Postcards From the Road : Tanya Tucker Reflects on Life, Music and a New Priority Called Presley

A fax from Tanya Tucker’s Nashville publicist arrived with a forbidding proviso, stating that the singer would not be willing to answer questions about A) how as a 13-year-old she came to record “Delta Dawn”; B) her relationships with Glen Campbell, etc., and/or C) her drug rehab at Betty Ford. Tucker has, it was noted, already answered these questions to death.

Oh well, guess we’re stuck with just talking about music and life.

She called Thursday afternoon from a tour stop in Northern California where, she said, she’s actually been enjoying the inclement weather. It’s been nearly 20 years since Tucker, now 32, had a Top 10 country hit with “Delta Dawn.” She’s since charted more than 30 Top 10 songs, with a fair quantity of No. 1s, and has been on the road so much that it’s a wonder she found time to cause any tabloid rumors.

She estimates playing about 160 dates this year, down from 200 last year but still a hectic schedule made more difficult, and considerably more joyful, by the presence of the single mother’s 21-month-old daughter Presley (named for Elvis, naturally).

“To try to be a performer and have a baby on the road is almost impossible,” Tucker said. “It’s just really tough to stay on top of so many things, as far as their nutrition and keeping them safe. But it’s a lot easier than leaving her at home, because I couldn’t do that. She’s the new priority.

“We have a crib built in the bus that she sleeps in, and we all really watch out for her, and she has a nanny. She rules the roost.”

Tucker said if she ever slows down her touring routine--which includes a stop at Santa Ana’s Crazy Horse Steak House and Saloon on Monday and Tuesday--it will be so mother and daughter won’t be separated when Presley starts school. There could be side benefits for Tucker as well, such as time to complete the songs she’s never had time to finish, or to take a more active and considered hand in her recordings.

“That’s a luxury I haven’t acquired yet,” she said. “I have been somewhat restricted in working on the albums because I tour so much. I have to actually turn down dates to go in the studio. You want to make the money while you can, so we always put the recording in between.

“On my next album I hope to take a whole month off to really get inside and work with it. As it is, I come in off the road and I’m tired and I get thrown right into the studio. I do the songs and I leave, because I’ve got another gig on the road.”

Currently, her main input in album production is in song selection--an inexplicable process, she says. What does she look for in a song? “I have no idea. There’s no explanation for it, or if there is I don’t know it. I just listen with my ear until I hear what I like. Then if I feel I can do it justice, I record it.”

Though she’s almost entirely reliant on outside material--she did co-write the title song for last year’s “Tennessee Woman” album--Tucker is not afraid that she’ll ever have a shortage of good songs.

“I’m always listening to great new songs. I get a tape every time I go to town. Someone puts one on my car or will slip one to me at the restaurant. And of course, some of my friends in Nashville are some of its biggest writers, Paul Overstreet, Paul Davis, Royce Porter, people like that. It’s always great to do a song by them. And Jerry (Crutchfield, her producer) is constantly going through songs, he goes through thousands that the publishers send.”

Tucker’s success and hard touring have allowed her to do things such as buy a new house on a wooded 130-acre spread outside of Nashville. It also means she’ll scarcely have time to properly move into it until after the summer when her touring slows.

One thing that keeps her at such a pace is a competitive spirit.

“I am competitive with other artists, that’s just the way it goes. But I’m not an angry competitor, not an envious one. I enjoy competition. I think there’s nothing like a good race. I don’t like records going to No. 2. People say, ‘God, I’d be lucky to get one in the Top 10,’ but once you’ve had No. 1 records, you want to keep having them. When you don’t get one, you feel like you’ve let somebody down or they’ve let you down. So, get up there one more slot!”

But as much as she likes success, that’s not her end goal.

“My attitude is, the more people that know you and know your name, or are influenced or inspired by you, the more people you can reach on other issues. As far as the conditions and things going on in the world, entertainers have a responsibility there. So my ultimate goal is to have a bigger voice to help more people in the world.”

What issues concern her?

“All of them, there’s so many. There’s the environmental issues, and I’ve been getting more and more involved with animal rights, there’s the hungry, the homeless. There’s lots of incredible things going on to raise your voice about and be heard.

“I’ve always been an animal lover and I’ve always loved nature and being outdoors, but when you have a child you really see things in a different light, and you can’t explain it unless you have one yourself. You have to feel it. I want things to be perfect for her, and they’re not, so it concerns me.”

One bit of that concern shows up on her new album, “What Do I Do With Me,” due in May. The song “Bidding America Goodbye (The Auction),” written by Jamie O’Hara, paints a stark portrait of the plight of the American farmer.

“I recorded that song right before they made the announcement about doing the first Farm Aid,” Tucker said. “Then when it came up, I thought ‘This is a perfect time for this song.’ But the record company didn’t see it that way and put it on the shelf, where it’s been for years. Then they finally decided to put it on this album. I dedicated it to all the farmers in the country because they’re really our unsung heroes. I wish the song could have come out when it could have helped them a bit.”

Tucker doesn’t pay any particular heed to the battle lines being drawn in country between the new traditionalists and Nashville’s old guard.

“It doesn’t seem like I’m really affected by that. Someone else might tell you differently, but I feel like I fit in just about anywhere I go, musically. We play all sorts of places; there’s no certain kind of audience that we have, it’s a wide variety of people. And that’s the way I think my records have been.

“If you expect something from us, you won’t expect it for long. We’re not very predictable, and it’s good to be that way.”

Tucker isn’t sure how she’d answer if Presley asked her about becoming an entertainer when she turns 13.

“That would depend on a lot of things, her talent, her personality, her maturity. Because I was very much an adult when I was 13. I don’t know what I’d tell her.

“I think everybody in this business has longed for that 9-to-5 life a time or two. You can get real frustrated. So, no, I wouldn’t recommend this to her. Or I wouldn’t just say this is the best life in the world. But if this is what she wanted and what felt she could do, then do it. I was sort of born to do it. I was put here to sing. If she was the same way, it wouldn’t make any difference what I said.”

Tanya Tucker sings Monday and Tuesday at 7 and 10 p.m. at the Crazy Horse Steak House and Saloon, 1580 Brookhollow Drive, Santa Ana. Tickets: $29.50. Information: (714) 549-1512.