Country music star Pam Tillis attended UT in 1979. The daughter of country music great Mel Tillis, she began to study music at the age of eight and studied classical piano at Blair Academy. She sang with her father at the Grand Old Opry when she was eight. At age 15, she began singing in clubs, singing first at EXIT/IN. Her first number one hit was Don’t Tell Me What To Do. In 1991 she won the Country Music Association’s Horizon award and followed that with Video of the Year and, in 1994, Female Vocalist of the Year. In 1998 she won a Grammy for Country Collaboration with Vocals.
She was the first female country entertainer to perform on Broadway, when she appeared in Smokey Joe’s Cafe, and she has also appeared on TV shows, including Diagnosis Murder, Touched by an Angel, and Hollywood Squares. She began producing in the 1990s, first producing her own gold album “All of This Love.” She became a Grand Ole Opry member in 2000.