https://www.kellywillis.com/
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Kelly Willis
On some other plane out there in the great big multiverse, Kelly Willis could well be the biggest
Nashville country music star of the last 35 years. But things panned out rather differently for her
here on
this
Earth. The Oklahoma-born Army brat was barely into her early 20s and still cutting
her teeth fronting a spunky rockabilly band in Austin when a “check-this-kid-out” tip from Texas
songwriter Nanci Griffith landed her on the radar of producer Tony Brown, who promptly signed
her to MCA Records. How exactly her auspicious fireball of a debut, 1990’s
Well Travelled Love,
and even a plumb spot on the soundtrack to the following year’s
Thelma & Louise,
somehow
failed to burn Willis’ name and voice into the mainstream consciousness remains a bone of
bumfuzzlement for many a fan and critic to this day, but suffice it to say — Willis was
still
in her
early 20s when MCA dropped her just two albums later.
And
that
, perhaps goes the Kelly Willis story in yet another alternate universe, was that. But
lucky again for all of us here in this reality, “our” Kelly Willis was just getting started. Liberated
from the Nashville playbook and emboldened by a jolting shot of nothing-left-to-lose, she set
about making her next record in Austin
her
way. The end result, 1999’s aptly-titled
What I
Deserve
, changed everything. “A big part of making that record was me thinking, ‘I’ll probably
never get to make another one after this, so if this has to be my swan song, I’m not going to
compromise,’” she says today. “That was a really big sea change for me to take the reins like
that, and it was incredibly satisfying and gratifying that it then found a home with [independent
label] Ryko and did so well. It was a pivotal moment that fueled the rest of my career.”
A bracingly assertive showcase not just for Willis’ masterful control of her “enormous voice”
(per noted “Consumer’s Guide” critic Robert Christgau) but also for her burgeoning songwriting
chops (be it solo or collaborating with the likes of John Leventhal and the Jayhawks’ Gary
Louris),
What I Deserve
may not have made Kelly a household name on the order of Shania,
Faith, or Reba, but it clinched her standing as a bona fide darling of the national (and
international) alt-country scene. Writers from
No Depression
to
Rolling Stone
cheered her
“comeback,” and fans in her adopted hometown voted it
“Album of the Year” in the Austin
Music Awards. A decade later would find her inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame.
The six albums Willis has made since
What I Deserve
have only burnished her reputation as
Austin’s reigning queen of Americana. Three of those albums, including 2019’s
Beautiful Lie
,
were duo records made with her now ex-husband, fellow singer-songwriter Bruce Robison —
who also produced Willis’ last solo album, 2018’s “richly satisfying” (NPR)
Back Being Blue.
The couple (who in addition to recording and touring together for years also raised four children
together) announced their separation in early 2022, marking both the end of an era and the
beginning of yet another “big sea change” for Willis. Looking ahead to the next stage of her life
and career, she admits that the whole business of “starting over” — especially musically — can
be scary, but she’s starting to get the hang of it
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