An Evening with Pam Tillis

With 13 top-ten hits, 6 number ones and over 7 million albums sold, Pam Tillis has made her mark in the Music City. She’s the daughter of country music legend Mel Tillis. She is a singer/songwriter whose compositions have been covered in country, R&B, bluegrass and rock. An actor with a long list of film, TV and stage credits, Pam Tillis defied nepotism and other “isms” and carved out her own unique space as an entertainer.

Tillis’ 1991 debut country album, Put Yourself in My Place, went Gold and yielded two number-one and two top-five singles. Her next three albums – Homeward Looking Angel, Sweetheart’s Dance and Greatest Hits- were certified platinum. She achieved six number-one songs during the ‘90s country explosion, including “Shake the Sugar Tree,” “Mi Vida Loca,” “When You Walk in the Room,” “In Between Dances,” “Don’t Tell Me What to Do,” and her signature song, “Maybe it was Memphis.”

Pam Tillis fell in love with music at an early age. Band, chorus, talent shows, church and the creative community of Nashville all helped to shape the young singer. Growing up, Pam was in a variety of bands, spanning from jazz and alternative country to top 40. She sang demos and lent her voice to many national jingles, including Coke, Country Time Lemonade and Coors Silver Bullet with country superstar Alan Jackson. At the same time, Tillis worked as a staff writer for Elektra Asylum Publishing and later took a job writing for Warner Brothers Publishing, which resulted in her songs being recorded by some of the biggest names throughout all genres of music, including artists like Chaka Khan, Juice Newton, Dan Seals, Gloria Gaynor, Conway Twitty and the top ten “Someone Else’s Trouble Now “for Highway 101.

Pam has performed on the stages of Broadway in New York, modeled on the pages of Glamour Magazine and is a proud member of The Grand Ole Opry. Some of Pam’s most memorable award moments are being a 3-time CMA award winner, including the prestigious 1994’s Female Vocalist of The Year Award. Pam is also proud to be a nine-time Academy of Country Music Award nominee, a two-time Grammy award winner and six-time Grammy nominee, and an American Music Award nominee.

Tillis was a 2022 Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame nominee. “It’s a huge honor,” she says. “My Dad is in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He would be so proud.” After more than three decades of doing what she loves, Tills jokes, “I guess I’m safely past the ‘flash-in-the-pan’ stage of my career. What keeps me going is learning new things, wearing new hats and trying to stay relevant. I’m still standing, and I’m still grateful.”