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Bubbatunesday - 11 Days Of Tanya Tucker - bub101 Delta Dawn

It’s been a little over 35 years since Tanya Tucker first hit the airwaves at the ripe old age of 13. Now I have loved this woman for many many years and have everything she’s ever put out but it was always frustrating to know there were so many albums of hers that weren’t on CD. From her debut album Delta Dawn in 1972 through 1986 Tanya released 14 full length albums (I know huh!), one live album and 3 greatest hits compilations. Of those original 14 albums only three are available and easy to track down on CD – 1973’s What’s Your Mama’s Name and 1974’s Would You Lay With Me are available on one CD from Collectibles and 1978’s excellent TNT is on CD while her Live album from 1982 is also on CD as well as her collected Greatest hits which gathered hits in between each compilation – 1974’s Greatest Hits (Columbia/CBS), 1978’s Tanya Tucker’s Greatest Hits (MCA) and 1982’s The Best Of Tanya Tucker (MCA). So what were you supposed to do if you wanted to find those classic little gems hidden away? Well, luckily Bradley got himself a USB Record player, ink and some paper and created for Bubbatunes, The Tanya Reissues – 11 classic Tanya Tucker albums finally on CD with as close to original artwork as we could get, lyrics to all the songs and gasp! In some cases, bonus cuts.

So hold on to your cowboy hats, cause we are headed into 11 Days Of Tanya Tucker!




bub101 Tanya Tucker – Delta Dawn
December 4, 2007
Original Release: October 1972; Columbia/CBS Records #31742

It surprised me when Collectibles Records released Tanya’s What’s Your Mama’s Name and Would You Lay With Me on CD about a year ago as it made me wonder if there had been a release of Delta Dawn that I missed. I searched high, I searched low, I found a new release page on a couple of websites saying the album was actually coming out and I even ordered it, only to find out they were all wrong. The Delta Dawn being advertised is not the debut album but is actually a budget priced live album and it’s not all that exciting, so the actual CD release of Tanya’s debut still eludes collectors – until now that is.

The Bubbatunes version of Delta Dawn may not have the superb sound quality a remastered record company release may warrant but I think we did a damn fine job collecting these songs and making them sound as clear and great as they always were.

By the time of the album’s release, Tanya had already scored big with the title single released earlier in the summer. I’m sure most people are aware of the little ditty that launched a very adult sounding 13 year old girl into the country books – “Delta Dawn” a simple little ditty about a crazy woman carrying around a faded bouquet of flowers waiting for her man to come and marry her. Poor thing – it should be a television movie.

Originally when Tanya was signed to Columbia producer Billy Sherrill wanted her to record Donna Fargo’s “The Happiest Girl In The Whole USA” and release it as her debut but Tanya saw Bette Midler perform “Delta Dawn” on The Tonight Show and wanted to do that song instead. Despite Bette’s awesome version and Helen Reddy taking the song to the top of the pop charts the following year, I really think of the song as Tanya’s and she is the first to actually have a hit with it.

As for the Donna Fargo song – Miss Fargo took it to the top of the charts herself but Tanya still recorded it and it’s on the album in all its crazy glory – “shine on me sunshine/ walk with me world/ it’s a skip a dee doo dah day/ I’m the happiest girl in the whole USA…” it’s interesting to hear Tanya singing about waking up next to her man, getting lunches together and heading off to work when she’s only 13 years old. But if you don’t know the age of the singer, it’s downright amazing how adult she sounds. All those little Lolitas of now have nothing on Tanya’s natural talent and ability.

Delta Dawn launched another couple of singles – well one single actually but both sides of the 7” hit the top ten in country – “The Jamestown Ferry” tells the honky tonk story of Tanya’s man up and leaving her while “Love’s The Answer” is a kind of “Stand By Your Man” rip off but still very good – “be proud of him when you know he’s done his best/ let him know you think he’s better than the rest/ if you wanna hold your man/ this is the way/ love him more today than you did yesterday/ love’s the answer…”

Of course this is 1972 country so you won’t hear any pop elements really as it’s pretty high on the slide guitar and country roots but that doesn’t mean these songs don’t punch some kind of wallop. Of course the lyrics are fairly simplistic in the storylines – lost love, cheating husbands and boyfriends, and all that country fun.

Some of the songs are super cool including one of my all time favorites – “He’s All I Got” – “Well I said friend/ don’t take him he’s all I got…” and “New York City Song” which though it’s not a sentiment I would happen to feel is a cool little song about a woman in New York City and the desire to go back home cuz she don’t know no new york city song. Then there’s the fairly strange “If You Touch Me (You’ve Got To Love Me)” which starts out as a straight up honkey tonk song about a man trying to get out of the city and going back to his small town woman and then the song switches tempo completely and becomes a ballad as Tanya’s character is the woman welcoming him home but only if he loves her. It’s sassy and brassy and like I said, a tad strange.

The album ends with a rendition of Hank Williams’ classic “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” – quite an endeavor for a debut album, not too mention a debut album by a 13 year old girl, but let’s say simply that Tanya, even back then, knocked it out. Her voice and inflections are excellent – it’s interesting to hear her sing these songs knowing she had nil for life experience with the subject matter but you’d never know it by the sound of her voice – it’s like she’s living it all right there in front of you.

For years, I thought the flip side for the first single “Delta Dawn” was “Love’s The Answer” – I found various versions of the 7” for sale everywhere so imagine my surprise when upon a little more research I found out the single actually had a b-side that isn’t on the Delta Dawn album. I had to track it down and track it down I did. Just so I could add it as a bonus track to our Bubbatunes’ version of Delta Dawn.

Very similar to the other songs on the album, “I Love The Way He Loves Me” is a sweeping little ballad about a man who may let our girl down a bit but she just can’t get over him and she will “always be in the palm of his hand.”

Our final bonus track has a bit of back story to explain. As we journey through our Tanya Reissues we have to skip certain albums here and there as they are on official compact disc release. After Delta Dawn came What’s Your Mama’s Name and Would You Lay With Me (followed by her first Greatest Hits compilation at age 15!), which is on CD, so our next release is actually an album from 1975. But before we get to that, there is one rarity that isn’t on CD – that’s our final song here, “Satisfied With Missing You” – a song written by Tanya herself and released as the b-side to the single “The Man That Turned My Mama On” from the album Would You Lay With Me.

Luckily I have the 45 of “The Man...” and was able to rip that elusive b-side and put it on here. It’s a really great song and I was so totally impressed with it… the voice, the attitude and the storyline. Where you think the song is just a sad love song about missing her relationship, it turns into the classic early 70’s Tanya story song where “it’s sad that she won’t see you in her younger years/ she won’t have a daddy to soother her fears..” and there go the water works (okay only if I’ve had too much whiskey but you get it).

Tanya Tucker – Delta Dawn (bubbatunes; bub101)
Track List:
01. Delta Dawn 02. New York City Song 03. Smell The Flowers 04. If You Touch Me 05. He’s All I Got 06. The Jamestown Ferry 07. Loving You Could Never Be Better 08. Soul Song 09. Love’s The Answer 10. The Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A. 11. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
Bonus Tracks:
12. I Love The Way He Loves Me 13. Satisfied With Missing You

And click below for your own taste of the ultimate Tanya debut:
Tanya Tucker – He’s All I Got
Tanya Tucker – I Love The Way He Loves Me
Tanya Tucker – Satisfied With Missing You

OR DOWNLOAD the entire album and artwork:

TANYA TUCKER - DELTA DAWN

Now go buy What's Your Mama Name/Would You Lay With Me and/or Greatest Hits and y'all come back tomorrow when we head ever further into Tanya’s albums as our 11 Days Of Tanya Tucker continues.

Labels: Bonus tracks, bub101, Bubbatunes, Delta Dawn, Tanya Tucker

posted by swivek @ 8:26 AM