We can thank Nanci Griffith for Kelly Willis.
Courtesy of Tony Brown.
Story goes that Griffith heard Willis sing while performing in Austin as part of band named Radio Ranch.
Brown, who produced Griffith’s 1987 album Lonestar State of Mind, her first foray into mainstream country music, and 1988’s live album One Fair Summer Evening, signed Kelly Willis to MCA in 1989.
The debut album was titled Well Travelled Love.
Willis was only 20 years-old at the time.
Her Radio Ranch band-mates backed her on the album with Mas Palermo on drums, W. Brad Fordham on bass, David Murray on guitars, and Michael Hardwick on steel guitar.
MCA fully leaned into promoting their young new talent. Willis was featured in both Vogue and Mademoiselle magazine. She was cast in the Tim Robbins film Bob Roberts. She sang on the Thelma and Louise soundtrack.
Despite this exposure, promotion, and push, radio didn’t get behind her. None of the three singles charted. “I Don’t Want to Love you,” “River of Love,” and “Looking for Someone Like You” all deserved at least a chip and chair at the new traditionalist country music table.
The album was chock full of excellent songwriting from the likes of Monte Warden, Kevin Welch, Paul Kennerley, Emory Gordy Jr., Mas Palermo, and Steve Earle.
And her voice. It is big and playful and friendly. She apparently didn’t begin singing until she was a senior in high school, but her short performing history is hugely present in her teasing energy and sound. The entire album is an invitation to look beyond the album even as your are overwhelmed by its own commanding charms and pure presence and immediacy.
Her cover of John Hiatt’s “Drive South” was the standout track for me; I wore out my cassette copy of the album rewinding that one song over and over gain. Her performance is pleading, urgent, and just insanely fun to listen to. Suzy Bogguss would run her version of the song to number two on the Billboard charts in 1992.
The entire Well Travelled Love album is a little miracle. It attitudinally and sonically predicts the burgeoning alt-country scene right from within the heart of Nashville, the belly-of-the beast, as Tony Brown was clearly courting country-radio hits while Willis had something else in mind.
The radio hits never came.
Not unlike Marty Brown, Kelly Willis was a critic’s darling whose credibility had to have scared the tar out of the industry. Nashville wanted all her youthful sex appeal with none of her confidence or artistic depth, all the hotness with none of the heat.
Willis said, “I had spent years in Nashville at MCA Records not quite knowing what I wanted. I was young and unformed, trying to please too many others, being the girl with potential.”
After one more album working with Tony Brown, MCA turned her over to Don Was but that was it. Her mainstream career had run its course. Her highest charting single “Baby Take a Piece of My Heart” came off her sophomore album Bang Bang, topping out at 51 on Billboard.
Spin magazine described her as, “Nashville’s most brilliant mistake.”
American writer Silas House said, “The rest of the story has been well-documented and is now the stuff- of how-Nashville-can do-it wrong legend.”
Thankfully, despite her own fears, Willis was far from washed up at 24. The world had more goodwill to offer her than she could imagine.
She had her own what-would-Willie-do moment, and followed her heart from Nashville back to Austin’s music scene where it all had begun for her when she was enrolled at Austin Community College.
Jonathan highlights her career in Country Universe’s 100 Greatest Women feature and tracks how Willis would go on to fulfill her destiny as The Queen of Alternative Country.
But before exploring her stunning second-act renaissance, stay here a little longer with her debut album Well Travelled Love and test the water.
As Willis sings in “River of Love,” “Sometimes it’s better just to dive right in.”
Kelly Willis is one of my favorites of the last 40 years – I have seven of her albums, including the two with ex-husband Bruce Robison, and there is not a dud in the bunch. I hate to think of her as Alt-Country but I guess that is true.
I discovered her with that third, self-titled effort and then went back and got her two prior records. Definitely one of the great label failures of the nineties; she should’ve been huge, but it seemed like diminishing returns with each MCA release (I guess there’s only so much label push to go around when you have Reba, Wynnona and Trisha Yearwood on your label, something Patty Loveless quickly learned and rectified).
And it must he said ’93 was an amazing year for the female side–Kelly’s album, Patty’s Only What I Feel, Carlene Carter’s Little Love Letters, Suzy Bogguss’ Something Up My Sleeve, Lari White’s Lead Me Not, Deborah Allen’s Delta Dreamland (though the less said about her these days probably the better), Trisha’s The Song Remembers When, Faith Hill’s Take Me As I Am. Talk about a quality lineup.
I swear there was another great album from a female country artist every 3-4 weeks from 1990-1994ish. Felt like the album cycles slowed down after that.
Yep! And I forgot to mention my favorite Wynonna album, Tell Me Why. Early to mid-nineties was amazing for the women of country.
Besides the ones you listed, three more of my favorite 1993 albums by a female artist are Tanya Tucker’s Soon and the self-titled debut albums from Bobbie Cryner and Lisa Stewart.
Sorry for the formatting errors – didn’t catch before I headed out for the day! Post is fixed now.
Appreciate the shout-out in this one, Peter! I’ve been a Willis fan from the jump, and her brand of country really was formative to a how my tastes developed. I think all three of her MCA albums hold up, though I’m most partial to her self-titled record by a hair over this one. And she’s never released a bad album at any point in her career.
I also had the good fortune to interview her for Slant back in the day: https://www.slantmagazine.com/music/interview-kelly-willis/
I love Kelly Willis. I agree that she should’ve been a big success! Her voice is so warm and engaging and her song choices are impecable. I also agree that she hasn’t made a bad album.
I love Jonathan’ Slant Magazine interview with her! Her anecdote that she wasn’t allowed to include a Bruce Robison song that she wanted on the Translated from Love album, because the album was supposed to be fun and upbeat, so a thoughtful slow song wouldn’t fit the vibe of the album, is endlessly amusing to me.
She has my favorite version of “Wrapped.” I think “Sweet Sundown” is one of my favorite songs of hers. I also love her duet with Robbie Fulks, “Parallel Bars, which shows that she knows how to have some good fun.”
I have had Kelly’s first two albums, Well Traveled Love (1990) and Bang Bang (1991), for a while now and really enjoy them both! I’m still on the hunt for her third self-titled one in CD form, but I’ve been enjoying it on Spotify in the meantime. I have several cuts from each of those albums on my favorite 80s and early 90s country playlists, and my Spring/Summer playlists for that period are especially loaded with a lot of her songs. I just really love her style of country that features a nice mix of honky tonk, rockabilly, country rock, and boogie, along with her unique playful, charming vocals. It’s such a shame she couldn’t catch on while on MCA in the early 90s, since I think her music was absolutely perfect for that period of new traditionalism with slight rock influences. I really glad she was able to continue having a successful career outside the mainstream, though.
The Well Traveled Love album is especially full of what I consider perfect music to be road tripping around the beautiful Southwestern deserts or just cruisin’ around, in general. Breezy, feel good cuts with catchy Tex-Mex guitar riffs like “Looking For Someone Like You” and “Hole In My Heart” come to mind, especially, along with faster fun tunes like “River Of Love,” “My Heart’s In Trouble Tonight,” “Red Sunset,” and the title cut. And yes, her fun, lively version of “Drive South” fits in that category, as well. This is definitely MY kind of fun country, and it always puts me in a great mood! As much as I love those fun rockin’ tunes, though, the honky tonkers such as “I Don’t Want To Love You (But I Do)” and “One More Time” are two of my most favorites along with the twangy barn burner, “I’m Just Lonely.” I’ll especially always have a soft spot for “I Don’t Want To Love You (But I Do)” because it’s the first time I ever heard Kelly Willis when I first caught Thelma & Louise on TV around 2003-2004ish. I liked the song enough to check out who sang it, and that’s when I learned about her stint on MCA records in the early 90s. Up until then, I had only heard of her as an alt-country artist who was married to Texas Country artist Bruce Robison, and I had seen them together in the video for their original version of “Angry All The Time.” To this day, it still baffles me why “I Don’t Want To Love You..” was not a hit when it came out. It’s such a perfectly sung and perfectly played honky tonk song that should’ve been right at home on the radio during the early 90s, imho. Oh well, it’s certainly a hit with me!
I also love 1991’s Bang Bang, which was actually the first album of hers I ended up finding. I especially love the catchy, breezy rocking “Baby Take A Piece Of My Heart,” which again, should’ve done so much better on the radio. Other great cruisin’ cuts I enjoy are the super fun title cut, the swinging “Standing By The River,” and her rockin’ version of Joe Ely’s “Settle For Love.” I also love the honky tonk of “I’ll Try Again” along with one of the more gentle, quieter moments on the album, “Sincerely (Too Late To Turn Back Now),” which is simply gorgeous. Just more great stuff all around.
From her third self-titled MCA album, three cuts I really enjoyed hearing on my 80s/early 90s Fall/Winter Spotify playlist earlier this year are the gorgeous Jim Lauderdale penned “I Know Better Now,” “That’ll Be Me” (w/ Kevin Welch), and her cover of “Heaven’s Just A Sin Away.” I also love the fun rockabilly of “One More Night” (LOVE the guitar work on this cut), “Take It All Out On You,” and “Shadows Of Love” along with the more serious mid tempo cuts like “Get Real” and “Up All Night.” Gosh, I really need to find it on CD!
As a bonus, I thought it was cool to learn that she lived in Fairfax County in Virginia as a high schooler, which is pretty close to home for us in Northern Virginia.
Thanks again, Peter, for another great article and for featuring another great, underrated artist. I sincerely appreciate these. It’s nice for me to take a break once in a while from my nostalgia and fangirling over early 2000s country due to the 2000s number ones feature and go back to revisiting these underrated talents from another one of my favorite periods in country.
This is a fantastic record. Relistening to it today reminded me that I sort of took it for grant it. While Kelly did say she wasn’t keen to her MCA years with her being shy and not wanting the sex symbol image , I always thought all 3 records were really good. I tend to think her 3rd record as a step down from this record and “Bang, Bang” but still had some excellent choices.
I love “I’m Just Lonely”, “Red Sunset”, “My Heart’s In Trouble Tonight”, “River of Love”, “Drive South” and “I Don’t Want to Love You”.
Forgotten classic.