Tanya Tucker Recuts “Delta Dawn,” Talks Friendship with Wynonna Judd 

Country-outlaw Tanya Tucker shared more information about her forthcoming album, Sweet Western Sound. The highly anticipated record is expected to drop on June 2 via Fantasy Records. 

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During the livestream with TalkShopLive, which marked the first live simulcast across both TalkShopLive and RFD-TV, the recent Country Music Hall of Fame inductee admitted that she initially did not want Grammy award-winner Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings to have a hand in the album.

“At first, I didn’t. I wasn’t going to go, and that’s something that’s kind of anti-Tanya Tucker because I’m always saying, let’s do it, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t going to do it. I didn’t think the songs were strong enough, and I take pride in picking my own materials since I’ve been 13,” she explained. “I picked all my songs. There’s only been a couple of times that someone has tried to make me sing a song, and I’m not with them anymore. So I wasn’t going to go, and I was down in my ranch in South Texas and it was right after New Year’s and January 4, I was supposed to be in LA and there’s bad service out there, so I get on a bunch of logs that are all shoved together and I’m calling Shooter and could barely hear him, and I said I don’t think I’m going to do this. I don’t think I’m gonna come.” 

[RELATED: Tanya Tucker Shares New Single “Kindness” from Forthcoming Album]

She continued, “I just don’t think I can do it. I love you, but no. All of a sudden, the line became clear, and he said, ‘T, you’ve always said that you would do anything in the world for me.’ And I’m going, ‘You’re so young. Are you going to use that card now?’ He said, ‘Point the bus toward LA. You get out here, we’ll get into a room, if you don’t like the songs, me, you and Brandi, we’ll talk, then you a point the bus back home.'” 

Sweet Western Sound comes on the heels of their critically acclaimed 2019 record, While I’m Livin‘. At the time, the 10-song collection served as her first project in 17 years. The touch of Carlile and Jennings intertwined with her contagious vocals, scored the project a Best Country Album win at the Grammys and Best Country Song for the vulnerable single “Bring My Flowers Now.” 

The upcoming track list will include a dozen songs. Tucker admitted that she just re-recorded her 1972 Top 10 hit “Delta Dawn.” It is still being determined if the new rendition will be a bonus track. 

“We recut it. And that has taken me about a year because we had three of the original players—Big Robbins, Billy Sanford, and Charlie McCoy. We went in, we did the baffles,” she said. “I never had headphones, only monitors. And I had my girls singing, Presley and Layla. And my boyfriend, Greg, did the bass. And we recut it, but man it was a real, real booger bear. How do you recreate a song like that? And make it sound new.”

In support of the upcoming record, Tucker has embarked on her Sweet Western Sound Tour. The must-see trek kicked off in late April and is expected to wrap on Oct. 4 in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The headlining run comes on the heels of her appearances on Wynonna Judd’s Final Tour, which featured female trailblazers in country music. 

“I was very thrilled that she would ask me, and I said yes right away. But then, I had a week or something to get ready, and I’m trying to learn these songs. We didn’t do my songs, all her songs, which is great, but I found myself feeling a little awkward about it because I wanted it to be better than hers and it can’t be better than hers so I’m just sunk all the way around. So I gotta figure out a way to do it different,” explained Tucker. “I never really knew Wynonna, we didn’t dance real well together. We were nice when we saw each other but she just talked over my head. She’s very deep. We can talk now and she cares about me so much. And I know it. Let me tell you something. To do that show that she was doing, to see her mother on the screen every night and talking, I couldn’t have done it. There’s no way I could have done it. But she’s tough.” 

Photo by Derrek Kupish / Adkins PR

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