Tanya Tucker is recalling one of the more painful - and awkward - moments of her career. While chatting with Clint Black for his Talking in Circles, Tucker recalls when she became pregnant with her daughter. Presley was born in 1989. Unfortunately, Tucker remembers her record label at the time dealing poorly with what should have been an exciting time for Tucker.
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"I wanted the picket fence and all that stuff, but it didn't work out for me. When I got pregnant with Presley, they had a meeting for the record label, my dad and them," Tucker recalls. She adds that the first thing they asked her was who was the father of her unborn child.
"It was a big thing," Tucker remembers. "And this is what I couldn't figure out ... of course, I would've loved to have been married, and then had the baby. But it wasn't working out for me, so it didn't work out with the daddy."
Tucker likens the experience to playing golf or tennis, when the main lesson is to just follow through.
"I just followed through," the "Delta Dawn" singer explains. "And just because I didn't have the ring on my finger, or get married and give half my stuff away, then my child's illegitimate? That shouldn't even be in the dictionary. Nothing is, no baby is illegitimate. My kids are all very legitimate. They're probably the best thing I've ever done in my life, best award of all."
Tanya Tucker In The Country Music Hall of Fame
Tucker is a proud member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Tucker was inducted alongside Patty Loveless and songwriter Bob McDill.
"I've come back so many times, I'm gonna come back again after I'm dead," Tucker joked from stage, also thanking her three children, and others who have been influential in her career.
"I look back on these 52 years, it's hard to make sense of it all," Tucker said at the time (via Taste of Country). "But it doesn't really make sense, because, you know, if we lived in a world that made sense ... it would be a man who rode side-saddle."
In 2023, Tucker released Sweet Western Sound. The record is produced by Shooter Jennings and Brandi Carlile.
