10/28/2023
Election to the Country Music Hall of Fame is country music's highest honor, and member-elect Tanya Tucker will be inducted on Sunday, October 22.
A hit recording artist at age thirteen, a “Rolling Stone” cover story at fifteen, and a millionaire at sixteen, Texas-born Tanya Tucker has been a resilient and high-spirited presence within country music for more than fifty years. Powered by her strong, husky voice and her often adult-themed songs (“Delta Dawn,” “Blood Red and Going Down”), she landed six #1 records before she turned eighteen. From 1986 to 1997, Tucker scored twenty-four Top Ten country hits.
In 2019, she experienced a dramatic career resurgence after she began working with fellow musicians and admirers Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings. The pair co-produced the album “While I’m Livin’,” which won Tucker two Grammys—the first of her career. Earlier this year, Tucker released a second album co-produced by Carlile and Jennings, “Sweet Western Sound.”
Tucker’s influence as a song stylist and as a strong, independent role model for women artists in country music continues to become more apparent as the years go by. As Carlile has said, “There would be no Miranda, no Brandi, no Gretchen, no Maren without Tanya Tucker.”
