Miss Tammy Faye Starlite returns to her spiritual hometown of Nashville for a one-night-only special acoustic show at the legendary and notorious 5 Spot on May 12, to promote the Bug Digital release of her entire catalog of salacious and sacrilegious countrified chansons.
Expect to hear such chestnuts as "God Has Lodged a Tenant In My Uterus," "If You're Comin' Down, Sweet Jesus..." and "God's a Hard Habit To Break," plus a few selections from her upcoming CD, "Tammy Does Nashville," in which Tammy covers Brooks and Dunn, Lorrie Morgan, Toby Keith and others with the full-hearted, open-throated lustiness that Tammy fans have come to expect. And of course, she will be singing her signature ballad, the 2001 CMA Record Of the Year, "Did I Shave My Vagina For This?"
A glorious and holy night, indeed. Recently, Miss Tammy Faye Starlite took some time out to speak to O&AN during a phone interview about her upcoming visit to Music City. For more information please visit www.tammyfayestarlite.com. The 5 Spot is located at 1006 Forrest Avenue in East Nashville. There will be a $5 cover charge at the door.
The last time you performed in Nashville it was for your theatrical performance at Play Dance Club of "Born Again, Again." What can we expect to be exposed to at the 5 Spot show?
It’s an acoustic show. It’ll be unplugged but just as filthy as always and maybe even moreso. The show will be a kind of retrospective of my career thus far. All of everyone’s favorite songs about vaginas and uteri, several of the songs about daddy and how close we were and probably a few nasty slurs against Amy Grant or Faith Hill. I’ve been known to call Amy Grant a four letter word or two. It’s all in fun though. I love her to death! I’ve never met her but in my mind we’re really good friends. Her ex-husband Garry Chapman stumbled into one of my shows before they split up but he left about halfway through. I think my song “Ride the Cotton Pony” about menstruating was too much for him. Either that or he might have just been coming down from a coke high and had to go take care of it. I’m a big fan of Amy’s though. I think that it’s admirable that she’s married a eunuch. Have you heard Vince Gill sing? He has to be a eunuch to sing so high. I also pray every day for Faith Hill that the extensions don’t fall out of her hair so that she ends up looking like Brittany Spears. Bless her heart.
Will you be doing Shania Twain?
Not this trip, but I won’t be singing any of her songs either.
You are almost ready to release your new album soon. What can fans expect from it?
It’s called “Tammy Does Nashville” in which I cover modern Nashville songs in a little bit of a more old-timey way with a little bit of rock. So many people disparage modern Nashville but they just don’t see the real beauty of a Brooks & Dunn song that has lines like “When I Say No I Mean Maybe. Maybe I Mean Yes.” Those songs really get overlooked so I want to bring some new attention to them. I just want them to have their due. I do a cover of a Toby Keith song called “If I Was Jesus” and a Lorrie Morgan song called “Bombshell”. I don’t know if it was a hit for her but it should have been. It’s about foxy ladies growing older and that’s a subject that old Lorrie has known about for a long time now. It doesn’t stop her from marrying or getting plastic breasts though.
I understand that you are quite fond of the Judds. What is it that attracts you to them and country music in general?
For some strange reason I feel this weird kinship with country music and I don’t know why because I’m a Jewish girl from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I think it started when I was a kid listening to the Rolling Stones and then from them playing I found Graham Parsons and Emmylou Harris and all of a sudden I discovered the Judds and it was like an epiphany. In Wynonna’s words they are my “Sheroes”. I recently read Naomi’s book about aging gracefully and I recommend it for anyone who wants lessons in duplicity. Naomi is so great in this book because she says that she doesn’t think of herself as a celebrity and then in every chapter it starts out by saying how she gets to do all of these things that normal people don’t ever get to do. It’s pure genius. She mentions her illness pretty much every few sentences. It’s really a classic. I was confused though about how she doesn’t really ever mention how she used to insult Wynonna about her weight or how she didn’t tell Wynonna who her real father was until she was 30 so I guess these things were really not important enough to mention.
