Tanya Tucker photo courtesy of Kirt Webster & Assoc.

She’s been called one of the finest song stylists in any genre, a singer who owns the patent on any song she sings. Tanya Tucker’s inimitable vocal stylings and soulful performances have resulted in a string of hit albums and singles, garnered hundreds of honors and awards and made her a country music legend. On June 30th, Tanya releases her newest album, My Turn, a collection of songs done up like no one else could ever do. She takes on classic country hits originally recorded by men and turns them on their heads, transforming some of the most melancholy songs ever written into anthems of girl power and austere strength.

The Texas Tornado was born on October 10, 1958 in Seminole, Texas, located on the Panhandle Plains that locals call the land of "?tumbleweeds, pump-jacks, windmills and four open horizons." It was the perfect place for a tornado to show up.

Tanya was a precocious child. She cut her first tooth at 5 months, was driving the family Volkswagen around the yard by age 4 and riding horses before she turned 5. "One day I just started singing," she says. And by the time she was 8, she was copying everything she heard on the country radio: Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Johnny Horton, Jim Reeves and Hawkshaw Hawkins.

Tanya’s father, Beau Tucker, worked any job he could find to keep the family going. He was at various times a pilot, a prospector and a heavy equipment operator. The Tuckers were living in Wilcox, Arizona when Tanya started singing at talent contests and appearing on the stage with visiting celebrities like Mel Tillis and Ernest Tubb. Then, while Beau was working on a pipeline in St. George, Utah, Tanya landed a part in Robert Redford’s film Jeremiah Johnson. It didn’t turn out to be a show business break, but it helped convince Beau Tucker that stardom was possible, even if you had no industry contacts.

The family later moved to Las Vegas to be closer to an entertainment center. It was there that patrons of the local Veteran’s club started calling Tanya "Little Miss Cheatin’ Heart" because of her years-ahead-of-her-time vocal delivery. The Tuckers traveled to Nashville only to be met by closed doors and "come back when she’s older" comments.

But it was only a matter of time. Tanya was 13 when a Las Vegas songwriter introduced her to legendary record producer Billy Sherill. He soon signed her to Columbia Records and recorded the first big hit song: "Delta Dawn." Tanya followed that with "Love’s The Answer" and "Jamestown Ferry," and then came out of the chute with another megahit: "What’s Your Mama’s Name?" She was 15 years old, with a Country Music Association and Grammy nomination, a Greatest Hits package in the works and her face on the cover of the Rolling Stone.

In 1972, renowned music critic Nat Hentoff wrote in Cosmopolitan magazine: "Tanya’s voice is vibrato – full and tangy, with the kind of restless intensity that stays in your mind long after the song is done. This teenager has become one of the most dramatic presences in all of music, not just country." She also became a role model for female artists, a singer many industry insiders see as a future Hall of Famer: "When you listen to Tanya Tucker you hear spirit and independence. That’s what she’s given to country music," said music critic John Lomax III.

That public image and those hits caused MCA Records to offer Tanya what was then the most lucrative recording contract ever awarded in country music, 1.5 million dollars. The hits kept on coming: "Lizzie and the Rainman," "San Antonio Stroll," "Don’t Believe My Heart Can Stand Another You," "Texas When I Die" and "Pecos Promenade," to name but a few during her MCA years.

In 1986, she singed with Capitol Records and recorded over a decade of his including "Strong Enough to Bend," "Down To My Last Teardrop," "Two Sparrows in a Hurricane," "It’s a Little Too Late" and "Tell Me About It" with Delbert McClinton.

In 1991, she was named the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year and the following year she was Country Music Television’s Female Video Artist of the Year. That same year, "Two Sparrows in a Hurricane" was named the Academy of Country Music’s Video of the Year. In 1996, she was one of the Top 10 overall most played artists of the year, and Capitol Records biggest-selling signed female country artist.

She was sought after for compilation recordings. In 1993, she recorded "Already Gone for Common Threads: The Songs of the Eagles," and the following year she sang a critically acclaimed duet with Little Richard, "Somethin’ Else" on Rhythm, Country & Blues. In 1995, she sang "Something for Come Together: America Salutes the Beatles" and in 1996 "Goin’ Nowhere and Gettin’ There Fast" for NASCAR: Hotter Than Asphalt. Walt Disney Records released her recording of "Someday My Prince Will Come" on The Best of Country Sing the Best of Disney in 1997.

The year 1994 was a big one for Tanya. She sang at the halftime of Super Bowl XXVIII, which had over a billion viewers, and at the opening ceremonies for the World Cup, broadcast to over two billion viewers.