Pam Tillis

March 18, 2016

(Q)- You’ve always seems ahead of the curve. You develop a unique sound or a look and then oftentimes, Once you establish a base with what you’ve created with your fans and then the broader country music marketplace Accepts the innovations you’ve pioneered boom, other female acts are suddenly attempting to do what Pam Tillis originated. Now, what’s a drag for you though is that they get the credit and in a lot of cases the big bucks and acceptance at radio so on and so forth.

Pam Tillis (PT)- That’s exactly right.

(Q)- An example is “Queen Of Denial”, you were fusing hard rock sound with country and getting serious radio airplay and you had a video that correlated with the song that was over the top. Yet, once that single stopped receiving airplay Pam Tillis was over as far as cou try radio and you didn’t get the credit you deserved. Then here comes Shania Twain and she has an album out with some hard rock country music fusion sounds on the disc and she’s suddenly branded an “innovator’ and she’s getting all of the attention. And radio gives her music all of the heavy airplay while you’re told, “This is too risky, nobody will ‘Get It’.

(PT)- That’s the story of my career honey over the past ten years.

(Q)- You’ve never been afraid to take risks.

(PT)- I think what you’re getting at is that any kind of music if it’s honest. Let me back up. Contemporary country music is a reflection of it’s time.

(Q)- That’s what you’ve been good at.

(PT)- I’d like to think so. I mean country music doesn’t exist in a vacuum (she laughs). Modern country music today is a fairly accurate representation of our times. There’s cross-pollination and there always has been! I mean what we call western swing music, was influenced by jazz music. Some of the music my dad wrote when he first got here (to Nashville) was influenced by the rockabilly music of that era. You know, Bill Haley and Carl Perkins. So that’s nothing new.