Among country music's remarkable group of female individualists, Pam Tillis hardly seems to stand out. Vocally she can't equal Reba McEntire's pyrotechnics or Patty Loveless's emotional depth, and unlike Mary Chapin Carpenter or Wynonna Judd, she has no particular message or psychodrama that she seems intent on communicating. But she has a quiet, wise, amused manner and she's calculatingly commercial in the best way -- she picks up quickly on musical trends and has a sharp instinct for bringing them down to earth and delivering pop songs that for a moment intoxicate young hearts and minds.
Pam is the daughter of Mel Tillis, the stuttering country star of the 1960's and 1970's. As a writer she has inherited his gift for the clever turn and common touch. In "Cleopatra, Queen of Denial," she transformed an obscure pun on the twelve-step movement into a humorous anthem for lovers amused at their own inability to spot deception when it's staring them in the face. "Spilled Perfume," one of the big hits from last year's Sweetheart's DanceCD, was a sad, honest depiction of a woman offering comfort to a friend abandoned after a one-night stand:
Right now you hate yourself 'cause you knew better,
But there's no use crying over spilled perfume.
In choosing material from other writers Tillis is generally out of country music's style changes. Another huge success from Sweetheart's Dance was a remake of an obscure, wonderfully simple Jackie DeShannon composition called "Every Time You Walk In the Room"; the album as a whole played a big part in inaugurating the trend toward jangly Sixties-style tunefulness that fills country airwaves these days. At first I found the shiny pop surfaces of Tillis's songs off-putting, but the songs are always intelligent enough that they grow on me. And when I saw Tillis perform at the State Fair last August, I understood how directly they connect with her audiences, especially with young women.
Tillis has won all the big country music awards, and is probably the top female star in the field right now -- although, like all the other leading female vocalists in Nashville, she must be looking over her shoulder at the Canadian/Ojibwa country/metal firebomb, Shania Twain. Tillis might seem an odd choice for a country booking in Ann Arbor, which, when it favors country at all, tends toward more cerebral types. But quite a few people turned out for her show. Her new CD, All of This Love, is on a level with the precious ones.
NOTE: Pam Tillis performed at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor on November 9, 1995.