Tanya Tucker

Tanya Tucker became a country star at a shockingly young age, but unlike many child stars, she was able to maintain her career into adulthood, evolving as she went along. She was born on October 10, 1958 in the tiny west Texas oil town of Denver City, near the New Mexico border, and spent her early years in nearby Seminole. She developed an early interest in music and was singing professionally by the time she was 11.

After making a demo that found its way to Nashville production heavyweight Billy Sherrill, Tucker got a deal with Columbia Records. She released her first single, "Delta Dawn," in 1972, when she was just 13 years old. Though it would become a pop smash later in the hands of Helen Reddy, the song was a Top 10 country hit for Tucker, earning her stardom straight out of the gate. The big country hits kept on coming for the next several years, but Tucker decided to shake things up when she recorded her 1978 rock album TNT, an unheard-of move for a country star at the time.

Nevertheless, the record went Gold and reached No. 2 on the country charts, though it failed to achieve crossover success. Tucker started out the '80s in a bit of a slump, though her relationship with Glen Campbell made both of them frequent denizens of the sensationalist press. But a 1986 deal with Capitol Records helped put her on the comeback trail, and she soon started a long string of big country hits that continued all the way into the mid '90s.

Tucker had her final Top 10 country single, "Little Things," in 1997, and after that things slowed down for her hitwise, although she remained as active as ever. She published an autobiography, and starred in her own reality show, but she never quit making records. In 2019 she released her first album in a decade, which brought Tucker four Grammy nominations and found her collaborating with renowned Americana singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile.