a singer who can’t sing released a new song

The fans of country singer Randy Travisone of the most celebrated and popular references of the genre, were surprised a few weeks ago when they discovered that he had released a new song. And the singer-songwriter suffered a stroke eleven years ago that left him immobile and speechless. However, with the help of Artificial intelligence, his record company managed to clone his voice and use it for the brand new song. Not only that, but now she announced a tour across the country… Are there ethical limits to the use of this technology?

Travis’ career is one of the most successful in his field, with 16 compositions that reached the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart since he stepped on stage in 1979. Unlike other colleagues, who fused elements of pop or rock, he decided to stay faithful to the roots of the genre. His career, however, was interrupted when in 2013 he suffered a stroke that irreversibly damaged his motor skills, preventing him from singing, among other things.

Now, however, it has a chance to make a comeback thanks to technology. According to Cris Lacy, president of Warner Music Nashville: “There is a lot of talk about all the negative aspects of Artificial Intelligence. However, we wanted to ask ourselves what he could do for us and the first thing that came to mind was that we could give Randy Travis his voice back.”

With the consent of the singer and his wife, Mary, producer Kyle Lehning recovered a song that had been written for him in the ’90s but never recorded. She then hired a singer of similar tone to record her and trained a machine learning algorithm with hours of the star’s songs and interviews. The result is “Where That Come From”, a song that is already playing on the radio.

“It’s not about how it sounds but how it feels. And you can feel Randy Travis on the other side of the microphone. It is still his voice. There’s no reason why I can’t make music. “To deprive him of that, if he still wants to do it, is inconceivable to me,” Lacy explained.

While there is no doubt that there seems to be an altruistic motivation, ensuring that what is heard is the voice of the star is risky: There was another human being who sang into a microphone and whose recording was then masked by the result of a sequence of bits that give the appearance of the singer-songwriter’s tone and color. And there are many fans who showed their discontent.

The disagreement over the nature of the new work did not seem to bother Travis, his family and his record label, who have just doubled down and announced the first national tour in more than ten years. “The More Life Tour starring Randy Travis & the Original Randy Travis Band” will kick off on July 22 with a dozen performances already scheduled in the United States.

On ticket sales sites it is announced that Travis himself will be present with his wife on stage “encouraging the fans” and that the band will have his friend James Dupré as singer. It is not specified if technology will be used to mask Dupré’s voice or if there will be other resources such as holograms, but it is clear that these technologies are having a full impact on the music and that we will soon see more experiments like these. The ethical discussion is just beginning.