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The Florence, SC native serves up a brand of country music that is both unsettling in its vulnerability and downright raucous to the core. That duality, the softness in the ballads and the defiance in the up-tempo tunes is just the beginning of the contradictions that define Tatum. She's a beautiful brunette who has modeling gigs to her credit, yet she's also a tough chick who survived a vicious attack. She's polite and soft-spoken with a honey-soaked Southern drawl, yet she's quick to stand up for what she believes and call things just the way she sees them.
Tatum has a lot of living under her belt, and it's those experiences that have shaped her artistry. The product of an abusive childhood, Tatum found refuge in religion. Her mom took her to tent revivals and services swirling with the Holy Spirit, drenched in passion and saturated with soul-shaking gospel songs. It was there she first felt the power of music and its ability to impact lives.
My mom is an avid gospel singer. We would go to those tent revivals and sing for people, she recalls of those early musical experiences. People would come from all over. The tent would just be packed and we'd stay there all night long. It was real music. Those people didn't have to put on any airs or flaunt anything. They just sang music and they sang music with feeling. That shaped everything I've done as an artist because I want it to be real and to make people feel it. If I don't do that, then I'm not doing my job.
Connecting with people and making them feel every nuance of a great lyric is an art, and it's one that Bridgette has perfected. She started writing songs when she was only 13-years-old and she spent a lot of time in her room soaking up music that moved her. She cites a variety of influences including Trisha Yearwood, Wynonna, Buck Owens, Patty Loveless, Elvis Presley and Garth Brooks. I listened as hard as I could to every single break in his voice, hoping to one day be able to put that much into music she says. Garth was a massive influence.
With her powerful, sultry voice, Bridgette could have pursued any genre of music, but country was her true love and in her early years provided a means of escape from her tumultuous life. You can write about real situations and real crap that happens, she says. I unfortunately grew up in an abusive home and that was a big influence. Country music was an escape for me. I could go to my room and be there for five hours at a time and get away. I learned when you write a country song, you can love as much as you want. You can hurt as much as you want. You can be as angry as you want.
Bridgette honed her writing and performing skills and became a hometown favorite. However, a terrible act of violence proved to be the catalyst that made Bridgette leave South Carolina and take her dreams to Nashville. She had been working behind the desk at a local motel in her hometown when a disgruntled customer viciously attacked her and slit her face with a razor blade all because she didn't have change for a $10 dollar bill. She spent six months recuperating on an island and when she returned, she announced to her family she was moving to Nashville.
Once in Music City, she enrolled in the music program at Nashville State Community College, but much of her true education came from playing in local honkytonks. The Wheel was the first place I ever played, she says of the little bar on Nashville's famed Broadway. We got some tips and I thought that was the biggest thing in the world. I still have them tucked in my hat.
Bridgette credits writer/producer Danny Myrick with helping her take the fiery stage performances that had earned her such a reputation and translate that energy to her debut recordings. If it's a ballad, you are going to hurt, she says of her approach to music. If it's a rockin tune, you are going to rock and roll till your pants fall off. My music isn't too much in between. I'm an extremist. I make music that I want to hear. If I don't want to play it in my car, if I don't want to listen, I don't need to be singing it.
Tatum's music runs the gamut from the confessional;The Weakness in Me to the rockin anthem I Like It Loud, in which she proudly proclaims: I aint your mama. I aint the girl next door. Don't say I didn't warn ya. I like it loud. She also unleashes her potent pipes on the sexy romp I Like My Cowboys Dirty. It's a pretty rough-around-the-edges cowboy song, Bridgette says with a laugh. It's got this line that says I see you busting through the door/Next thing you know we're on the kitchen floor doing things I can't tell my mama.
Some newcomers might shy away from such songs, but not Bridgette. People just want to be safe and I'm not interested in being safe, she says. If it's real and you are making it honest, that's what people want to hear. I think we are missing a lot. We've got plenty of reality TV, but we're missing the real.
What you see is what you get with Bridgette Tatum. When asked what word best describes her, her brown eyes focus intently then she softly says:Strong. I've had to be strong my entire life, carry a lot of load. Strong is sometimes taken bad because everybody can think you are a hard-ass or something, but I'm not. I'm probably going to be the first person in the room to cry, the most sensitive person in the room.
She has lived a full and complicated life and like the old adage says ;Art imitates life. So it's no wonder Bridgette Tatum creates music that is both strong and sensitive, wild at heart yet grounded in faith. Right now is a good place to be in, she says of her life today. I know who I am and I know who I'm going to be. I know what my responsibility is in that.
To find out more information, please visit www.bridgettetatum.com
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