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With the help of artificial intelligence, country star Randy Travis, celebrated for his timeless hits like “Forever and Ever, Amen” and “I 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. In the years that followed, the Country Music Hall of Famer had to relearn how to walk, spell and read. A condition called aphasia limits his ability to speak – which is why his wife Mary Travis supports him during job interviews. This is also the reason why he hasn’t released new music in over a decade.
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“What That Came From,” released Friday, is a rich acoustic ballad enhanced by Travis’ instantly recognizable, soulful vocal tone.
Cris Lacy, co-president of Warner Music Nashville, turned to Randy and Mary Travis and asked, “‘What if we could take Randy’s voice and recreate it using AI?'” Mary Travis told The via Zoom last week Associated Press, with Randy smiling agreement right next to her. “Well, we got all that behind us, so we were so excited.”
“Since the day I had my stroke, all I wanted to do was hear that voice again.”
Lacy hired developers in London to create a proprietary AI model to start the process. The result was two models: one with 12 vocal stems (or song samples) and one with 42 vocal stems collected over the course of Travis’ career — from 1985 to 2013, says Kyle Lehning, Travis’ longtime producer. Lacy and Lehning chose “Where That Came From,” a song written by Scotty Emerick and John Scott Sherrill that Lehning co-produced and stuck with for years. He believed it best expressed the humanity of Travis’ idiosyncratic singing style.
“I’ve never thought of another song,” Lehning said.
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After inputting the demo vocals (sung by James Dupree) into the AI models, “the analysis took about five minutes,” says Lehning. “I really wish someone had been here with a camera because I was the first to hear it. And it was amazing to me how good it was straight away. It’s hard to put an equation together, but it was probably 70, 75% of what you hear now.”
“There were certain aspects that weren’t authentic to Randy’s performance,” he said, so he began editing and developing the recording with engineer Casey Wood, who had also worked closely with Travis for several decades.
The pair cherry-picked from the two models, making changes to things like vibrato speed or slowed and relaxing phrases. “Randy is a relaxed singer,” says Lehning. “In my opinion, Randy’s voice had an old soul quality to it. That’s one of the things that made it unique but also somehow familiar.”
His vocal performance on “What That Came From” had to reflect that fact.
“We were just able to improve it,” Lehning says of the AI recording. “It was emotional and it still is emotional.”
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Mary Travis says the “human element” and “the people involved in this project” sets it apart from the more nefarious uses of AI in music.
“Randy, I remember watching him the first time he heard the song after it was finished. “It was beautiful because at first he was surprised, then he was very thoughtful and listened and learned,” she said. “And then he lowered his head 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.”
Lacy agrees. “The beauty of this is, you know, we do it with a voice that the world knows and has heard and been comforted by,” she says.
“But I think from a human perspective it is a very real need. And it is a great loss when you lose the voice of someone you were connected to, and the opportunity to have it again is a beautiful gift.”
They also hope that this song will help educate people about the good that AI can do – rather than the fraudulent activities that so often make headlines. “We’re hoping that maybe we can set a standard,” says Mary Travis, where credit is given where credit is due — and artists have control over their voice and work.
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Last month, over 200 artists signed an open letter from the nonprofit Artist Rights Alliance calling on tech companies, developers, artificial intelligence platforms and digital music services to stop using AI “to violate and devalue human rights.” Artists.” Artists who co-signed included Stevie Wonder, Miranda Lambert, Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, Peter Frampton, Katy Perry, Smokey Robinson and J Balvin.
Now that “Where That Came From” is here, will there be more original Randy Travis songs in the future?
“Maybe there are others,” says Mary Travis. “We’ll see where this goes. This is such foreign territory. There’s probably more on the horizon.”
“We have other titles,” Lacy says, but Warner Music is just as selective. “This is not a stunt or a parlor trick,” she added. “It was important to have a song worthy of him.”
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