Background and career
Pamela Yvonne Tillis (born July 24, 1957) is an American country music singer and songwriter. She is the eldest child of country singer Mel Tillis and ex-wife of songwriter Bob DiPiero. After recording unsuccessful pop material for Elektra and Warner Records in the early 1980s, Tillis shifted to country music. In 1989, she signed with Arista Nashville, entering top-40 on Hot Country Songs for the first time with "Don't Tell Me What to Do" in 1990. This was the first of five singles from her breakthrough album Put Yourself in My Place. Tillis recorded five more albums for Arista Nashville in the next ten years, including a greatest hits album. She charted twelve top-ten hits on the Billboard country music charts with Arista, including the number-one "Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life)" in 1995. Other major hits of hers include her signature song "Maybe It Was Memphis", along with "Shake the Sugar Tree", "Spilled Perfume", a cover of Jackie DeShannon's "When You Walk in the Room", and "All the Good Ones Are Gone". After exiting Arista, Tillis released It's All Relative: Tillis Sings Tillis for Lucky Dog Records in 2002, and RhineStoned and the Christmas album Just in Time for Christmas on her own Stellar Cat label in 2007. Her albums Homeward Looking Angel (1992), Sweetheart's Dance (1994), and Greatest Hits (1997) are all certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, while Put Yourself in My Place and 1995's All of This Love are certified gold. She has won two major awards: a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals in 1999 for the multiple-artist collaboration "Same Old Train", and the 1994 Country Music Association award for Female Vocalist of the Year. In 2000, she was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. In addition to her own work, Tillis has written songs for Barbara Fairchild, Juice Newton, and Highway 101, among others. Tillis's music style is defined by her singing voice, along with her influences of country, pop, and jazz.
Pamela Yvonne Tillis was born July 24, 1957, in Plant City, Florida. She is the oldest of five children born to country singer Mel Tillis and his first wife, Doris. Because of her father being a country musician, she spent most of her early life in Nashville, Tennessee. When she was eight, her father invited her to sing "Tom Dooley" onstage at the Grand Ole Opry. She also began taking piano lessons at this age, and taught herself how to play guitar by age 12. At age 16, she was nearly killed in a car accident. She underwent five years of surgery, including facial reconstruction. Pam described her relationship with her father as "strict", and that she often felt "alienated" from him. She also stated that her father disapproved of her musical interests at the time, which included Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles. Tillis enrolled at the University of Tennessee, where she performed in two groups: a jug band called the High Country Swing Band, and a folk duo with Ashley Cleveland. She dropped out of college in 1976 and moved to San Francisco, California. There, she founded a band called Freelight, which played jazz and rock. Tillis also sold Avon products for additional income. She briefly worked as a backing vocalist in her father's road band, but later quit this role over creative differences. Despite this, she sang backup on his 1980 hit "Your Body Is an Outlaw". Mel also hired her to work at his publishing company, which led to her writing Barbara Fairchild's 1978 single "The Other Side of the Morning".
In 1981, Tillis signed her first recording contract with Elektra Records. The label released her debut single "Every Home Should Have One" that same year. Unlike her later music, "Every Home Should Have One" was a disco song. While this was her only release for Elektra, she remained with its parent company, Warner Records. The latter label released her debut album in 1983 called Above and Beyond the Doll of Cutey. The album was co-produced by Dixie Gamble, then-wife of record producer Jimmy Bowen. Assisting her was the production team Jolly Hills Productions, which included session musicians Josh Leo and Craig Krampf. Above and Beyond the Doll of Cutey featured the singles "Killer Comfort" and "Love Is Sneakin' Up on You". While neither single charted, the former received a music video that aired on MTV. Kevin John Coyne of Country Universe rated the album two stars out of five, stating that "Pam Tillis, even in her early days, is a smart songwriter with cutting insights on the human experience. To try and make her a carefree New Wave pop star is to undermine what makes her special in the first place." Citing dissatisfaction with the pop music she was recording, Tillis returned to Nashville, while retaining her contract with Warner. She made her first entry on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts in 1984 with "Goodbye Highway", a song she co-wrote with Mary Ann Kennedy and Pam Rose. Her follow-up "One of Those Things" did not chart. Janie Fricke later recorded a version of the song, as well. After this came four other singles that made the lower regions of the charts between 1986 and 1987. One of these, "Those Memories of You", was later a top-five hit for Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt. Due to the poor performance of her singles, Tillis was dropped from Warner in 1987. Despite her lack of commercial success, the Academy of Country Music nominated her in 1986 for Top New Female Vocalist. She supported herself in this timespan by performing at various nightclubs and in her own local revues. These included Twang Night (where she sang covers of 1960s country standards) and Women in the Round (where she sang with other female songwriters). The latter featured writers such as Ashley Cleveland, Tricia Walker, and Karen Staley. According to Tillis herself, these revues led to her gaining increased exposure throughout the city. She also supplemented her career by singing advertising jingles for Country Time powdered drink mix, Coca-Cola, and Coors beer.
In mid-1989, Arista Records' then-president Clive Davis announced the creation of the label's country music division titled Arista Nashville. Tillis was one of the first five acts signed to the label, alongside Alan Jackson, Lee Roy Parnell, Michelle Wright, and Asleep at the Wheel. Prior to releasing any material of her own, Tillis and Kix Brooks (who later signed to Arista Nashville himself as one-half of Brooks & Dunn) co-wrote the promotional single "Tomorrow's World", released on Warner to honor the 20th anniversary of Earth Day. Twenty country music acts contributed vocals to the project, including Highway 101, Lynn Anderson, Vince Gill, Dan Seals, and Brooks and Tillis. The song entered the Hot Country Songs charts in May 1990, peaking at 74. Tillis also co-wrote Juice Newton's 1989 single "When Love Comes Around the Bend" (later covered by Seals in 1992) and Highway 101's 1990 single "Someone Else's Trouble Now". Tillis made her debut on Arista Nashville in late 1990 with "Don't Tell Me What to Do". It peaked at number five on the Billboard country charts in early 1991, thus becoming her first successful single release. The song also went to number one on the country music charts of the former Radio & Records. Marty Stuart also recorded the song for Columbia Records in 1988, although his rendition was not released until 1992. The song served as the lead single to her breakthrough album Put Yourself in My Place, which was issued in January 1991. Paul Worley (a producer and guitarist known at the time for his work with Eddy Raven and Highway 101) co-produced the project with Ed Seay. A re-recording of "One of Those Things" was the album's next single, also reaching top 10 on the country charts. After it came the album's title track, which Tillis co-wrote with Carl Jackson. The album's highest-charting single was "Maybe It Was Memphis", which peaked at number three in early 1992. "Maybe It Was Memphis" has since been described as Tillis's signature song. Tillis had originally recorded the song while on Warner, but did not release this version at the time. According to Billboard, Arista Nashville executives were initially reluctant to release "Maybe It Was Memphis" as a single until Tillis was "firmly established" as an artist, due to the song's more country pop sound. The album's fifth and final single was "Blue Rose Is", another song which Tillis co-wrote. This song was less successful on the charts. All of the singles from Put Yourself in My Place except "Blue Rose Is" also made top 20 on the Canadian country music charts then published by RPM. Another cut from the album, "Ancient History", was later a single for the Canadian band Prairie Oyster in 1996. Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly gave Put Yourself in My Place a "B+" rating, saying that it "shows how well she can craft smart and sassy country material...and also sell it with a commanding, big-voiced presence". Kevin John Coyne wrote in a 2007 retrospective of Tillis, "It’s easy to overlook Put Yourself in My Place when discussing Pam’s body of work because of the much stronger albums that would follow...However, that’s more of a tribute to the quality of the music to come than any deficiency of the album itself." Brian Mansfield of AllMusic wrote that "The album that established Pam Tillis as a performer in her own right has a traditional country base cut with bluegrass, folk, and rock." The Country Music Association (CMA) nominated Tillis in both 1991 and 1992 for the Horizon Award (now called the Best New Artist Award). The same association nominated her twice in the category Single of the Year: for "Don't Tell Me What to Do" in 1991 and "Maybe It Was Memphis" one year later. She was also nominated by the Academy of Country Music for Top Female Vocalist five times between 1991 and 1995. "Maybe It Was Memphis" also gave Tillis her first Grammy Award nomination, in the category of Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, at the 35th Grammy Awards in 1993. Put Yourself in My Place was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in June 1992 for sales of 500,000 copies.
In 1992, Arista Nashville released Tillis's next album, Homeward Looking Angel. The lead single, "Shake the Sugar Tree", reached the top five on the country charts the same year. Tillis and Worley both enjoyed the sound of Stephanie Bentley's vocals on the demonstration track and chose to retain them on the final recording. The album charted another top-10 hit with the Gretchen Peters composition "Let That Pony Run". After it, "Cleopatra, Queen of Denial" and "Do You Know Where Your Man Is" peaked in lower chart positions. Homeward Looking Angel also included a duet with Diamond Rio lead singer Marty Roe titled "Love Is Only Human". Tillis co-wrote half of the album's songs including "Cleopatra, Queen of Denial" with her then-husband, songwriter Bob DiPiero. Worley provided backing vocals on "Do You Know Where Your Man Is". The album was certified platinum in 1995 for sales of one million copies. Alanna Nash rated Homeward Looking Angel "C+", calling Tillis's vocals "irritatingly in-your-face". Roch Parisien of AllMusic called it a "very solid" album, praising the songwriting of the singles in particular. Tillis contributed to two collaborative singles in 1993: Dolly Parton's "Romeo" and George Jones's "I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair". The former was nominated that year for Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals, while the latter won Vocal Event of the Year from the Country Music Association (CMA). The CMA organization also nominated her for Female Vocalist of the Year, while "Cleopatra, Queen of Denial" was nominated by both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association for Video of the Year. In early 1994, several of Tillis's archived recordings for Warner were compiled into an album titled Collection. Included on this were the singles "There Goes My Love" and "Those Memories of You", along with the original Warner recordings of "Maybe It Was Memphis" and "One of Those Things". Also included was her previously unreleased rendition of "Five Minutes", a single in 1990 for Lorrie Morgan. Mansfield considered the inclusion of the latter three songs "interesting" in a review for AllMusic. Sweetheart's Dance, Tillis's third Arista album, was released in April 1994. A year later, it became her second platinum album. It was also certified platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (now Music Canada). Tillis intentionally sought more songs by outside writers than on the first two Arista albums, stating that she "wanted to paint a landscape rather than a self-portrait". She also co-produced for the first time, doing so with guitarist and producer Steve Fishell. The album's lead single "Spilled Perfume" (which Tillis co-wrote with Dean Dillon) reached top five on the country charts after its release. Its follow-up was a cover of Jackie DeShannon's "When You Walk in the Room", which peaked at number two on Billboard and number one on Radio & Records. This cover featured backing vocals from Mary Chapin Carpenter and Kim Richey. After it came "Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life)", Tillis's only number-one single on both the Billboard and RPM charts. The album's next single, "I Was Blown Away", made number 16 before Tillis requested that it be withdrawn as a single, as she thought the title would be insensitive to listeners after the Oklahoma City bombing. Its replacement was "In Between Dances", which became a top five hit by year's end. The album's closing track "'Til All the Lonely's Gone" featured bluegrass musician Bill Monroe on mandolin, plus backing vocals from Mel Tillis along with Pam's siblings Carrie, Cindy, Connie, and Mel Tillis Jr. Brian Mansfield rated the album four-and-a-half stars out of five, writing that it "found the magic blend of Nashville sound, California country rock, and post-Beatles pop." John D. McLaughlin of The Province called Tillis "clear-eyed and confident", while praising the inclusion of her family on the closing track. The CMA awarded her Female Vocalist of the Year in 1994, and she was nominated again in the same category again every year through 1997. "Mi Vida Loca" was nominated for Best Female Country Vocal Performance at the 38th Annual Grammy Awards in early 1996.
During this time, Tillis played a benefit concert for Nashville Cares, a local association dedicated to support of those with HIV/AIDS. In late 1995, Tillis released All of This Love, her fourth disc for Arista and fifth overall. All of This Love produced top-10 hits with "Deep Down" and "The River and the Highway". Also included on it were the number-14 "It's Lonely Out There" and "Betty's Got a Bass Boat", her first Arista single to miss the top 40. She produced the album by herself. At the time, Tom Roland of The Tennessean noted the rarity of female producers in country music, citing Gail Davies, Rosanne Cash, and Wendy Waldman among the few. Tillis compared her role as producer to that of a film director and noted that all of the musicians involved were supportive. She also considered her role "ironic" because the song "The River and the Highway" contrasts how men and women perceive a relationship. Billboard rated All of This Love favorably, saying that Tillis "continues to mature as a singer". All of This Love became Tillis's second gold album. She supported the album by touring with Lorrie Morgan and Carlene Carter. A Greatest Hits package followed in 1997, compiling her most successful Arista singles to that point. The album featured two new tracks which were both released as singles. These were "All the Good Ones Are Gone" and "Land of the Living", which both reached top five on the country charts in 1997. The former was nominated Song of the Year at the 1997 Academy of Country Music awards, Music Video of the Year and Single of the Year at the Country Music Association awards, and Best Female Country Vocal Performance at the 40th Grammy Awards. Greatest Hits became Tillis's third and final platinum album in 2001.
