Today's Country Magazine

FUN. The songs on the album were picked because they are relatable. From a girls’ night out to a housewife reflecting on her life choices, women from all different stages of life can relate to atleast one song on this album.

Well it definitely got the ball rolling for me and allowed us to have even bigger success with the second single “I’d Leave Me”. Of course as a new artist you always expect things to move quicker, but as I learned things don’t always work out the way you planned. But, instead of getting discouraged I packed up my guitar player and got in my minivan and visited 62 radio stations in 20 states to show them that I was the real deal by performing the single live.

The song No One Like Me is very personal since it is my story. So instead of hiring a director and actors and looking for locations we (my husband and I) decided to do it ourselves. We took over 15 years of home movies, live performance footage and pictures and compiled them all into a “home movie” video for the song.

I wouldn’t have the success that I have without the internet. Since I don’t have a million dollars for marketing and advertising like the big labels, the internet has been a huge tool in keeping my fans up to date on my career goings on, as well as, finding new fans to share my music with. We’ve really been pushing the video for No One Like Me to other moms. Too often we forget to take care of ourselves because we’re so busy taking care of everybody else. What we need to realize is that by taking care of our needs we’re better equipped to take care of everybody else.

That’s a tough one because every time I listen to the album or perform the songs it seems to change. I love Love Tornado because it’s such a high energy song and in our live show we actual double the song and add an a cappella section at the end. One of my very favorite songs is actually one that didn’t make it on the album. It’s called I Get the Bird. It’s a song about a pink flamingo.

I’ve started writing a lot more. In fact, I just taught a songwriting camp for 11 and 12 year olds. The great thing about kids is that unlike adults that don’t get bogged down in all the nonsense. Does that make sense? Can I say it like that? They don’t second guess themselves. They just write it down and if it works it works and if it doesn’t they move on. It helped me a lot with my own writing. Like the songs on No One Like Me the new ones are right out of my life. One of the new songs is called Stupid in Love. It’s the story of how my husband and I met. We’ve been performing it at our shows and it gets a great response from the fans.

I’ve worked with the Children’s Home Society of NC for years on various other projects. They are a 106 year old adoption and foster care agency. My guitar player, Sam Frazier, was adopted through the Children’s Home Society. I had approached Tommy Lineberry, the Director of Special Events, about doing a local music series. We have lots of talented songwriters and bands in Greensboro, NC who rarely get the opportunity to play their music as opposed to cover songs. Shortly after that, a local restaurant approached Tommy about doing an event to create awareness of CHS and raise some money. So we combined the two and created Music@Muse. It’s a 5 month music series that features a different local band every month performing original music. And, in October we are doing Songwriters in the Round with 4 local songwriters. www.chsnc.org

If it weren’t for Patsy Cline I wouldn’t have the career that I have today. (On so many levels.) Portraying Patsy is what gave me the courage to go out and pursue this on my own, with no record label. Many of my fans were first introduced to me as Patsy Cline and they still request her songs at my shows. So it’s a no brainer that I do this role once a year. As you know, in country music it’s all about the fans and my fans have supported me through the good times and bad. They come out to WalMart and Waffle House, they buy my CDs, they forward my emails and they hang up posters for me. There’s a reason we’re called the Minivan Mafia. There’s nothing I can’t do with their support.

I have great kids and a very supportive and patient husband. My kids are both school age so I’m able to do a lot of my business during the school day so that the evenings are spent with them doing homework or goofing off. They both love music and my 8 year old has taken to recording CMT’s Power Picks every morning. When we listen to the radio she describes the videos to me. She also knows who sings every song. It’s really pretty cool to have kids who want to be involved in their mom’s career.

Don’t do it! (laughs) The most important thing that musicians forget is that first and foremost this is a business. There are business things that need to be done every day. Too often musicians spend all of their time writing and rehearsing and performing without taking care of the marketing and publicizing. I advise all of my musician friends to try to do atleast 3 things a day for your business. Send out a press release, update your website, find another site to upload your music to, call a venue etc… You can be the greatest songwriter, singer, musician there is, but if you don’t tell people know one will ever know.