AMG Review of Put Yourself in My Place

Brian Mansfield
All Music Guide

The album that established Pam Tillis as a performer in her own right has a traditional country base cut with bluegrass, folk, and rock. It all creates the same sort of mixed breed she sings about in "Melancholy Child": "You take a black Irish temper/Some solemn Cherokee/A Southern sense of humor/And you got someone like me." Her characters are the awkward dancers of "I've Seen Enough to Know": bruised, tentative, and needing to be cajoled back to love. Even the throwaway songs are of a high standard; the best ones ("Maybe It Was Memphis," "Don't Tell Me What to Do") are truly enticing.