The New Tina Adair
Photos by Sophia Sharp
Bluegrass vocalist/mandolinist Tina Adair has a new perspective on life since gracing the cover of Bluegrass Unlimited magazine in April 2023. While the physical evidence is apparent, the Grammy-nominated singer also underwent a metamorphosis that transformed her mental and emotional well-being, too. Adair’s successful weight loss journey has also had a powerful effect on her music, as evidenced by her new chart-topper, “Don’t Stay a Stranger,” and her new band with a new band sound.
New Music
The initial legwork for this 13-cut album started a couple of years ago when Tina felt like a different person. “It’s been like different people, different variations of me … to the point where I thought, should we split this out, almost like it’s two separate projects.”
The first three singles released were “Let It Fall,” “Covering Up Holes,” and “Prisoner’s Song,” with Ronnie McCoury singing the harmony. She says the quality of work on this album is reminiscent of her 1997 Sugar Hill Records album, Just You Wait and See. This is the first time, in a long time, I’ve been over the moon about every single song. These songs just struck a different chord with me for some reason. I don’t know that reason, but I am so in love with every song! I’m excited for everyone to hear it.”
Work on the album, which will be titled later, is still in progress. Her latest single, “Don’t Stay a Stranger,” is what she considers the kickoff to the “new me.” She said, “I’ve experienced a lot of life changes over the last 5 or 6 years, both professionally and personally. This song struck home for me. It really hit a note internally with me.”
Written by Sarah Siskind, it’s a song about love, forgiveness, and grace. Tina said, “There’s a difference in saying that we need to forgive and actually forgiving. It’s a freeing and a peaceful place when you truly have love in your heart and forgiveness. At least it has been for me. I’ve learned over the past few years that people are going to come and go in your lives. Some are for a lifetime; some are for a season, and some are not even for a whole season; and we have to learn that there’s a reason behind it all.”
Tina lost her brother, Keith Adair, in 2010 from colon cancer. The two siblings and musical partners were extremely close, and following his passing, Tina stepped away temporarily from the music business. “Losing someone you’re really close to at a very young age gives you a different perspective on life. This song, to me, has been very therapeutic. It’s been very healing in lots of ways for me.”
After she recorded the song, Tina sent it to Siskind for her assessment before sending it to radio. “She wrote me back.” She said, “Wow! From the first note that you started, this is your song.” Siskind had been gathering a batch of songs for Adair to consider for her new project when she said, “God dropped this little gem in her lap. Thirty minutes later, “Don’t Stay a Stranger” was ready. I said, ‘I’ve never told you this, but out of the batch of songs that you sent me, this is the very first one that I picked. She goes, ‘I believe in little God winks like that.’ And I do too. She goes that explains why this is your song. This is meant to be.”
Two Wake-Up Calls
Sometimes people choose to hit the snooze button and postpone dealing with a certain issue in their lives. It took Tina a couple of significant alarms to make life-saving changes in her life. In January 2021, she was admitted to Vanderbilt University in Nashville with a combination of COVID and pneumonia in both of her lungs. Her oxygen level dropped dangerously low to 70%, with her obesity contributing to the health scare. “I was really fighting hard to the point where I never laid down in that bed,” Tina says. “I sat straight up in a chair/recliner and slept for a whole week because I felt like if I laid down, I was going to crush my lungs. It felt like a movie, like I was on Outbreak or something. People were suiting up in what seemed like hazmat suits to bring me a bottle of water.”
Already pre-diabetic, the large quantity of steroids and infusion treatments that week in the hospital triggered Diabetes Type 2. She remained on oxygen three more months after returning home but was eventually able to transition from insulin shots to a daily pill. Professionally, she was still jamming with Sister Sadie, and the ladies that September picked up their third consecutive IBMA Vocal Group of the Year award. “Everything was still rocking and rolling as much as it could be, but I was still unhealthy. If you’re not healthy physically speaking, it will bleed over into your mental health and vice versa.”
Still, Tina admits she was denying the reality of her situation and kept pushing herself and pushing herself to stay on task. “My quality of life was so low at that point. I was living. I was working my job at Belmont University, and I was playing shows. But I was having to sit down. My back was in such terrible shape. Even breathing was difficult.”
In January of 2021, she caught a less severe strain of COVID and went back to the doctor. “When I went to the doctor and stepped on that scale and saw the number, I knew I was in trouble! I knew that if I didn’t turn this around, I wasn’t going to be around much longer.”
A year had passed since her first health scare, but now she was ready to make a huge change. “I changed my mindset. I changed my lifestyle, every single aspect of it. Everything that I was doing, I didn’t do anymore.”
Adair decided to make a permanent change to a high-protein, lower-calorie eating plan rather than follow a specific diet. While using a GP-1 medication for her diabetes, she explains that this medication is a tool, not a crutch. She also began a log of her weight loss, checking in at least once a week to remain accountable to herself. “This is a lifestyle change. This is how I have to live the rest of my life.”
Adair recognized her emotional eating, and the part it played in her journey to comfort her feelings with food. “If I was happy, I ate. If I was sad, I ate. If I was mad, I ate.”
“I’m a food addict,” Tina admits. “And that’s no different than an alcoholic or drug addict or any other addiction people might have.” Within one year of embarking on her new health journey, she met her goal of losing 150 pounds. By the end of December, she hopes to shed 50 more pounds. Boy, is she feeling a difference! “I’m moving a lot more, and this last May, I stood up for an entire show on stage for the first time in years! And it felt amazing!”
Normally, Adair is a private person, but she has a passion to share her story and to encourage others to find the path that works best for them to become healthier. “As someone who has been in the music world since I was a teenager, people have seen all different [weight] fluctuations of me. So, I am happy to talk about this journey because I’m in so much better of a mental space and physical health space than I have been in over fifteen years. I’ve got a long way to go, I’ll be the first one to admit, but I’m so much further down the road than I was when I started in January 20 of 2025.”
Along with the weight loss, Tina gained a part of herself back and a renewed confidence. “One of my co-workers went home and told her husband, “Tina’s always been sassy. I’ve worked with her for 25 years. But she’s a whole other level of sassy! Her husband said, “Well, she’s just getting a different level of confidence now.”
Adair agrees and is thankful that she is in a much better place. “At my age, mid-40s, it’s not about vanity or anything like that. It’s about being able to get up and walk from here down to the end of the street without being so winded you feel like you’re going to die.”
Moving Ahead
To accompany the newly reinvigorated Adair is a new group that is named the Acoustic Social Club with Tina Adair and Kim Fox. “The Acoustic Social Club is maybe just a sophisticated way of saying a bluegrass band,” Tina says with a laugh. This group is made up of Kim Fox and her brother Joel (vocal and banjo), Casey Freeland on bass, and Andrew Morton on fiddle. The configuration first played a show in Branson, Missouri, last May, and had so much fun, they decided to form a band. “What we are basing our sound on is working around our trio with me, Kim, and Joel. We’re definitely a vocal band and putting the music around that. We may be bringing a rock song to the acoustic world and putting our touch on it with acoustic instruments. We may have a country song from the 80s or 90s, which is what I grew up on. Maybe a straight-ahead bluegrass song. Maybe some original stuff.”
“I’m super pumped about it!” Adair says. “We just want to have fun with it. I truly believe if you’re having a good time, your audience is going to have a good time. So, that’s our goal—to make good music, sing pretty, and have fun with the audience.”
