When you think of Suzy Bogguss remember that her 2007 CD — “Sweet Danger” — had a warning label on it.
“This music is not what you expect! Listen with Open Mind,” the label reads. That could be said for most of Bogguss’ works. Yes, she won the prestigious Academy of Country Music Award for Top Female Vocalist in 1989 but her music is much more than straight country. Consider her next album, a compilation of classic folks songs.
“I toured with Garrison Keillor,” Bogguss said of her latest project. “It really inspired me and made me think of those old songs we all knew as children.”
That’s the kind of creativity that keeps her work so interesting. Although her next album — part of which is now available at her concerts — will have such classic folk tunes as “Erie Canal,” “Sweet Danger” was more contemporary jazz with dashes of pop. And let’s not even get into “Wine Women & Song,” the female trio that’s a side project Suzy shares with the award winning singer/songwriters Matraca Berg and Gretchen Peters. The group is a major concert draw in the U.K.
“We have a blast,” Bogguss said of the group. “We have been building it, now is the fifth year. We have been quite successful in the U.K. — we went back again in May — but we haven’t done it in the U.S. yet.”
Although Bogguss doesn’t say it, it’s common knowledge that songwriters and singers are much more clearly pigeonholed into genres in the U.S. than they are abroad. That’s a shame because although Bogguss got her start in country — literally performing at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. — she is much more than that format.
That’s one reason Bogguss — who critics routinely hail as one of the finest voices in contemporary music, started her own record label. Although record labels loved the songs on “Sweet Danger” they couldn’t reconcile the album — which she co-produced with famed jazz/pop keyboardist and producer Jason Miles — with her country roots.
But Bogguss is adamant that she isn’t the same person she was years ago. Like her, her music has grown to reflect her life and those of her peers.
“It just makes sense to seek out those people,” Bogguss said. “I’m not trying to switch genres. I grew up in a small town and came to Nashville. I always made records that weren’t traditional country. I’m not Loretta (Lynn) or Tammy (Wynette). That’s the hardest thing to get people to understand … To me, records show where you are at a given time,” she said. “I’m writing about what my friends and I are experiencing now.”
