With some help from artificial intelligence, country music star Randy Travis, celebrated for his timeless hits like 鈥淔orever and Ever, Amen鈥 and 鈥淚 Told You So," has his voice back.
In July 2013, Travis was hospitalized with viral cardiomyopathy, a virus that attacks the heart, and later suffered a stroke. The Country Music Hall of Famer had to relearn how to walk, spell and read in the years that followed. A condition called aphasia limits his ability to speak 鈥 it's why his wife Mary Travis assists him in interviews. It's also why he hasn't released new music in over a decade, until now.
鈥淲here That Came From," which released Friday, is a rich acoustic ballad amplified by Travis' immediately recognizable, soulful vocal tone.
Cris Lacy, Warner Music Nashville co-president, approached Randy and Mary Travis and asked: 鈥'What if we could take Randy's voice and recreate it using AI?,'" Mary Travis told The Associated Press over Zoom last week, Randy smiling in agreement right next to her. 鈥淲ell, we were all over that, so we were so excited.鈥
鈥淎ll I ever wanted since the day of a stroke was to hear that voice again."
Lacy tapped developers in London to create a proprietary AI model to begin the process. The result was two models: One with 12 vocal stems (or song samples), and another with 42 stems collected across Travis' career 鈥 from 1985 to 2013, says Kyle Lehning, Travis' longtime producer. Lacy and Lehning chose to use 鈥淲here That Came From,鈥 a song written by Scotty Emerick and John Scott Sherrill that Lehning co-produced and held on to for years. He believed it could best articulate the humanity of Travis' idiosyncratic vocal style.
鈥淚 never even thought about another song,鈥 Lehning said.
Once he input the demo vocal (sung by James Dupree) into the AI models, 鈥渋t took about five minutes to analyze," says Lehning. 鈥淚 really wish somebody had been here with a camera because I was the first person to hear it. And it was stunning, to me, how good it was sort of right off the bat. It鈥檚 hard to put an equation around it, but it was probably 70, 75 per cent what you hear now.鈥
鈥淭here were certain aspects of it that were not authentic to Randy鈥檚 performance,鈥 he said, so he began to edit and build on the recording with engineer Casey Wood, who also worked closely with Travis over a few decades.
The pair cherrypicked from the two models, and made alterations to things like vibrato speed, or slowing and relaxing phrases. 鈥淩andy is a laid-back singer," Lehning says. 鈥淩andy, in my opinion, had an old soul quality to his voice. That's one of the things that made him unique, but also, somehow familiar.鈥
His vocal performance on 鈥淲here That Came From鈥 had to reflect that fact.
鈥淲e were able to just improve on it,鈥 Lehning says of the AI recording. 鈥淚t was emotional, and it's still emotional.鈥
Mary Travis says the 鈥渉uman element," and 鈥渢he people that are involved鈥 in this project, separate it from more nefarious uses of AI in music.
鈥淩andy, I remember watching him when he first heard the song after it was completed. It was beautiful because at first, he was surprised, and then he was very pensive, and he was listening and studying," she said. "And then he put his head down and his eyes were a little watery. I think he went through every emotion there was, in those three minutes of just hearing his voice again.鈥
Lacy agrees. 鈥淭he beauty of this is, you know, we鈥檙e doing it with a voice that the world knows and has heard and has been comforted by,鈥 she says.
鈥淏ut I think, just on human terms, it鈥檚 a very real need. And it鈥檚 a big loss when you lose the voice of someone that you were connected to, and the ability to have it back is a beautiful gift.鈥
They also hope that this song will work to educate people on the good that AI can do 鈥 not the fraudulent activities that so frequently make headlines. 鈥淲e鈥檙e hoping that maybe we can set a standard,鈥 Mary Travis says, where credit is given where credit is due 鈥 and artists have control over their voice and work.
Last month, over 200 artists signed an open letter submitted by the Artist Rights Alliance non-profit, calling on artificial intelligence tech companies, developers, platforms, digital music services and platforms to stop using AI 鈥渢o infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists." Artists who co-signed included Stevie Wonder, Miranda Lambert, Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, Peter Frampton, Katy Perry, Smokey Robinson and J Balvin.
So, now that 鈥淲here That Came From鈥 is here, will there be more original Randy Travis songs in the future?
鈥淭here may be others,鈥 says Mary Travis. 鈥淲e鈥檒l see where this goes. This is such a foreign territory. There's likely more on the horizon.鈥
鈥淲e do have other tracks,鈥 says Lacy, but Warner Music is being as selective. 鈥淭his isn't a stunt, and it's not a parlour trick,鈥 she added. 鈥淚t was important to have a song worthy of him.鈥
