Pam Tillis takes indie plunge with "Rhinestoned"

04/20/2007 8:06 PM, Reuters


"You get to a point in your career where you do get tired of vying for the dollars and attention of your label," said country artist Pam Tillis, who has stopped recording for majors and taken matters into her own hands.

Until making the recent move, Tillis, daughter of country star Mel Tillis, has released all her records on major labels during a 25-year-plus career.

"We can focus all our energies on this one project and that's awesome," Tillis said of her label, Stellar Cat, which is a joint venture with Nashville-based Thirty Tigers. "What you lack in size and muscle and clout, you make up for in intensity and focus and passion.

"We don't have to sell a million copies to be viable," she added, sounding a refrain familiar to newly independent artists.

There's an artistic advantage to being on an indie, noted Tillis, whose first indie record, "Rhinestoned," was released April 17.

"You don't have to water down your music, you don't have to be all things to all people, you can just be yourself and know that if you like it, there's going to be other people out there that like it, too."

That's not to say the new album is a radical departure from Tillis' successful major label records -- anything but. "I'm not trying to alienate my radio fans -- I love them. I just want to take them on this journey with me."

The journey is filled with introspective songs that lean toward past loves and love lost. "Train Without a Whistle" is a cautionary tale of a fly-by-night lover, while "The Hard Way," written by Tillis with her brother, Mel Tillis Jr., is an honest look at the failure to learn from mistakes.

"Life Has Sure Changed Us Around," an entertaining romp through a couple's memories of their wilder days ("Our sins were not original, but we gave them our own twist") that was written by Tillis and Nicholson, is a duet with country legend John Anderson, with whom she has never before recorded.

"Band in the Window" is a look at the bars and clubs of Nashville's Lower Broadway and the people who play them. "That's the Nashville I'm celebrating," Tillis said. "People who do music for the love of it. When I found that song, the whole album came together in my mind."

Eventually Tillis would like to reprise "It's All Relative: Tillis Sings Tillis," the album she recorded with her father, but with a twist -- each will produce five tracks by the other. Tillis already has a song in mind for her famous stuttering father. "I want Dad to record a version of 'Bad to the Bone,"' she said with a laugh.

Reuters/Billboard