We’d be sitting there, my father and I, contemplating the drunk tank, our hoosegow eyes scanning back and forth in a demented dervish to the glee of glug-glug; and we’d trade off playing tunes on the record player. He’d play Merle Haggard and explain why “Fightin’ Side of Me” was important and I’d play “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath and explain why that song was important. You see some father ’n’ son teams go fishin’ or play football and some even go to the movies together; that’s what’s called doing “father ’n’ son things,” but me and my father were content with spending weeks in our little backroom playing records and hittin’ the bottle.
So anyway, one particular lost weekend, he decided to get cute, so he starts playing all these modern country western songs I’d never heard before. Most of ’em were mere cavatinas for living on the b-side of life, but one stood out like a nova blister on my mind. The song was “Blood Red and Goin’ Down” and it was hot and the little country honey who sang it was Tanya Tucker and she was hot. And right then and there I knew, I mean I just KNEW, that she was going to be the next Jim Morrison. You could see that she was gonna win the tot rock sweepstakes between Lina Zavaroni, Marie Osmond, etc., right off. She was young, but she exuded the aromas of an eventual rock destiny.
With the release of TNT, the new Queen of the Beat has made herself visible and woe unto those who remain skeptics. Encased in vacuform leathers, Tanya Tucker is the Lizard Queen and she can do anything. On this here record, she simply sucks dynamite and blasts the listener with unaltered, adulterated tsunamis of sensual chaos ’n’ candescent displays of canorous rhythms. She breathes fiery life into some of rock’s moldy reliquiae. “Not Fade Away” never sounded better; “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man” doesn’t need sunglasses after a visit with Tanya; and her version of “Heartbreak Hotel” takes that song out of its traditional stance and creates in it an aura of depravity, sexuality and just plain seediness, which in turn takes this song into the stark realms of sheer poetry. The only other person who can do righteous justice to this song is John Cale because he simply knows what it’s all about. Presley didn’t even understand this song the way these two do.
Even though they’re released “Not Fade Away” as the single, the best song on the album is “Lover Goodbye” and when they wake up and realize the potential of this here lady, “that” is going to be her million seller. The other zipper poppers here are “Angel From Montgomery” and “Texas (When I Die).” TNT is the crossover country album that everybody’s been trying to make and Tanya (what a great name, eat reality Patti Smith, she doesn’t have to sing about Tanya, it’s her real name...) Tucker IS the next big thing. Listen to her and you’ll wanna stick blasting caps into your cavities and run around naked in a thunderstorm—know what I mean.
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