Pam Tillis Rediscovers Roots

Pam Tillis photo courtesy of Stellar Cat

March 28, 2007 — Although she's not big on labels, Pam Tillis says the term "neo-traditionalist" fits her upcoming album, Rhinestoned, pretty well.

Of the new CD, set for release April 17 on her own Stellar Cat label, Pam tells blogcritics.org, "I've heard it called neo-traditionalist and I kind of like that. It's firmly rooted in the past, but it's also inclusive of many things that are in the moment. [It's] a roots record, but it's a little left of center of commercial country that you might hear on the radio: a little Americana with shades of bluegrass."

After recording some albums that had more of a country-pop feel, Pam says she made a conscious decision to turn her focus back to her origins or "to turn back to the barn," as she jokes.

Pam's previous album, It's All Relative, was a tribute to her father, Mel Tillis, and Pam says she felt some pressure covering his music. "I wanted to do it justice and I wanted to make him proud," she says. "I wanted to please the older fans, but also find a way to turn the younger generation on to his music. Maybe they'll go back and seek his work out. I had a lot of goals with that one."

As for the future, Pam says, "The music business is not like, 'Well, I knocked that out, let's go on to the next thing.' Every year you're doing the same thing, only new. Yes, we've made 10 albums, but this is the new album. And yes, we've been on the road, but this is the new tour. We're going to different towns and different places in the world, and I just want to keep doing what I'm doing, only better."