In 2013, Randy Travis had a stroke so severe that doctors thought he was not long for this world.
Yet his life wasn’t over. And although he remains partly incapacitated, his career, amazingly, wasn’t over either: his wife Mary tours with him, and voice-cloning technology is helping him create songs with a Randy Travis timbre.
When things were at their worst, Mary rejected the doctors’ prognosis because, as she says, her husband was still fighting.
“There was never a doubt in Randy’s mind that he could make it through it. It was that magical moment that I went to his bedside when they said, ‘We need to pull the plug. He’s got too many things going against him at that point.’ He had gotten a staph infection and three other hospital-born bacterial viruses … one thing after another. And the doctors were just saying, ‘He just doesn’t have the strength to get through this.’…
“That’s when I went to him. That was the moment that I knew that Randy Travis was gonna make it because he squeezed my hand and a tear went down his face. And I said, ‘He’s still fighting.’”
Mary Travis praises artificial intelligence.
Along with musician friends, AI is helping her husband complete lyrics and is simulating his voice so that he can, indirectly, sing again.
The technology is guided by a human attention to nuance, and Randy himself obviously feels that what is being created conveys his spirit.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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One reply on “The Real Randy Travis”
Randy Travis is right there with George Strait as a country music icon. He is amazingly strong, being able to come back from a massive stroke. His new song “Horses in Heaven” is amazing.
When we had left our old church and while looking for a new place to worship, a good friend had invited us to stop into his church, “the Cowboy Church. It was an Easter Sunday and when we pulled up into the parking lot they were playing Randy Travis. We knew then that we had found a new home.