Sometimes an album just blows you away and you listen over and over. Tanya Tucker’s Delta Dawn is one such album.
Don’t look for it on CD; it doesn’t exist despite have two big hits on it (“Delta Dawn” and “Jamestown Ferry”). Actually, to my ear the title track is one of the weakest on it.
She was just thirteen when she made this record, but she was an ingenious performer and got totally inside the characters of each song. Ingenious!
Just stupid country, you say? Think again–this is just great music with no studio gloss to it. Just a great performer and great tunes. Pick it up at your local Goodwill shop and give it a spin.
Earlier this evening I just added some old Tanya Tucker to my iTunes. When she was a teenager she was assigned to the producer Billy sherrill. Although best known for gunking up pure country singers with horns and strings (“the Nashvbille sound”) he got it right with Tucker. Then after about five years, she switched recording labels, tried to become a sexpot (Brittany Spears, anyone?) then met Glenn Campbell and wasted an incredible talent.
Yep, I have her 1979 album Chasing Rainbows. Gone is the clear sound, effective arrangements, and her voice just doing what it does. The thing is given gloss production and tunes just suck.
I wonder if TNT could be good?!
I remember seeing a special on her. Too bad about ruining her talent.
Unfortunately for me, I learned a childish, dirty version of “Delta Dawn” before I ever heard her. Now I can’t get it out of my heard when I hear the song.