Looking for a Feeling

Album review

Looking for a Feeling is the first solo album of new original material from Pam Tillis in 13 years, but she didn't spend that decade-and-a-half idle. During the 2010s, she revisited her past through re-recording her old hits and by playing a variation of herself on the prime-time soap Nashville. She also kept busy performing and recording with Lorrie Morgan, another Music City vet who shared a similar background. All these journeys through her back pages aren't explicitly referenced on Looking for a Feeling, or even heard, but they are felt. Tillis wears her middle age proudly on Looking for a Feeling, choosing not to chase trends but allowing herself to try things she's never before attempted. The sultry soul rhythm of the opening title track indicates as much, and she cleverly extends that feel to the straighter country of "Demolition Angel," a song co-written by Matraca Berg. Tillis sings the work of a number of other fine songwriters here -- notably, she turns Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings' "Dark Turn of Mind" into the album's purest dose of barroom country -- but she co-writes half the material here, creating a collection of songs that is reflective without being nostalgic. Occasionally, the music recalls a leaner, lighter variation of her prime 1990s work -- given a slicker production and time machine, "Last Summer's Wind" would've been a hit 25 years earlier -- but there's a deepening of Tillis' voice and a casual assurance to her delivery that gives her singing texture and nuance that blends well with both the delicate ballads, R&B, and periodic nods to pop. Much of Looking for a Feeling is too deliberately modest for the album to be interpreted as a statement of purpose, yet with its soulful performances and sturdy songs, it certainly feels like a summation of Pam Tillis' considerable strengths.

© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo