Country music has an unending appetite for "bad little good girls", girls who are both sexy and slightly dangerous but somehow also wholesome. Tanya Tucker literally began her career as a little girl who was "wise beyond her years," and she has continued to walk the fine line between HONKY TONK heroine and the girl next door.
Born in Texas and raised in Phoenix, AZ, Tucker was raised by a father who was a star-struck, country-music fan determined to make his daughter a hit. He pushed the youngster on stage whenever a country act came into town. When he reached nine years old, convinced he had star material on his hands, he financed a trip to Nashville. After several attempts, her demo tape landed in the hands of ace country producer Billy Sherrill, who signed her at age 13 to Columbia. she immediately hit with the slightly suggestive "Delta Dawn" and "Would You Lay with Me". Tucker was instantly successful at playing up her sexy-but-sweet image.
By the end of the 70's, as she reached her late teen years, Tucker's career took a detour into an ill-advised attempt to cross over into pop/rock with the album T.N.T. (she appeared on the cover decked out in leather, in an attempt to give her a move "mature" image). The early 80's brought duets with her then-beau Glen Campbell in a more mainstream country fashion. After struggling to find a style, she returned in the mid-eighties to traditional country music and honky-tonk sounds.
While Tucker continues to record in a variety of styles, from sentimental ballads to hard-edged country-rock, her best material continues to play on her image of a good-girl-gone-(slightly) bad. Her 1992 hit "it's A Little To Late" is a classic honky-tonk number, which also caters to the latest craze for country dances. Tucker is one of the few female country stars who could get away with singing this type of song, which would more typically be givin to a male artist because of its implicit sexuality. she us able to communicate a non threatening good humor to her audience that allows her to cross the line just a little bit beyond what might be otherwise acceptable for country lady.
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