Tanya Tucker’s first album of original music in nearly two decades, “While I’m Livin,’ ” is a rallying cry to honor veteran artists before they drop dead.
On the haunting title track, Tucker, 61, sings, “Bring my flowers now while I’m living, I won’t need your love while I’m gone.”
Tucker’s fans — and critics — listened.
The singing storyteller is in the throes of a comeback in a recording career that started when she was 12, belting out “Delta Dawn” with a growling ferocity that belied her tender age.
After 14 nominations spanning nearly 50 years, the former “wild child” of country music is finally a first-time Grammy winner twice over for her acclaimed album and single, “Bring My Flowers Now (While I’m Livin,’ ” produced by four-time Grammy winner Brandi Carlile.
Although Tucker is humbled by being included with all genres in the Grammys’ Song of the Year nominees, she admits to being “ticked” about country categories being relegated to the pre-broadcast ceremony.
“We deserve to be on national television just like everybody else,” she tells The Post, sounding fired up. “Not because of me — it’s just not right, and we need to change that. I love to sing all kinds of music but country music will always be my first love. That will always be my real bitch with the Grammys.”
But there’s no time to dwell on that. Instead, the Texas-born road warrior is doing what she knows best — hitting the tour trail again, with dates booked through Sept. 11.
“I got so accustomed to losing that I got very comfortable with it, you know? I love what I do so it was low pressure,” she says at half-past-midnight from her tour bus en route to Virginia for the first of four back-to-back gigs spanning as many states. “But this winning stuff is a lot of pressure — it’s just compounded by 100,000. Man, this winning is a lot of work. We ain’t gonna sit around and rest. That’s when the s–t will really hit the fan!”
Tucker, who headlines at Town Hall in Midtown Friday night, is just getting back in the swing after a mini-vacay in “sunny California” to “recuperate” from winning Best Country Song and Best Country Album.
“I would have liked to have had a few more days to walk on the beach, but it’s back to the bus, back to the road, which is really what starts all that Grammy stuff off, you know,” she says, in her unmistakable raspy voice. “It’s where the nucleus of it really is. I’m going back to the one that brung me! (Laughs.)”
She recently bought a house in Brentwood, right outside of Nashville, “but I haven’t hardly seen it, so it’s not a home yet — it’s just a house. My home is on the road.”
After a few years of living a low-key life, she’s back in a spotlight that rivals the days when she racked up 40 Top 10 singles.
“I slowed down a little bit but I never really stopped; we were always doing something,” she says. “I had a few years where I didn’t really tour — but it went from a standstill to going 100 miles per hour again. It’s good for me because you get out of touch with people when you don’t do shows. You wonder, ‘do they really still like me?’ I found out they wanted to see me even if I didn’t have a record out.”
Still, she says she’s shocked at how much her new music resonates with listeners, including veteran newsman Bob Schieffer, who choked up recently while interviewing her on “CBS Sunday Morning.”
“Everyone is crying around me and I’m trying to be happy,” she says with a hearty laugh. “But I thought about it, and this is really the first record I’ve had with all this social media stuff.” The digital age is introducing her entire body of work to “people who would not normally be buying records.”
Speaking of viral moments, Tucker, who headlined the Super Bowl halftime show 26 years ago, has a pitch for that mega-musical showcase in a post-Shakira-J.Lo world.
“What I’d like to see for next year’s Super Bowl is four different artists on there, from four different genres — so you get a little bit of everything,” she says. “I think that would be a really cool way of handling that. I also want to congratulate Kansas City, too, after 50 years of trying. I can relate — because it’s almost 50 years I’ve been doing this.”
When asked if she had any survival tips for Bieber, as one of the few troubled teen idols to successfully navigate the transition into adult star, Tucker gave a firm, “No.”
“If i did it would be for my own kids [Presley, 30; Beau, 28; and Layla, 20], because they are all very talented,” she says. “I hear my dad talk to me every time I say something to them. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry, Dad. Now I know what you went through. Forgive me!’ But I gotta let them live and make their own mistakes. Being on the road is one thing — being a parent is harder.”
As for her hell-raising party girl image, fueled by tabloid coverage of her heated ‘80s love affair with the late singer Glen Campbell, Tucker says she’s outgrown it.
Her idea of getting “wild” these days involves a “little tequila” — and a whole lot of family and animals.
“You know, I’m not a teenager, [so partying now] means hanging out with my family. The other night my ex — the father of my two older children — was over, and so was the guy I’m seeing [she started dating singer Craig Dillingham, 61, about six months ago],” she says. “Everybody was getting along, we were drinking my tequila [yes, she has her own limited-edition brand] with fresh grapefruit juice. Someone was playing the piano, he was singing, I was singing. My godson’s girlfriend is a gymnast and she put on a show. It was so much fun.”
The first lady of “outlaw” country, who once kept up with Waylon and Willie, has a different concept of adventure in 2020.
“I still love my cutting horses and I do that as much as I can when I’m in Texas, but wild for me is going on a safari, and seeing part of this world,” she says. “I wanna see different countries and learn about different cultures. I’ve been everywhere and ain’t seen a damn thing because we come in, wake up, do a sound check and then you’re leaving. I got a bucket list: Africa and Thailand to hang out with the elephants.”
The recent death of a beloved dog (“he died in my arms”) also spurred a new mission of sorts: “The old man upstairs is giving me a lot of resources, and I want to use them to help people and animals. “It may sound like a cliché — but that’s the goal now,” says Tucker, whose platinum blonde hair is tipped hot pink in solidarity with a friend who’s battling cancer.
“Music is a healer,” she says, and her career revival feels like it’s “just a start.”
“I feel like music has been my world my — my Mount Everest. I’m sitting there looking at it and I haven’t even put my hiking boots on yet. I feel like I’m just getting started. I’ve still got a lot of music left to do. I’ve seen people, how they’ve been really affected by this record. I’m still trying to figure out what it is — and try to make more of it.”
