Hi, my name is Pam Tillis. I decided there are plenty of people that know the wheres and whens of my carrer, but not many people know the whys. I hope this helps you get to know me better.
If I had to describe myself in five words, it would be introverted, extroverted, creative, independent, and persistent. I was born in Plant City, Florida, Pamela Yvonne Tillis, to two artists. (My mother didn't show her true colors till later in life.) Anyways, there went my shot at a normal childhood. Dad was a struggling songwriter/singer, Mel Tillis, who possessed both a terrible speech impediment and a genius wit. He moved my pregnant mother, Doris, to Nashville and then promptly went on the road playing rhythm guitar with Minnie Pearl. Mom had me while he was gone. Word reached Mel that he was the father of a baby boy. I don't know how soon he found out I wasn't Mel, Jr.
I won't exactly say I entered the world singing, but Dad said I had the most unusual cry you ever heard. My lullabies were the demo tapes of late night recording sessions. Dad would come home in the middle of the night and crank 'em up loud enough to wake the dead. My cradle was a guitar case they would sometimes put me in for a nap. My parent's friends flashy, flamboyant and innocently wild hillbilly crooners, divas and writers of the 50's & 60's - the Garths and Rebas of his generation. Little wonder (pardon the pun) that a kindergarten teacher I ran into years later told me that I'd come to her class of four year olds and sing little songs I had made up.
While Dad was away on the road, and believe me he was always gone, I started doing my own share of entertaining - school, church, at Brownies - wherever they would listen to me. It was really strange because I was an extremely gawky, intensely shy, and rather goofy-looking kid. I even got up the nerve, at eight years old, to join Dad on the Grand Ole Opry stage at the old Ryman Auditorium. At the end of some very shaky knees, my little feet started following in some big footsteps. Singing and clowning was my way of gaining the acceptance I longed for. Not much has changed.
My folks bought me a piano at age eight. I studied classical for eleven years. I took up guitar at eleven. I learned to play from a folk singer that used to be on PBS. Alot of people assumed that dad taught me these things, but he was working 300 days of the year (eventually becoming CMA "Entertainer of the Year" in 1975). But I learned from osmosis. Besides, I was really starting to get into my "own" kind of music - Beatles, Janis Joplin, Stevie Wonder, Carole King, The Rolling Stones. I began writing at 13. Dad was less than encouraging, even though I could tell he was tickled that I had talent. It's just that the women of his day weren't treated with the same respect they've gained today. Also, he just couldn't imagine his baby girl out playing the honky-tonks. But it was becoming more of a hobby to me.
I started singing in clubs at 15. I did my first writer's night at the world famous Exit\In. I played clarinet in the marching band in high school, but other than that, I was an undistinguished student. Music was the only thing I took seriously. In college I lasted two semesters. It was there I joined my first band and also performed in a duo with Ashley Cleveland - an extremely talented Christian Rock writer from the area who's gone on to make several records of her own and has sung on several of mine. I played every club in town. So instead of continuing to waste my parent's money, I decided to quit and enroll instead in the Music City School of Hard Knocks.
I pounded the pavement of music row for what seemed like forever, working as a back-up vocalist, jingle singer, club performer, songwriter and publishing company demo singer. I sang jingles for Hardee's, Coors, Country Time Lemonade, and Equal to name a few. I sang in a beer commercial once with a tall, skinny kid named Alan Jackson. One of my last sessions was with another struggling up and comer, Trisha Yearwood, and we sang back-up on a Paul Overstreet record - you gotta start somewhere. I was a young, single mother who didn't want to ride the coattails of a famous dad.
When legendary record producer and record mogul, Jimmy Bowen, offered to produce sides on me, I didn't take him up on it right away. Instead, I went to California to dabble in jazz rock. It was one of several detours on my way back to country. I was a free spirit to say the least.
When the prodigal daughter returned to Nashville in 1979, it was to focus on songwrting. Since then I've had songs recorded by Chaka Khan, Martina McBride, Gloria Gaynor, Conway Twitty, Juice Newton, Highway 101, the Forrester Sisters and others.
My first record deal was uneventful - a time of experimenting, writing and trying to find my sound. I recorded a pop album and alot of stuff that ended up "in the can" so to speak. I spent alot of time woodshedding at places like the legendary Bluebird Cafe, trying out songs like, "Maybe It Was Memphis" that later became an important song for me. By the time I left Warner Brothers and Tim DuBois signed me to the brand new Nashville division of Artisa Records in 1989, I was more than ready.
There have been people that have made it faster and hit it bigger, but I feel I have been blessed with a consistent career. And I've gotten to do it on my own terms. I've dealt with each album a little differently, not wanting to become my own "cliche". I've been very hands on in all the creative aspects of my work eventually even producing one of my own albums, "All Of This Love". As far as I know, only a handful of women in music have attempted this or been given the freedom to do so.
They tell me I've sold over four million records, had six #1's, 13 top five's, and 17 top ten's. I've done all this while maintaining a pretty darn heavy public appearence schedule. I've done "Leno", "Letterman", "Rosie", "Conan", VH-1, CNN, E! and everything else from "RuPaul" to "Politically Incorrect" to "Good Morning America" to the "White House Memorial Day Celebration". I've appeared on "L.A. Law" and more recently had the pleasure of acting in "Diagnosis Murder" with Dick Van Dyke and "Promised Land" - (My interest in acting started in 1989 when I starred in Tennessee Repertory's "Jesus Christ Superstar" as Mary Magdalene).

"That's the Grand Prix," Pam Tillis tells the Country Music Association's Close Up magazine about her appearance on Late Show With David Letterman. "There are certain shows, and we've done them all now." Pam Tillis appeared on Letterman only a week or so after her debut on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. "It just felt like a big milestone. I took some of my band members, but working with that show, Paul Shaffer and that band, it was really unbelievable."     Country Weekly

I've toured with George Strait, Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Vince Gill, and as part of the Country Fruit of the Loom Tour in 1996 with Alabama and Patty Loveless. I did the first all-female "pre-Lilith" tour with Lorrie Morgan and Carlene Carter. I've performed with the St. Louis and Atlanta Symphonies. (Not bad for a girl who's battled stage fright all her life!) Over a decade of hard work paid off in a big way for me when I was honored with CMA's "Female Vocalist of the Year", a feeling I'll never forget and an honor I continue to strive to live up to.
A turning point in my career, a landmark of sorts, was my "Greatest Hits" record. With it I closed the first chapter of my career and opened the second. One of the two singles from that album, "All the Good Ones are Gone", helped me gain a new momentum by being nominated for two Grammy's, the CMA Single, Song, Female Vocalist and Video honors, as well as the ACM "Song of the Year".
I feel my new album "Every Time" is my most mature album yet and folks are telling me it's my most cohesive since "Sweetheart's Dance". It's hard for me to critique it in that way because I'm so close to it, but I can tell you I'm thrilled with how it turned out.
I recorded it at a time when I was doing an awful lot of thinking, growing, and just a little hurting too. My emotions were running wild. I got up every day for four months, went into the studio, rolled up my sleeves, and channeled that energy right into the music.
I co-produced this album with Billy Joe Walker, Jr. who did such a fantastic job on "Land of the Living" and "All the Good Ones are Gone" both top five singles. He's a good editor. I tend to be expansive - "I'm a girl with expansive tastes". He ropes things in for me. He let's the song and singer take center stage. His tracks are punchy and powerful, yet never overproduced.
I also appreciate how he's helped me develop some of the subtler nuances in my voice. There's a warmth in my lower range that Billy Joe really worked on getting me to bring out. He said my lower register sounded "sexy" and "intimate". I used that voice on "All the Good Ones are Gone" and it seemed to work!
You are, no doubt, looking at the liner notes to see how many songs I wrote for the album. I've just received certification of a million plays from BMI on "Spilled Perfume", "Mi Vida Loca" and "Cleopatra, Queen of Denial", but last year was so tumultuous that my writing took a backseat this time around. However, the eleven great songs I found, by some of Nashville's finest writers, helped me express perfectly what I wanted to say.
I had a pretty immediate emotional reaction to most of the songs on the album. "Every Time" is a song that I have lived with a long, long time. It had such a familiar quality to it that felt like I'd heard it before. I was drawn to the melody, in the same way I was drawn to "In Between Dances". It has a classic, timeless sound. This was penned by Jennifer Kimball, who co-wrote BMI Song of the Year, "I Love the Way You Love Me" by John Michael Montgomery.
Timothy B. Schmit of the Eagles joined me for this one. I just picked up the phone and called him! I met him a long time ago on a Jimmy Buffet session. He told me that he really enjoys my work, so I felt confident enough to ask him. He said, "Send it to me. If it's in my key, I'll do it." It was, he did and it's great!
Schmit isn't the only guest vocalist, as singer/songwriter Carl Jackson and Beth Neilsen Chapman also lend their talents to the mix. Cool harmonies are an important part of my sound.
Jackson is featured on "Whiskey on the Wound", a down and dirty honky-tonk tune that reeks of a smoke filled bar room. I heard writer Leslie Satcher perform it in a club and I sent a note on a paper plate up to the stage telling her, "I'm recording that!" I listen to my gut reactions. Satcher also contributed, "I Said a Prayer" and "You Put the Lonely on Me" to the project. I know this is the beginning of a long association with Leslie. Three songs by one writer - that's the most I've ever included on any project.
"I Said a Prayer" is the flip side to "All the Good Ones are Gone". This song is about having faith. If God can part the Red Sea, he can sure find you someone to enjoy dinner and a movie with. With all the frustration and even humor in the mating and dating game, why not turn to someone else.
Satcher's "You Put the Lonely on Me" is a little sad, but fun tune - one of life's little contradictions. A little Buck Owens and bluegrass.
"Lay the Heartache Down" reminds me a teeny bit of Clapton's "Lay Down Sally". It's a groove thing. I change direction with "After Hours", a plaintive narrative that serves as a three-and-a-half minute mini movie. I just like the picture it paints - I've always liked visual lyrics. Anybody who's ever been a musician, or a waitress, or a bartender, knows that sometimes the best conversations of the night come after the club is closed.
"A Great Disguise", I admit, may be my favorite vocal on the whole album. To some small degree, I think we all need to be great pretenders from time to time. How else could we survive first dates, public speaking, or tax audits?
The song "Hurt Myself" has the kind of tonuge-in-cheek attitude I'm known for. This isn't a victim song. If you don't pick up on the sarcasm, you'll miss the message.
"Not Mell was co-penned by another award winning songwriter, Stephanie Smith, who co-wrote "It's Your Love" (Tim McGraw & Faith Hill). This is a sassy "Cleopatra, OUT of Denial" tune.
The uplifting "We Must Be Thinking Alike" and folk poetry "Whisper And A Scream" round things out nicely, I think.
This album is a tapestry. It shows all the different sides of my personality from the tender to the tough. It has touches of many of my favorite musical elements; Bluegrass, R&B, Rock-N-Roll, and traditional Country. It deals with reality at it's roughest...and it's sweetest.
I wouldn't think of giving people anything less. That's my life, that's my music.

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