Tanya Tucker Performs ‘While I’m Living’ Title Track at Loretta Lynn’s Birthday Bash [WATCH]
Along with an assortment of some of country music's biggest stars, Tanya Tucker paid tribute to Loretta Lynn at the country legend's birthday celebration show on Monday night (April 1). Tucker had a special song to share: She performed "While I'm Living," the brand-new title track of a forthcoming album.
While I'm Living, which is co-produced by Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings, will be the singer's first new music since 2002's Tanya. Following her own tribute performance, Carlile addressed Lynn and the crowd to introduce Tucker to the stage.
"I also get to introduce another legend that would like to sing a special song for Loretta, somebody that you might love very much and find familiar: the great Tanya Tucker," Carlile said.
"Happy birthday, my girlfriend, my hero. I love you," Tucker told Lynn before launching into her performance of the new ballad, accompanied solely by Carlile on piano.
A tender meditation on death and the importance of appreciating the ones you love while they're still here, "While I'm Living" was a quiet moment in the evening's festivities. During the last chorus of the song, Tucker took a seat on the piano bench, leaning against Carlile as she played.
"Don't spend time, tears or money / On my old breathless body / If your heart is in them flowers / Bring 'em on," she sang. After the song ended, Carlile reciprocated Tucker's embrace as the pair sat on the piano bench, smiling.
Carlile, a longtime die-hard fan of Tucker, jumped at the chance to co-produce a project for the iconic singer. She is simultaneously executive producing a documentary, also about Tucker, called Delta Dawn Then and Now: The Return of Tanya Tucker.
See More From Loretta Lynn's Birthday Celebration
Lynn's Bridgestone Arena birthday concert was in celebration of her 87th birthday, which is coming up on April 14. The show also featured performances from Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Miranda Lambert, Martina McBride, Kacey Musgraves, Darius Rucker, George Strait, Jack White, Trisha Yearwood and many, many more.
Lynn has appeared in public sparingly since suffering a stroke in May of 2017, followed by a broken hip due to a fall in January of 2018. “I think people thought I wouldn’t come back from that,” Lynn admitted in October. “And they’re really shocked when I tell them, ‘Well, I’m doing good, I’m moving my arms, I’m moving all my parts, and I can still sing.’”
Lynn's newest album, Wouldn't It Be Great, dropped on Sept. 28. She'd postponed the project's release following her stroke, so that she could recover well enough to support the album.
“I don’t have nothing to prove, but I have stuff I want to do," she added back in the fall, "and my fans want me to do it too."
Loretta Lynn Through the Years