In 2013, country music legend Randy Travis suffered a near-fatal stroke that stripped him of his voice. Today (May 3), he releases “Where That Came From,” his first new song in over a decade.
With Travis' permission, his longtime producer Kyle Lehning took some old tracks of the singer’s voice and layered them with vocals from a different singer using a customized AI program until he was able to mold it into an authentic version of Travis.
After his stroke, which paralyzed him and damaged the part of his brain that controls speech and language, doctors gave Travis a 2% chance of survival.
“It’s Randy Travis. Randy’s on the other side of the microphone … It’s still his vocal,” says Warner Music Nashville co-chair/president Cris Lacy tells CBS This Morning. “There’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to make music … And to deprive him of that, if he still wants to do that, that’s unconscionable to me.”
Lacy says that while AI is considered a controversial topic within the music industry, they considered the “chatter about all the negative sides of AI" before deciding to go ahead with completing “Where That Came From.” Adds Lacy, “The first thing that came to mind… was we would give Randy Travis his voice back."
For producer Lehning, the results from working with AI really surprised him when first hearing the song. He tells host Lee Cowan, "It freaked me out… when I played it back it was like, ‘oh my!’ And I immediately thought, ‘this might work.'”
But for him, being able to work with Travis again on new music was what it was all about.
“It’s not about how it sounds. It’s about how it feels,” Lehning explains. “Him being here and him being able to be, you know, a vital part of the decision-making process makes all the difference to me.”
Fans can watch the full story on how they gave Randy Travis his voice back this Sunday, May 5 on CBS and Paramount+ at 9:00AM EST.
Watch a clip below.
“It freaked me out.” In 2013 country music star @randytravis suffered a stroke that robbed him of his singing voice. Travis’ longtime producer, Kyle Lehning, gives Lee Cowan an exclusive inside look at how cutting-edge AI enabled Travis to once again raise his voice in song. pic.twitter.com/vxzXQ5k2OK
— CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday) May 3, 2024