Album Review – Tanya Tucker’s “Sweet Western Sound”

The question is not if Tanya Tucker’s Sweet Western Sound will be nominated and win Grammy Awards. The question is how many, and which ones. This is a commentary on the quality of the songs and recordings on this album for sure. In one song after another, soaring emotional moments are capture that wet the eye and roil emotions only disturbed by the most powerful of musical expressions. But Grammy recognition is also the reality of any album involving Brandi Carlile at the moment.
Sweet Western Sound is the second pairing of newly-minted Country Music Hall of Famer Tanya Tucker with the producing team of Shooter Jennings and Brandi Carlile. Shooter, Brandi, and Carlile’s Hansrorth twins also have a heavy hand in writing and performing on the album. This was the same team behind the 2019 Tanya Tucker comeback album While I’m Livin’ that walked away with two Grammy Awards and was nominated for two more, so there was little to no incentive to mess with the chemistry.
Perhaps even more so than While I’m Livin’, the new album is filled with one emotional wallop after another. Heavy on balladry and Baldwin pianos, it embraces the reminiscent and reverberative themes of a performer in the twilight of her career, while attempting to reconcile with a past that at times was troubled, doing so with honest assessments, a little remorse, but no outright regret due to the battles fought, and the lessons learned along the way.
The album is crowned by the song “Ready As I’ll Never Be,” which is a sentimental, reflective, and cuttingly autobiographical work from an artist looking back on a legendary career, and the looming inevitability we all must reconcile with as we age. “Kindness” asks the audience for sympathy and appreciation, similar to Tanya’s Grammy-winning “Bring My Flowers Now” from her last album. “That Wasn’t Me” is an outright cry for absolution, with the list of personal offenses that flashed in headlines throughout Tanya’s career setting the backdrop for the song.
Other legends of country music also make appearances on this album, either personally, as songwriters, or as inspirations. The late Billy Joe Shaver bookends the album with an a capella rendition of the song “Tanya” that he wrote for Tucker. “Letter To Linda” is a tribute to Linda Ronstadt, who Tucker took as a role model. And speaking of overlooked country legends, “When The Rodeo Is Over (Where Does The Cowboy Go?)” was co-written by the great Billy Don Burns.
But similar to While I’m Livin’, Sweet Western Sound will leave country audiences a little wanting. If anything, it’s even more Americana and adult contemporary in sound and scope than the previous album, doubling up on emotional ballads built out from the piano to the point where they’ve taken Tanya Tucker from a honky tonker to a torch singer.

“Waltz Across A Moment” written by Shooter Jennings is undoubtedly a superbly-composed song done right by Tanya’s performance with her smoky and character-filled voice allowing you to believe every word is straight from the heart. But this is the song that populates the album’s title, “Sweet Western Sound,” and it’s neither Western, nor a waltz. This leads into “Ready As I’ll Never Be” that will undoubtedly be nominated for Grammy(s), because that’s what it was written by Brandi Carlile to do. But consecutive piano ballads begin to crater the momentum of this record.
Instead of feeling like a revitalization of Tanya Tucker’s career, Sweet Western Sound comes across almost like a epitaph, or a eulogy in how it makes reference to Tucker’s impending death and decline when she’s only 64. The final song “When The Rodeo Is Over” chased by Billy Joe Shaver’s words from the grave blanket everything with a pall as opposed to injecting new life into the career of a woman who hopefully has many years of kicking ass left.
You see Tanya Tucker perform live and it’s a high octane country show. Similar to Billy Joe Shaver who performed well into his older years, Tanya Tucker is twangy, animated, and very much alive. On stage she’s Tanya Mother Tucker. But on this album the sentimentality gets to be so much. The only respite is the steel guitar-laden and shuffly song “The List,” along with “Breakfast in Birmingham” featuring Brandi Carlile.
We talk about how on great albums, the songs become something greater than the sum of their parts. For Sweet Western World, the opposite may be the case. There’s little texture or range in the emotions to engage the listener and keep things interesting. It’s a slightly short album at 35 minutes. But it feels even shorter since the lack of variety makes everything run together.
All that said, you pull an individual song off of Sweet Western Sound, and you’re likely to be floored. Unquestionably, the weight of many of these moments is heavier than most. This is an album of haymakers that doesn’t hold back, and goes for the maximal emotional impact on every track. But every album needs its lighthearted and upbeat moments too. This is what makes the deeper, more meaningful moments that much more engrossing and impactful.
Undoubtedly though, Sweet Western Sound will be very effective for what it was designed to do: win Grammy Awards. For Tanya Tucker, and Brandi Carlile. And when it does it will be hard to argue against, because its brilliant moments unquestionably soar.
1 3/4 Guns Up (8/10)
– – – – – – – –
Purchase from Tanya Tucker
Purchase from Amazon
June 5, 2023 @ 8:45 am
I had listened to letter to Linda the other day before this review. I wasn’t really fond of it. Doesn’t really sound like her sound. When I get the chance, I’ll listen to more but I think I’m going to be disappointed.
June 5, 2023 @ 9:02 am
Love Tanya…looking forward to this
June 5, 2023 @ 9:49 am
If anyone knows how much tequila Tanya drinks, then 64 years old is old. Her liver is probably 80 years old. I love Tanya and like the tracks that I’ve heard, regardless of which genre you want to file it under. It’s good to see her inspired again.
June 5, 2023 @ 10:21 am
I don’t know anything about her drinking, but I remember an old man who, because of drinking a fifth of bourbon a day over decades, was questioned by others about the deleterious effects such a habit was bound to have on his health. His response was, “My doctor tells me I can’t die, yet. It’s going to take them many years to find a safe place to bury my liver.”
June 7, 2023 @ 12:37 pm
There’s a lot of doctors tell me
That I’d better start slowing it down
But there’s more old drunks than there are old doctors
So I guess we’d better have another round
Willie Nelson – I Gotta Get Drunk
June 5, 2023 @ 10:09 am
What I really want to know is: what the heck is that first track? Who is speaking and what’s the story behind that?
June 5, 2023 @ 10:14 am
I don’t know the story behind it, but I think the voice is Billy Joe Shaver.
June 5, 2023 @ 10:15 am
That is Billy Joe Shaver reciting a song that he wrote for Tanya Tucker called “Tanya.” It finishes in a hidden track at the end of the album.
June 5, 2023 @ 10:20 am
“But Grammy recognition is also the reality of any album involving Brandi Carlile at the moment.” So true.
Meanwhile, Carly Pearce’s next single is a duet with Chris Stapleton. She’s pulling out the stops to reclaim the spotlight from Lainey Wilson. We’ll see how it is.
June 5, 2023 @ 11:00 am
This looks interesting. And this is coming from me, who openly find the song, Delta, Dawn, to be incredibly benign, and I simply failed to understand its popularity. It’s not that I specifically have ever disliked Tanya Tucker, it’s that may be from my man’s perspective, or my specific preferences in country music, or maybe there are certain oversights in my knowledge of the post 1973 country music world, but Tanya Tucker has always flown just a little under my radar. But I definitely want to check this out.
For the sake of discussion, can anyone tell me what made delta dawn such a huge hit? And please don’t say because it’s a great song. At this point, that’s a given, but can someone explain to me what about it appealed to so many people? From my perspective, it’s rather light on lyrics and repetitive,
And beyond that song, is there a specific Tanya Tucker album that I might have not listened to yet that bears the responsibility for turning her into a superstar? Enlighten me. Educate me. Because I’m apparently missing something that everyone else is aware of but me. And I want to know what I’m missing.
June 5, 2023 @ 11:49 am
Fuzzy, a couple points for you. Delta Dawn came from the mouth of a 13 year old. People were stunned that a young girl could sing and sound so adult. The song was catchy and coupled with the novelty of a kid with a cool voice, it resonated with people.
Her early 70s work is my favorite period of her career. She had some great songs such as Blood Red and Going Down, What’s Your Mama’s Name, the Coe penned Would you Lay With Me in a Field of Stone, that all put her solidly on the map. And she endeared herself to her fellow Texans with songs like Pecos Promenade and San Antonio Stroll. Her catalog is full of great material.
June 5, 2023 @ 11:55 am
Ok! That’s really helpful!
June 5, 2023 @ 12:52 pm
“Delta Dawn” is Tanya Tucker’s signature song for sure, but it never hit #1 (#6), and I’m never sure I’ve actively sought it out in Tanya’s catalog, though I enjoy it if I hear it.
To me, the remarkable thing about Tanya Tucker was her longevity, and that she existed successfully in multiple eras. “Delta Dawn” was 1972, and she was still recording radio hits in the mid 90s. Her career trailed off in the late 70s and early 80s, but then came roaring back in the mid 80s when she rebranded in part as an “Outlaw.”
My favorite era of hers might be the early 90s. “Walking Shoes,” “If Your Heart Ain’t Busy Tonight,” “Down To My Last Teardrop,” “Two Sparrows in a Hurricane.” This is all well-written, twangy stuff that has held up over time.
June 5, 2023 @ 1:05 pm
Well said, Trigger. That late 80’s to early 90’s run of hers was incredible. It still stands up and I would listen to it all right now if it was brand new.
June 9, 2023 @ 8:33 am
Fuzzy, I have loved Tanya since 1980. Her voice and songs switched me from Rock and Roll to Country. My favorite album is “Changes” and my favorite song is “Feel Right”. I usually see her about 4 times a year. Her live shows are amazing. Just imagine she has sung with Tom Jones, Dean Martin, Little Richard and all the country legends. Listen to “Ready As I’ll Never Be” and you will understand.
June 5, 2023 @ 12:15 pm
We we’re in Nashville this weekend for Tanya’s album release show at The Ryman. It was a humdinger. In between two electric sets with her road band, she played about 6 songs with her band acoustically and was joined by Dailey and Vincent and Billy Dean! Yeah, that’s right, Friggin’ Dailey and Vincent doing harmony vocals behind Tanya and her daughter. You could hear a pin drop in the theater. They gathered around a single condenser microphone and sang Whats Your Mamas Name, Jamestown Ferry, Blood Red, Would You Lay With Me, a gospel number and one or two other hits. Killer stuff.
Surprisingly Tanya played only two songs from the new album and only one from the previous album. She seemed most excited about the Billy Don Burns song and said she had a ball filming the video with some retired rodeo guys. The night was essentially a career retrospective. She got more standing ovations than I could count. She’s in great voice and puts on one interesting show.
The night before, she played the Opry and rode her horse onto the Opry stage. I’m told that had never been done in history, prior to this past Friday.
I’m sure I will like at least half the new album. I’ve said it before, I would never pick Brandy or Shooter as the right people for her, but I feel like no one else was paying attention to her either. They saw an opportunity for $$$ and Grammys and went for it. Tanya got a career resurrection and Grammys, so it was a mutual win for all involved. Shame on the mainstream industry for ignoring her in the twilight of her career.
June 6, 2023 @ 11:26 am
Shooter and Brandi revitalized Tanya just like Jack White did for Loretta Lynn and Wanda Jackson. Regardless of what you think about them as artists themselves, they’ve done a great service to the world of music. Van Lear Rose is still one of my favorite albums.
June 5, 2023 @ 12:17 pm
Sweet Western Sound is another Tucker Triumph !
June 5, 2023 @ 1:07 pm
I don’t hate it, but it’s not Tanya. I never thought Tanya would just bow down & let Brandi drag her around like she’s her Lil’ , fiesty, mamaw.
June 6, 2023 @ 9:15 pm
Tanya was washed up at the time Brandi met her. She thought her career was over and wasn’t going to record anymore. Brandi and Shooter Jennings took a lot of time out of their lives to have conversations with her and convince her that she was a legend and couldn’t quit now. You can dis on Brandi if you want, but she’s responsible for the comeback of Tanya and Joni Mitchell…..so far.
June 7, 2023 @ 9:52 am
I saw Tanya in Bremen, GA, in 2018, before even she knew she would have a chance at a comeback, and though I loved her show, this comeback and revived her spirit and her confidence and it has been so much fun to watch.
June 5, 2023 @ 4:08 pm
I haven’t listened to this album enough to have a firm feeling about it musically, but re the whole Brandi/Grammys/this isn’t how a Tanya Tucker album should sound of it all…
I’ll gladly take it. I think her album “Complicated” from the late nineties is perhaps (or rather, by far) her best album since the early seventies. And yet…her career pretty much nose dived after that. And it’s been a long time between then and her latest resurgence.
I’ve been a fan of way too many singers who’s careers fizzled, especially women (for instance…well, pretty much all of them from the last 40 years with an exception or two), to be glass half empty about it when in the rare instances things go right. And trust me, I’m typically pretty critical/negative.
I mean in recent times, Lee Ann Womack made a great comeback, at least creatively. So did Carlene Carter. Pam Tillis’ recent work and the Pam Tillis/Lorrie Morgan collabs had some great stuff. And then there are younger artists like Ashley Monroe, Ashton Shepard, Julie Roberts…and then there’s the “patron saint” of what come have been, Bobbie Cryner, who sounds a bit like a previous generations shoulda-been-a-contender, Melba Montgomery.
Damn, this wasn’t intended to be a manifesto on underappreciated women country artists, but ????♂️
June 5, 2023 @ 6:36 pm
I don’t think it is fair to say that it doesn’t sound like a Tanya album because her sound has changed with almost every decade.
June 5, 2023 @ 7:10 pm
Hi Anthony, I agree and was not suggesting that I personally don’t think like her new music sounds like Tanya Tucker music. I do think that perhaps because she is older now the sassy, wild child aspect of her sound that has usually been there is missing, but that seems to make sense.
At the same time though I do agree with people who miss a bit of that rough energy of hers; i think Billy Sherrill said something along the lines of she was a diamond in the rough that never lost the rough.
June 5, 2023 @ 5:03 pm
Re. “Letter To Linda”: I believe this song came about from Tanya prepping for a show she was to do in 2019 at The Troubadour, the prominent nightclub in West Hollywood that was the epicenter of the California folk-rock and country-rock movements of the 60’s and 70’s, of which Linda Ronstadt was a huge part, and her having heard Linda’s version of “Desperado” over the club’s PA system–this and the reference to Linda’s groundbreaking and career-cementing 1974 album HEART LIKE A WHEEL, which topped both Billboard’s Top 200 Album Chart and Country Album Chart in early 1975.
I suppose this track, like the rest of SWEET WESTERN SOUND, is not what you’d call “straight country” (although apart from her two TRIO projects with Dolly and Emmylou, Linda wasn’t exactly straight country either, at least by Music City standards). Still, it is a very wonderful and friendly gesture on Tanya’s part to pay homage and tribute to Linda, who is no longer in the best of health as she approaches her 77th birthday (on July 15), and it is greatly appreciated by us fans of Linda’s.
June 5, 2023 @ 8:20 pm
Love Tanya and this late career resurgence….but wishing Brandi would have added a little more of that Tanya sass. A little more spice and grit. More octane. We need a real barn burner from Tanya like she does in her live shows.
June 7, 2023 @ 9:49 am
I think Tanya made Brandi’s ” That Wasn’t Me” very much her own on this album. I am LOVING this new album. I still hear the sass, but I also hear a wiser, happier Tanya, and it is glorious ot hear.
June 5, 2023 @ 8:49 pm
The album is brilliant. Loved every song. Her voice is a little rougher but she can still connect those harmonies.
June 5, 2023 @ 11:15 pm
Love Tanya’s music from the 90’s but this is another bland Brandi Carlile production. Too much good music out there right now to waste any more time listening to this.
June 7, 2023 @ 9:50 am
I am not getting this anti Brandi sentiment. She is gold and I am not missing Tanya is this new music.
June 8, 2023 @ 6:39 pm
you have a point but Tanya in concert is still Tanya and she puts on a hell of a show!
June 8, 2023 @ 6:40 pm
Brandi is talented but from what I’ve seen she does the same thing over and over and is one note. In that respect she is overrated. Tanya is a legend!
June 6, 2023 @ 1:17 am
Tanya does ballads well, but tracks such as Down To My Last Teardrop show off the true, sassy Tucker. The two tracks above are rather boring.
June 6, 2023 @ 6:10 am
When I was a kid listening to country music with my parents, Tanya Tucker was among my favorites. She was young, sexy, and I had a young boys crush on the bad girl of country. I’ve always checked in on Tanya’s career since back then, but to me the mid to late 70s early 80s have always been my favorite. I’ll be honest though. The gravely voice that once made Tanya so great has deteriorated over the years. I want to like her latest albums, and there are some good songs there, but the vocals just keep me from more than a curious listen.
Still happy for Tanya’s late career success, and wouldn’t shy away from catching her live.
June 6, 2023 @ 12:00 pm
For all those saying the new recordings aren’t your kinda thing, too Americana perhaps? I get it. But, understand, having just seen her LIVE SHOW, it was definitely much more of the Tanya you want to hear. The sass and swagger was definitely there. As I said in my comment above, she played a total of 3 songs from the last two albums. The bulk of her live performance is ” the hits”. Texas When I Die, Trouble, Walking Shoes, If your Heart Ain’t Busy Tonight and many more. These Shooter/ Brandi records serve one purpose, win Grammys. Trigger is correct in that assessment.
June 6, 2023 @ 1:54 pm
Was that the very recent live show, last weekend, where she rode a horse onto the stage?
Marty Stuart was talking about that, this past Saturday night, at his concert.
June 6, 2023 @ 2:40 pm
Yes this past Saturday at The Ryman. The horse stunt was the night before, on the Opry stage.
June 6, 2023 @ 4:00 pm
: D Yes.
Marty dedicated Saturday night’s show to Tanya, for pulling that stunt at the Opry, the night before.
He said when he got home Friday night, Connie told him all about it.
We, at the Brown County Music Center, laughed in appreciation.
June 7, 2023 @ 9:17 am
She played 3 songs from the New album on saturday and 4 new songs on sunday night.
June 7, 2023 @ 9:39 am
Oh Leon, you so got me dead to rights. Between the new record and the previous one I said she played 3 songs. Ok, I was there, were you? I heard Hard Luck Woman from the previous record, Kindness and Where Does a Cowboy Go from the current one. Assuming I’m wrong on that , you are seriously gonna correct me over one song???!!! You are missing a simple point. She spent the bulk of the show singing her hits! I praised her, I’m a fan, what’s there to argue with, some like her Shooter/ Brandi work and some don’t. I’m somewhere in between. Is that ok?
June 7, 2023 @ 10:20 am
That’s ok. I was there both nights. I am a long time fan from Norway. Saturday she played, Kindness -The List – and When the Rodeo’s Over (Where Does the Cowboy Go?) And Sunday she played , Kindness – The List – When the Rodeo’s Over (Where Does the Cowboy Go – Breakfast in Birmingham (duet with Brandi ) and Ready As I’ll Never Be. 5 songs from Sweet Western Sound on sunday.
June 7, 2023 @ 11:14 am
Leon, you probably win the superfan award. That’s a long way to travel for a concert!
And you went both nights. Impressive.
June 7, 2023 @ 11:42 am
And the Grand Ole Opry on friday night. ????
November 30, 2023 @ 7:30 am
I love Tanya Tucker!