even an acting career.
She was named Female Vocalist of the Year by
the Country Music Association in 1993 and won numerous Grammy
and Academy of Country Music awards and nominations. Tillis
has made acting appearances on several TV series and starred
on Broadway in “Smokey Joe’s Cafe.”
The hectic schedule of touring and acting saw
Tillis drift from songwriting for the better part of a decade.
“I was so busy touring,” Tillis
said, “I didn’t write a lot and there’s
plenty of great songs floating around Nashville. I don’t
know if you get lazy or it’s just also a celebration,
too, of people like Leslie writing all these great songs.
It’s like, ‘Oh, I’ll just go in and record.’”
Tillis told herself for three years that she needed to pick
up the pen: “I said I’m going to get back into
my writin’ – that’s what we call it, writin
– and you know, nothing, maybe a song here and a song
there.”
That changed a couple years ago when Tillis
was re-recording songs for a greatest hits project and met
Jimmy Ritchey who told her he was working with Kenny Chesney’s
manager, Clint Higham, to create a publishing company.
The conversation resulted in Tillis being signed
as the company’s veteran songwriter.
“Instead of having everything in house [Tillis also
now owns her own label], I just thought the energy of being
with a publishing company might get me going again and, boy,
it did,” Tillis said. “I wrote 30 songs last year.
(I) just threw myself back into it like in days gone by ...
like it was in the beginning, because that’s what you
do, you just write all the time. I’m glad that bottle
got uncorked again.”
Tillis said that writing in country music has
never been more challenging.
“I don’t want to use the word competitive,”
she said, “because it’s not like the songwriters
... we don’t think that way per se. It’s never
been harder to get a song cut by another artist.”
Many new artists are either writing their own songs or collaborating
with others in-house which translates to fewer slots for songwriters.
“The game’s really changed,” Tillis said.
“That said, I really like a challenge.”
Tillis said that as a veteran “ready
to kind of pay-it-forward, pass-it-on” that she finds
herself looking for the opportunity to help a new artist with
promise.
“What I’ve been on the lookout
for is somebody I think has some kind of potential that I
can get in there and create with from the ground floor up,”
Tillis said. “That would be really cool.”
Tillis herself got advice throughout her career from a Country
Music Hall of Famer – her father, Mel Tillis.
She said one of the lessons she learned from
him was to “keep your boots shined and be on time for
the bus,” attributing much of the elder Tillis’
success to his great work ethic.
“But that’s an oversimplification,” she
said. “He always wants everything to be the best and
give the audience the best he’s got to give –
the joy factor. Work ethic sounds so puritanical. The best
stuff comes out of that marriage of joy and diligence.”
Tillis said her father taught her much about
humor and humility. “I’m Type A and I’d
come off stage and say, ‘Oh, I was flat,’ or ‘My
monitor sucked,’ and Daddy would always go, ‘Shake
it off kid, there’s another show tomorrow. Let it go.’”
Yet, it wasn’t just her father from whom
Tillis received her artistic talents. She also credits her
mother, Doris, who was a stay-at-home mom, for influencing
her and her five brothers and sisters. Among her siblings,
Tillis’ sister sings light opera and performs musical
theater. Her brother is also an accomplished songwriter.
“Both my parents are artists, so we never
stood a chance,” Tillis said, describing her family
as “matriarchal.”
“It’s so funny because Dad looms
large as far as the public goes,” Tillis said. “But
Mom is the center of the whole thing. I don’t mean this
to sound like hillbilly tragedy, but Dad was on the road before
country music artists had the benefit of video. If you wanted
a career, you were out there all the time, that’s how
your public got to know you. He was gone 200, 250 days a year;
so mom held the fort down.”
Tillis describes her mother as “awesome”
and among the last of a unique generation of women.
“She had me early and has always been
a stay-at-home mom, so she’s a little bit of an innocent.
She’s the last generation of women that could be innocent
in that way – just kind of not worldly.”
Tillis’ mother earned her graduate equivalency
diploma and “went on to take every kind of art class
that she could take,” becoming a multi-media artist.
“She’s sculpted and done oils and
watercolors and builds crazy paper-mache sculptures, Tillis
said. “Last winter, she kind of got lonely. The kids
were all busy and she built a whole paper-mache family. We
kinda got worried about her [Pam laughs]. She’s super
creative and a fabulous cook and a real earthy person. She
gardens and does pottery ... she’s just a really interesting
person.”
So it’s no surprise to learn that Tillis
is a regular contributor of a cooking column to Country Weekly
Magazine or that her bio lists gardening as her favorite hobby.
She always enjoys the bluebonnets in Texas and
looks forward to playing Greenville. Tillis admits the acoustic
show she will bring to Greenville is a change of pace from
the 40-city “Grits and Glamour” tour she’s
currently on with Lorrie Morgan.
“When you do this acoustic thing, it
is a little bit of a different vibe,” Tillis said, explaining
that she designed the show to “make it affordable to
bring into venues I couldn’t bring a band.”
Two versatile performers will accompany Tillis. Megan Lynch
is a champion contest fiddler who also plays mandolin and
sings. Mary Sue England plays keys, fiddle, acoustic guitar
and sings. The trio achieves a harmony that Tillis said she
didn’t want to give up. “We can cover a lot of
ground,” she said. “It’s pretty cool.”
Pam Tillis appears with Leslie Satcher and
Carrie Rodriguez, on Saturday, April 30, at Greenville's Municipal
Auditorium at the Kenneth Threadgill Concert Series. Tickets
are available in downtown Greenville at the Calico Cat, the
Magic Bubble, the Municipal Auditorium and Petticoat Junction
at the Katy Depot. For more information on the Threadgill
Concert, call Auditorium Manager Noel Pipkin at (903) 457-3126.
(Martin, a Waco-based freelance writer, is
a former Greenville resident and frequent Threadgill Series
contributor.)
