Being Mel Tillis's daughter opened every door in Nashville for Pam Tillis—and made sure nobody took her seriously once she walked through them. For years, she was treated as a novelty act, the famous man's kid who could carry a tune but surely had nothing original to say. Tillis spent a decade proving that assumption wrong, cycling through pop, rock, and jazz before finding her voice in the very genre she'd been trying to escape. When she finally broke through with country hits in the early 1990s, it was with a sophistication and edge that no one had expected from Nashville royalty. • The burden of being Mel Tillis's daughter in an industry obsessed with pedigree • Why Tillis deliberately avoided country music for years before embracing it • The genre-hopping detour through pop and jazz that sharpened her artistry • How she ultimately proved that  ...