Two women who have made their own ways in country music, while following in the footsteps of their country musician fathers, are bringing their “Grits and Glamour” tour to Reynolds Performance Hall at the University of Central Arkansas tonight.
Pam Tillis, daughter of singer Mel Tillis, and Lorrie Morgan, daughter of singer George Morgan, first got together in 2009. This year (July 23) they released their first collaboration: Dos Divas, a 14-song album that features six duets and four solo turns each. The two co-wrote one of the songs, “What Was I Thinkin’.”
While the two women have laughingly acknowledged their diva credentials - at least the positive qualities of that loaded word - they decline to reveal which one of them has the “grits” and which one claims the glamour, preferring to let fans decide.
Tillis, 56, reached the top of the country music charts with “Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life)” in 1995. In 1994, she won the Country Music Association award for Best Female Vocalist, and in 1999, she won a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for a multi-artist recording, “Same Old Train,” from the album,Tribute to Tradition. She has released a dozen albums, the most recent of which, Recollection, came out in 2012.
She has had acting roles in the TV shows L.A. Law, Promised Land, Diagnosis: Murder and in the current drama, Nashville, as herself. She played Mary Magdalene in the Tennessee Repertory Theatre’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar and was on Broadway in Smokey Joe’s Cafe.
Morgan, 54, is known for her No. 1 hits “Five Minutes,” “What Part of No” and “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength,” as well as her personal life. She has been married six times.
She has released nine albums, the most recent of which, All American Country, came out in 2003.
Tillis made her debut on the Grand Ole Opry stage at age 8, singing “Tom Dooley.” Morgan, in 1984, became the youngest singer to ever join the Opry, at age 25.
Pam Tillis and Lorrie Morgan: Grits and Glamour
7:30 p.m. today, Reynolds Performance Hall, University of Central Arkansas, 201 Donaghey Ave., Conway
Admission: $40, $35, $30
(501) 450-3265
uca.edu/publicappearances/tickets/
Weekend, Pages 36 on 10/24/2013