Country music is where Tiffany got her start in music, before becoming a 17-year-old singing sensation. ”I’ve always loved country music,” Tiffany explains to Taste of Country. “At 9-years-old, I did a lot of benefit concerts for my community … school things. Country music, for my age group, was like, ‘What?!’ [laughs]. I probably pushed the issue, as well. I had boots and my costumes … my mom used to make my outfits, and I’d have my big hat on. I think they just thought I was showing off, and also it wasn’t music that was really embraced there. Then I found artists like Lacey Jay Dalton, Rosanne Cash, Stevie Nicks and Emmylou Harris. I loved the stories of their lives. I loved the strong women that they are and continue to become, so that definitely was a big influence on my career. I tried to keep that my foundation, even when I ended up getting signed as a pop artist.”
Along the way in her career, Tiffany always had her eye set on country music, knowing that it was the direction she hoped to go at some point. “I’ve been trying to steer toward it for quite a while,” she says. “This has literally been 10 years in the making. I came to Nashville in the early ’90s, and I thought, ‘OK, enough is enough. I write songs, I just don’t have the backbone to show it to anybody. I want to go to Nashville and learn how to properly write a song.’ I wanted to get out of this ‘I’m too shy’ phase, so I booked writing appointments. It was a struggle sometimes because Nashville is definitely the place for songwriting, and I had to go through all of that awkwardness of not having a certain line or other frustrations. I got a lot of encouragement from people telling me to keep doing it, keep going, keep owning your craft and it will become something someday.”
Tiffany left Music City to head back to California after she went through a painful divorce. “Real life happened,” she says of the bump in the road. “I ended up doing ‘The Color of Silence’ [album], and that was really my therapy, to be honest with you. I had a lot to say about pitfalls in life, plans changing and people letting you down. The writing process really became natural when it was real and from my heart, and I was exposed. That album got a lot of great reviews, which encouraged me. So from that point on I was on a mission to get myself back to Nashville to spawn a writing career separate from my musical career.”
“It was a long process,” Tiffany admits. “Having a child who is starting high school … how do you make that move? Having his friends and family that you don’t want to leave … all your comfort zones. You are starting over and going to another place. That’s always scary. I made a lot of really good friends [in Nashville] in the ’90s, and they have always been like my family. So I was coming home to something, but again, it’s like starting over.”
Happily married once again and plugging away in a new field of music, Tiffany’s journey has come full circle as she released ‘Rose Tattoo’ back in March. The album has been well received by her loyal fans who have enjoyed all the musical paths the singer has gone down throughout her career.
“It’s been exciting,” Tiffany says of her role in country music. “I known there is going to be some challenges, and it will be a long process for me, but I’m not in a hurry. I’m taking the time to talk to my band and say, ‘Look, these are my goals, and this is where I want to be. I really want to be doing country music.’ I love having great people in my life, and I have a lot of inspiration in Nashville. It’s cool having people know me as not only Tiffany the artist, but Tiffany the songwriter. A lot of times now it’s not just, ‘Are you going to sing ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’?’ They’re kind of like, ‘Are you going to sit in on this writers round?’ So it’s been nice to have things change for me and get a little wink or something from somebody in the audience who is thinking, ‘Hey, you’re holding your own! We’re proud of you! You’re coming along.’ Definitely with the writing aspect, I’m just starting my career there and I definitely want to become stronger. My goal is for somebody to cut one of my songs and have them tour the world … to turn on the TV and hear them singing something I wrote would be a great feeling!”
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