With the help of AI, Randy Travis regained his voice. See how your first post-stroke song came about

With the help of artificial intelligence, country music star Randy Travis, celebrated for his timeless hits like “Forever and Ever, Amen” and “I Told You So,” has regained his voice.

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 — which is why his wife, Mary Travis, helps him with interviews. This is also why he hasn’t released new music in over a decade, until now.

“What That Came From,” released on Friday, is a rich acoustic ballad amplified by Travis’ soulful and instantly recognizable vocal tone.

Cris Lacy, co-president of Warner Music Nashville, approached Randy and Mary Travis and asked, “’What if we could take Randy’s voice and recreate it using AI?’” Mary Travis told The Associated Press via Zoom last week , Randy smiling awake right next to her. “Well, we were getting over it, so we were so excited.”

“All I ever wanted, since the day of the stroke, was to hear that voice again.”

Lacy called on 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 the other with 42 stems collected throughout Travis’ career — from 1985 to 2013, says Kyle Lehning, Travis’ longtime producer. Lacy and Lehning chose to use “Where That Came From,” a song written by Scotty Emerick and John Scott Sherrill that Lehning co-produced and maintained for years. He believed he could better articulate the humanity of Travis’s idiosyncratic vocal style.

“I never thought of another song,” Lehning said.

After he fed the demo vocal (sung by James Dupree) into the AI ​​models, “it took about five minutes to analyze,” says Lehning. “I really wish someone was here with a camera because I was the first person to hear it. And it was amazing to me how good it was right off the bat. It’s hard to put an equation around that, 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 also worked closely with Travis for a few decades.

The pair chose between the two models and made changes to things like vibrato speed or slow, relaxing phrases. “Randy is a laid-back singer,” says Lehning. “Randy, in my opinion, had an old soul quality to his voice. 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 able to just improve on that,” Lehning says of AI recording. “It was exciting and still is exciting.”

Mary Travis says the “human element” and “the people involved” in this project separate it from the more nefarious uses of AI in music.

“Randy, I remember watching him when he heard the song for the first time after it was finished. It was beautiful because at first he was surprised, then he became very thoughtful, he listened and studied,” she said. “And then he lowered his head and his eyes got a little watery. I think he went through every emotion there was in those three minutes just hearing your voice again.”

Lacy agrees. “The beauty of this is that we are doing it with a voice that the world knows, has heard and has been comforted by,” she says.

“But I think, just in human terms, it’s a very real need. And it’s a great loss when you lose the voice of someone you were connected to, and the ability to get it back is a beautiful gift.”

They also hope this song works to educate people about the good that AI can do – and not about the fraudulent activities that so often make headlines. “We’re hoping that maybe we can establish a standard,” says Mary Travis, where credit is given where credit is due — and artists have control over their voice and work.

Last month, more than 200 artists signed an open letter sent by the nonprofit Artist Rights Alliance, calling on artificial intelligence technology companies, developers, platforms, digital music services, and platforms to stop using AI “to infringe and devalue human rights.” artists.” Co-signed artists included Stevie Wonder, Miranda Lambert, Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, Peter Frampton, Katy Perry, Smokey Robinson and J Balvin.

So now that “Where That Came From” is here, will there be more original Randy Travis music in the future?

“There may be others,” says Mary Travis. “We’ll see where this goes. This is such strange territory. There are probably more on the horizon.”

“We have other tracks,” says Lacy, but Warner Music is being equally selective. “This is not a stunt and it is not a parlor trick,” she added. “It was important to have music worthy of him.”