'The Return of Tanya Tucker' shows how the country-music star got her start in Arizona

Don’t call it a comeback.

Tanya Tucker has tried too many of them, she warns — no one will believe it’s true. She prefers relaunch.

But the title of “The Return of Tanya Tucker - Featuring Brandi Carlile” gets it right all the way around. Director Kathlyn Horan’s documentary charts the course of Tucker’s Grammy-winning … um, return, after nearly 20 years of not making music, and Carlile is the impetus behind it. It’s as much about Carlile as it is Tucker, and that’s not a bad thing.

But mostly it’s the story of how Carlile and her co-producer, Shooter Jennings, got Tucker to make the album “While I’m Livin’” in 2019.

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Tucker was only 13 when she had a hit with 'Delta Dawn'

On that front it is a fascinating document of making a comeback record — sorry, Tanya — while balancing the hard work and the gentle coaxing and cheerleading required when working with a complex talent like Tucker.

And she is exceptionally complex; you get the idea that the film, for all it includes, tells only part of the story.

But it’s also a triumph, because she’s exceptionally talented, something Carlile is determined to make a larger audience recognize.

Tucker was 13 when she scored a huge hit with “Delta Dawn.” (Even at that age, with precocious instincts she turned down the more upbeat “The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.” that others wanted her to record.)

She became a country-music superstar with a tumultuous personal life that included substance abuse and a tabloid relationship with the much older Glen Campbell, among others.

Horan doesn’t delve deeply into the sordid details, but you certainly get the gist. Why, the film asks, is the same kind of behavior not only accepted in men but seen as a kind of badge of rugged honor?

Tucker grew up in Willcox, Arizona, not poor, she says. Broke. But somehow the family afforded a video camera; there is a wealth of footage of her and her family in their trailer home.

She listened to KHIL, the only radio station in town, and it played country music. What if, she muses in the film, it was a rock station? How would her life have turned out differently?

Tucker and her sister sang and impressed her dad (who would become her manager). One day he asked Tucker if she would like to live out her life in Willcox or become a star.

It wasn’t a hard choice, Tucker says.

Her father packed up the family, went to Las Vegas, she recorded some songs and they moved to Nashville. Interviews from the time — along with those tabloid headlines — chart the evolution of Tucker’s career and reputation.

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The best parts of the film are watching Tucker and Carlile work together

Horan weaves all this in and out of the making-of-the-record story. Some of it is fascinating, some of it painful — an appearance with Tom Snyder on late-night TV is almost like a therapy session, as Tucker works through her shyness and stage fright in front of a national audience.

But the real draw is watching Tucker work with Carlile. Carlile clearly worships her — when they meet (Tucker had no idea who Carlile was before the project began) Tucker belts out a few lyrics in her melodic gravel pit of a voice and Carlile falls to her knees in awe.

It’s pretty great.

But Carlile is also a driven artist herself, and a results-minded producer. With Rick Rubin’s work with late-career Johnny Cash in mind, she brings songs into the studio for Tucker. But Tucker starts singing bits of a song she had sung for her friend Loretta Lynn. Carlile perks up — they are going to finish that song, which turns out to be the Grammy-winning “Bring My Flowers Now,” and put it on this album.

It’s not all easy. Tucker is still nervous about singing (though remarkably adept at picking out the highs and lows of each vocal performance). She smokes and she drinks and she shows up late, including to a rehearsal for a birthday event for Lynn that’s supposed to mark her big return.

Carlile doesn’t suffer in silence — she turns to the camera to lay out her worries about what will happen if things go wrong. It’s a surprisingly tense moment.

But these are two determined women who, each in her own way, will not be denied, and “The Return of Tanya Tucker” is, among other things, a celebration of that, too.

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'The Return of Tanya Tucker' 4 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Director: Kathlyn Horan.

Cast: Tanya Tucker, Brandi Carlile, Shooter Jennings.

Rating: R for language.

Note: In theaters Oct. 28.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'Return of Tanya Tucker' review: Troubled talent perseveres