Twenty Greatest Albums of the CU Era: Pam Tillis, Rhinestoned

Pam Tillis

Rhinestoned

2007

The nineties brought an embarrassment of riches to the country music landscape, especially from the leading female artists of the day. Like clockwork, we received excellent new albums from acts like Patty Loveless, Trisha Yearwood, and Pam Tillis every eighteen months or so, making it easy to take both the quality and quantity of music for granted.

As the nineties legends slowly exited major label rosters, the gaps between albums grew dramatically. As a general rule of thumb, once more than five years had passed, there was so much riding on the next studio album that even our strongest albums artists struggled to execute at the highest level when they returned. There are two glaring exceptions to this rule, and both of those albums are included on this list.

The first is Rhinestoned by Pam Tillis, her first studio album since 2001’s Thunder and Roses, and her most thematically cohesive studio album to date. Rhinestoned succeeds where other comeback albums fell short because it has a clear sense of purpose. Tillis collected a remarkably strong batch of songs and performed them with traditional country arrangements that recalled the best of post-Nashville Sound seventies country, with tasteful arrangements reminiscent of Emmylou Harris’ Pieces of the Sky and Blue Kentucky Girl.

But what kept it from being a simple genre exercise was Tillis tapping fully into her jazz roots and using her voice as an instrument intertwined with the musicians, a novel approach that showcases her most essential contribution to the genre: fusing traditional country sounds with genre-bending vocal performances of smart and empathetic songs. She culls from the rich catalogs of songwriters like Matraca Berg (“Crazy By Myself,”) Leslie Satcher (“Something Burning Out,”) and Bruce Robison (“Heartache,”) yet the album’s finest moment comes from her own pen.

“The Hard Way” builds on the narrative and legacy of Tillis’ earlier autobiographical recording, “Melancholy Child,” with the added benefit of two more decades of hard-earned wisdom. It’s the album’s emotional release, as Tillis’ empathy for the world is turned inward and she finally shows herself the same grace and understanding that her best songs have shown toward others.

Frustratingly, the album is not available on streaming platforms right now, so you may need to hunt down a compact disc to enjoy this one. It’s worth the extra effort, as this is an album that grows in power upon repeated listening, and like Tillis herself, is long overdue for a warm embrace by modern audiences.

More essential Pam Tillis from the CU era

Looking For a Feeling from 2020 was the other Pam Tillis album to top our year-end list, and was in serious contention for inclusion here; the eclectic album was the finest showcase for her songwriting since Homeward Looking Angel 28 years earlier
Come See Me and Come Lonely, the stronger of her two collaborations with Lorrie Morgan, reshaped the country music canon with bold covers of massive hits by K.T. Oslin, Roy Orbison, and Dwight Yoakam included alongside deep cuts from Sammi Smith and Dottie West

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