After Tanya Tucker`s vocal disagreement with Vice President Quayle on the subject of single motherhood a few weeks ago, you may be wondering why she agreed to sing the national anthem at the Republican Convention this week as well as do a show for the Republican National Committee.
Did she back down? Don`t even think it.
Tucker says she was asked to make her convention appearances by President Bush, adding that she believes that ”if the truth were known” Bush himself is ”probably a little amazed” at Quayle`s single-mothers salvo in the now-celebrated ”Murphy Brown” remarks.
”Anybody would be amazed,” Tucker explains.
She says that Quayle is ”our vice president” and she plans to stick with him, hoping to get to talk to him and ”show him another view.
”That`s the way to get things across, not through smart-aleck talking,” she says.
She hopes to get an opportunity to let Quayle know ”how tough it really is, being a single mother-and how much easier it is for me than for a lot of the others out there. They have a tough time, and they don`t have any support, so they don`t need anybody else picking on `em.”
Tucker says that her convention appearances shouldn`t necessarily be taken as a sign that she is becoming a Republican activist.
”I`m not very political,” she says. ”I`m not even political in the music business.”
Speaking of which, does the reigning Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year expect to find it easier or harder to win that title again-over fellow nominees Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Wynonna Judd, Reba McEntire and Trisha Yearwood-in the annual CMA ceremonies Sept. 30?
”Harder,” Tucker says. ”If anything, it`s more pressure on me now. When I wasn`t winning, it was great. I lost, but everybody was coming up saying, `You should`ve won, you should`ve won.`
”I`d rather they`d do that than be saying, `Oh, God, not her again this year!` I don`t want that. I`d rather not even show up. I want to be wanted, or I don`t want to be there.”
On the record: McEntire is joining some of country music`s male stars in the multi-platinum category. In 10 months, her current album, ”For My Broken Heart,” has attained double platinum (sales of more than 2 million copies). . . . Newcomer Sammy Kershaw`s debut album, ”Don`t Go Near The Water,” has passed the gold (500,000) mark in less than nine months. . . . Marty Stuart, whose career keeps getting hotter, reportedly has seen his great new album,
”This One`s Gonna Hurt You,” sell more than 300,000 copies in its first four weeks on the market. . . . Song Title of the Week: ”You Go Your Way (And I`ll Go Crazy)” by J. Chambers and B. Jones.
You can now do aerobic exercises with Hank Williams Jr.`s wife, Mary Jane-to the invigorating beat of the music of her husband-on your TV screen.
”Exercising With the Angel,” a 45-minute home video selling for $16.98, is available from Warner Reprise.
Hank Williams Jr. songs on the package include ”If It Will It Will,”
”Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way,” ”If The South Woulda Won,” ”Give A Damn,” ”Finders Are Keepers” and ”Angels Are Hard To Find.”
Get sweaty.
On the road: Country Music Association Male Vocalist of the Year Vince Gill and longtime NASCAR driver Darrell Waltrip will headline a field of 36 celebrities scheduled to play golf in a tournament to benefit the Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation at the Opryland Hotel`s Springhouse Golf Club Sept. 9. Other country music celebrities committed to play include Chet Atkins, Charlie Daniels, Earl Thomas Conley, Jim Ed Brown, George Lindsey and Ralph Emery.
Martina McBride, the rising young RCA star who graduated from selling T-shirts at Garth Brooks` 1991 shows to opening Brooks` shows in 1992, recalls that her first performance on Brooks` stage was in Denver and occurred before a crowd of 18,000-but she adds that that crowd was not the largest she had performed for up to that time. McBride says she played at a riverfest in her native Kansas in front of a crowd of 21,000.
”They didn`t come to see me, though-they were just there for the event,” she says. ”And it was outside. It`s different to go into an arena with 18,000 people.
”The people in Denver were so nice. That`s what you`re scared of: Are they going to like you, when they`ve come to see Garth? But they were very nice to us, and that made it a lot easier.”
Et cetera: Rhino Records has released the third volume of its
”Jubilation” gospel music collection, this one covering ”country gospel.” It features religious songs by such varied and historic country and bluegrass figures as Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Roy Acuff, Patsy Cline, Martha Carson, Johnny Cash and the Carter Family, Ernest Tubb, Merle Haggard, and Ricky Skaggs and Tony Rice. . . . Liberty Records has signed the Cactus Brothers, the rebelliously acoustic aggregation made up of the five members of the Nashville rock band Walk The West plus dulcimer virtuoso David Schnaufer and steel/dobro guitarist Sam Poland. Liberty boss Jimmy Bowen says the Cactus Brothers have ”the potential to break down a great many barriers; they have the roots of country and the edge of rock `n` roll.”
