Trio of female country singers stroll down memory lane in "Chicks With Hits" show

It was Terri Clark’s idea, and although Clark hardly knew Pam Tillis and Suzy Bogguss, her proposal was pretty hard to resist.

The three women, each with some pretty iconic hits to their credit, would share the marquee for “Chicks With Hits,” a concert focused solely on the women’s country hits.

So after the initial phone calls, they all got together at Bogguss’ house for dinner in 2017. And after dinner, they pulled out their guitars and sat down in the living room.

“I said, ‘OK, throw something out,’” Tillis recalled. “We launched into a song and then everybody just kind of magically found their parts. And lo and behold, it sounded good and it sounded right.”

Eighteen months and dozens of concerts later, “Chicks With Hits” is hitting the Fox Tucson Theatre stage on Monday, April 29.

“It’s a blast. I like to think of us as the country western Bangles” after the 1980s all-female pop band, Tillis said.

“Chicks With Hits” is the latest of the so-called legacy package tours — think Roots & Boots with Sammy Kershaw, Joe Diffie and Aaron Tippin for example — and the only one with an all-female lineup. Many of those shows feature the artists doing their own thing for 30 minutes then joining together at the end.

The “Chicks With Hits” trio share the stage for the full show, backing each other up with vocal harmonies or guitar on their hit songs.

Tillis said it’s modeled after the famous Nashville Bluebird Cafe In the Round series where songwriters swap songs, play guitars and sing before intimate audiences. Clark’s idea builds on that; the women back one another up with vocal harmonies and guitar or percussion. Tillis occasionally adds bass to the mix, which also includes cowbell, she said with a laugh during a phone call from Nashville on Monday.

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They also share stories of their decadeslong careers and give audiences insight into their songs — 36 top 10 singles between them. The three were among the dominant female country voices of the 1990s, when women started making inroads in the genre that was largely dominated by male artists.

At a recent concert, the Canadian Clark, who at 50 is the baby of the group, almost made the other two cry when she said they were her role models.

“’You were the voices that made me do what I’m doing in my life,’” Clark told them and the audience, Tillis recalled.

“That meant the world to me. We are really sisters in song,” said Tillis, 61.

Tillis said the trio focuses solely on their hits, even though they all have new records. They reserve the new stuff for their solo tours.

“This show is all hits that the audience knows and can sing along to,” she explained. “We really want to hit the highlights of our multiple decade careers.”

Hits we might hear include Tillis’ “Shake the Sugar Tree,” “Spilled Perfume,” “Land of the Living” and “Maybe It Was Memphis;” the 62-year-old Bogguss’ “Someday Soon,” “Outbound Plane,” “Aces” and “Letting Go;” and Clark’s “Girls Lie Too,” “You’re Easy on the Eyes,” “When Boy Meets Girl” and “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me.”

“By the time we get to the end and do ‘Poor, Poor Pitiful Me’ with Terri, all of a sudden it feels like rock and roll with three chicks and acoustic guitars and a cowbell,” Tillis said. “We get them up on their feet and it’s like wow, we can do this.”