Tami Neilson’s “Neon Cowgirl” is a true roots celebration. Her own roots, that is, which she has continued to care for, nurture, and give water. Neilson jumped into the music business more than 35 years ago as a member of the family band. The Neilsons mostly toured in a motorhome, and recently Tami and her husband and two children took their own RV trip, zigzagging the coasts and innards of North America, lasting five months. The excursion contributed to the birth of “Neon Cowgirl.”
The family stopped at Graceland mansion and toured other landmarks in the Memphis area, including the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, and also spent an afternoon at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. Dollywood in eastern Tennessee was at the top of the list of destinations that Neilson wanted to see. Some locations, such as Roy Orbison’s former home in Hendersonville, weren’t open to the public, but that didn’t dampen any of the enjoyment.
“It was a precious trip for a touring musician who has to spend so much time away from their family,” said Neilson. “The album documents that time and all of the emotions that came to the surface, and captures the resilience of realizing all of the things that are blossoming right now. It (my career) is attached to roots digging deep in the dark and the dirt for 30 years. It’s the tree my parents planted. And the trip was my way of planting the seeds for my kids.”
Her youngest was nine-years-old at the time and obsessed with Elvis Presley, one of their mother’s most endearing influences.
“If I’ve done anything right in parenting, I have done that,” said Neilson.
Salvation Mountain, a folk art site in the southern California wasteland, comprised of adobe clay, straw bundles, and thousands of layers of paint, as well as other less traditional materials, such as fragments of old cars, was also on Neilson’s to-be-done list. Drawing from memories of the visit, she wrote and recorded ‘Salvation Mountain,’ an ode to its creator Leonard Knight (1931-2014) and a nod to the eternal impetus of creativity, one of the sparkling trinkets on “Neon Cowgirl.”
“Salvation Mountain was such a transformative place for me,” said Neilson. “I sing about him in the last verse about Lenny painting his mountain for the lord. I went into this album with that Leonard Knight mentality. He created in that desert for four decades of his life. After he started and he worked on it for seven years, a storm came and took it out, and the next day he started again. There was no audience. No one cared. But he was compelled to create even without an audience to watch. Create even if no one’s watching or caring, that’s the perspective I had when creating this album.”
Following the release of “Neon Cowgirl,” more and more people, however, are indeed watching. Girded with joy and stacked with willful, commanding vocals, it’s the recording of an artist achieving the end for which she was sent. Originally from Ontario, Canada, starting at age 11, Tami joined the family band, touring incessantly across the United States and Canada for nearly a decade. As a teenager, she performed with her family months in a row on the General Jackson showboat, part of Opryland. The family band even spent a year in Branson, Missouri, performing two shows a day aboard the Showboat Branson Belle, a floating dinner theatre, regularly closing with a gospel melody, ‘I’ll Fly Away,’ her and her siblings sharing three-part harmony.
“Music has always been a part of my life,” said Neilson, who now calls Auckland, New Zealand home. “It’s like asking me when I first met my parents.”
One of Neilson’s fondest memories of her days in the family band was the night that the group opened a dinner show for Kitty Wells (1919-2012). After the Neilsons completed their set, her father took her around the corner and down the hallway and there was Kitty Wells, purse on her lap, head-to-toe in thousands of sequins, preparing to walk out on the stage.
“My dad said, see that lady? She is the queen of country music. They all want to be her!”
The opening and closing songs on “Neon Cowgirl,” – ‘Foolish Heart’ and ‘One Less Heart’ – respectively, serve as complementary bookends, inspired by the music and memory of the other illustrious man in black, Roy Orbison (1936-1988).
“My dad was playing at the same venue as Roy Orbison and I was just a babe in arms,” said Neilson. “My dad asked to have a photo of him holding me backstage. That was my true christening!”
Indeed, “Neon Cowgirl” is blessed with growth, the rich expression of the multitudinous changes that have shaped and defined her from birth to middle age. She is shifting and maturing as an artist and songwriter and the record reveals all of these epic conversions.
“Becoming a mother and a parent has a massive influence on how to navigate a career,” said Neilson. “You are time poor. But that’s made me a stronger musician and songwriter. I don’t have time to waste. Songwriting needs to be done with intent, and you need to be as productive as you can in a shorter amount of time.”
Buoyed by a fresh wave of interest in her music, Neilson is content to keep sailing the jerky tides.
“Music is the last bastion for that untouched, irreplaceable thing,” said Neilson. “There is nothing like that human connection expressed through music. It’s healing in troubled times. It’s being seen and seeing others. It is the language that connects.”
‘Keep On’ was inspired by a letter that her father once wrote to her around the time that she moved from Canada to New Zealand. The two-page letter started with him persuading her to “keep on” in her pursuits, and he closed the message with those two very same words. Neilson reads the note prior to each big milestone – a performance at the Opry, another at the Ryman Auditorium, a duet sung on tour with Willie Nelson – events that she knows that her father would have loved to have been a part of.
“‘Keep On’ was him encouraging me and reminding me who I am,” said Neilson. “He was making sure that I kept working on my music, and that I didn’t give up.”
The song ‘Neon Cowgirl’ is about the burning nature of self-resilience and self-demands. A lifelong ambition brought Neilson back to Nashville time and time again; in an industry that esteems youth over maturity, the song illustrates how a mother of two from another side of the world has proven that aspirations don’t have an expiration date. As a kid, she walked exhilaratingly on Broadway, dreaming of playing country music. In her 20s, she would hustle and perform all around the city, and whenever possible, commit herself to writing songs in utmost silence. She and her husband even honeymooned there.
“There is a literal neon sign on Broadway,” said Neilson. “But the song configuratively represents Nashville for me in my life. Nashville is another home for me. It feels like community and family. A place where there is the potential every single day to wake up and for there to be some magic to happen.”
Indeed, in addition to all of the zest and shine consuming the bounty of “Neon Cowgirl,” there have been other magical moments in her life these past few months.
Recently, Neilson stood on the stage at the Grand Ole Opry and performed ‘3 Cigarettes in the Ashtray,’ with Patsy Cline’s daughter, Julie, sitting in the audience. Before the show, Julie allowed Tami to wear the very ring that Patsy wore on the cover of “The Patsy Cline Story” (1963).
“There she once was on the cover,” said Neilson, “leaning her face on her hand, gold background, and you could see that ring! It was like being embraced by a family. The feeling was overwhelming. That was making it!”
For story ideas and suggestions, Brian D’Ambrosio may be reached at dambrosiobrian@hotmail.com
