SXSW Film Review: The Return of Tanya Tucker

“Say a prayer, I need it,” says Tanya Tucker at the start of The Return of Tanya Tucker, Kathlyn Horan’s new documentary on the country music icon.

That may be true, as Tucker at the outset seems uncertain of taking on her first album in nearly two decades. The result, 2019’s While I’m Living, proves an unquestionable triumph though, and the journey through its making that the SXSW-selected film chronicles is even more so.

The film breaks fairly evenly into two acts - the album’s making at Sunset Sound studio in LA with Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings, and its subsequent release to wide acclaim and Tucker’s first ever Grammy win. Throughout, Horan tactfully pulls from archival interviews and footage of the singer to mark her meteoric rise as a teenager in the 1970s, tumultuous tabloided 1980s career, and effective blackballing from the industry when she became too rock n roll and irreverent for country sensibilities.

Tucker’s career in the spotlight since she hit #1 with “Delta Dawn” at age 13 could alone fill biographic volumes, but her past only plays as context here to the more personal contemporary story of the artist restarting at 60. Her voice no longer a crystalline twang, and having largely left music following her father/manager’s death, Tucker emerges as both quintessentially rebellious and hesitatingly vulnerable. It takes Americana superstar Carlile to shepherd Tucker back to the stage, with an enthusiastically charming admiration that grows during the filming into a mutual respect and deep friendship.

The pivotal moment captured in the studio comes as Tucker offhandedly quips out the chorus to “Bring My Flowers Now” and Carlile senses the emotional weight and potential, and helps craft the song from Tucker’s reminisces. Equally important is Carlile’s role in bolstering Tucker’s confidence that she still has something to say, and that the world wants to hear it.

Although the film closes with Tucker finally claiming her long-overdue Grammy, it intentionally sets up as a foundation for what’s next rather than as a capstone. Tucker still isn’t in the Country Music Hall of Fame, yet the documentary leaves no doubt of her enduring influence and talent today. And as Tucker says in assessing the album’s impact for her, it’s about “having a vision that my music could be my future, and not my past.

---

The Return of Tanya Tucker

24 Beats Per Second, World Premiere
Wednesday, March 16, 4pm, Paramount
Online: March 14, 9am-March 16, 9am