Country music legend Randy Travis, who’s largely been unable to speak or sing since a devastating stroke in 2013, is crooning again with help from artificial intelligence.
Despite suffering a massive stroke in 2013 that severely impaired his ability to speak or sing, he has now released a new song titled “Where That Came From” using the power of artificial intelligence (AI).
Randy Travis’s voice has always resonated like fine whisky, captivating listeners since his debut album, “Storms of Life,” in 1986. His producer, Kyle Lehning, humorously recalls that they initially hoped to sell 40,000 copies but ended up selling a staggering four million. Travis’s voice became an integral part of Warner Music Nashville’s success 1.
However, fate dealt a harsh blow in 2013 when Travis suffered a massive stroke. Given just a 2% chance of survival, he faced paralysis and damage to the brain area controlling speech and language. Music, which had always been his heart and soul, seemed lost forever.
In his absence, AI-generated fakes of Travis’s voice proliferated online, but they lacked authenticity. Determined to give Randy Travis his voice back, Warner Music embarked on an ambitious project. They started by extracting 42 of Travis’s original vocal tracks from the vault, including hits like “1982.” Then, they stripped away the music, leaving only the raw vocal recordings. The missing half of the recipe came from a “surrogate” voice, provided by country music singer James DuPre.
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