Patty Loveless

Patty Loveless

You’d never know it to listen to her sing today, but Patty Loveless hasn’t always been a confident vocalist.

That may be difficult to believe for anyone familiar with the stunning vocals that have graced her recordings for nearly two decades. Nobody sounds more at home with a country song than Loveless, who critics have consistently praised as one of the most gifted and authentic performers the genre has ever known. Female Vocalist of the Year awards from both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music further underscore her appeal and her skill.

But while her talent was evident by the time she was four years old, so was a shyness and insecurity that made her a reluctant performer.

“My mother would have Sunday dinner with my aunts and uncles and cousins and they would be my little audience,” Loveless recalls. “Mother would get me to sing for them. But what I would do was run out of the living room into the kitchen and sing as loud as I could, so I wouldn’t have to sing in front of them.”

Some reticence remains to this day, Loveless admits. “There are times when I’m still very reserved, and until I get to know someone I can be very shy. That’s just the way I am.”

That shyness may be an ingrained part of her personality, but insecurity is nowhere to be found on Loveless’ new CD, Dreamin' My Dreams on Epic Records.

Yes, there’s vulnerability, but it’s an endearing quality born of the kind of honest interpretation that effectively communicates a song like Thom Schuyler’s “On the Verge Of Tears.” And there’s certainly tenderness and world-weary resignation as heard on tunes like “Old Soul,” by Lee Roy Parnell and Tony Arata and “My Old Friend The Blues,” a Steve Earle song.

But there’s also a strong resolve in evidence on the up-tempo first track “Keep Your Distance,” a Richard Thompson song and a bold and sexy giddiness driving the bluesy rocker “Same Kind Of Crazy,” written by Delbert McClinton and Gary Nicholson.

No, there’s nothing tentative about the vocals on this, Loveless’ 13th album. It’s the work of an artist obviously confident of her abilities and intimately familiar with the content of the material she chooses. It’s a self-assurance that has come with time.

Dreamin' My Dreams, co-produced by Emory Gordy, Jr. and Justin Niebank, is Loveless’ first CD release in two years and she credits the time between projects for her growing confidence as a singer. Country artists weren’t always afforded such a lengthy break between projects, points out Loveless, who admits that when she listens to her early recordings she’d “love to go in and do them all over again.”

The cover of Patty Loveless' album, Dreaming My
Dreams.

“In the ‘80s I was recording at a time when it seemed like we were putting out records every eight or nine months, “ she says. “I didn’t really get enough time to live with the songs. I believe if you didn’t write a song you have to live with it to let it become your own. The more comfortable I get with the songs I choose, the more confidence I get and I feel like the better singer I become.”

One method Loveless employs, both to familiarize herself with the songs she records and to allow her to put her own stamp on them, begins long before she enters the studio. This pre-production work involves stripping down the song, which is often presented to her as an elaborately produced demo, to its bare basics. The fact that her producer Emory Gordy, Jr. is also her husband is extremely helpful, she says, when it comes to pre-production experimentation.

“It’s a great advantage being married to Emory,” she says. “Emory and I do pre-production with vocals and guitar. Even if full demos are sent to us we still do home demos just to get a feel, because when we take a song (in the studio) we want the session players to be able to create from our home demos rather than try to redo the demo that was sent to us. It helps me know which way I’m going to go with the song.”

Loveless’ confidence and self-reliance has also grown in the area of song selection. While some artists depend upon their record company’s A&R staff to help find their material, Loveless praises label chief John Grady and the brass at Epic Records/Nashville for giving her free rein in choosing what she wants to record. When looking for new material she follows the advice given to her years ago by another singer.

“I used to go through the whole process of trying to figure out what the public wanted to hear,” says Loveless. “Finally, Naomi Judd said to me, ‘Honey, just go with your own heart. Just go with what you feel.’ Well, I knew she’d been around so I thought, ‘Okay,’ and when I did that – just let myself go and follow my heart and listen to what it was saying, then I was able to made some decisions about which way I wanted to go with my music.”

Loveless followed her heart down memory lane when she chose to record the title cut of her new CD. Originally a hit for Waylon Jennings in 1975, the Allen Reynolds song “Dreaming My Dreams With You” has an appeal that crosses generational boundaries, Loveless believes. Still, the idea to cut the country classic didn’t occur to Loveless first.

“Emory brought it to my attention, “ she says. “It was always a favorite of mine but I’d never thought of recording it. He played me Waylon’s version and I said, ‘Goodness gracious, yes, I love that song.’ To me, it has timeless lyrics. Even if you’re of the now generation, when you hear a song like ‘Dreaming My Dreams With You,’ you go, ‘Man, where did this song come from?’ It sounds new.”

In fact, several of the 14 songs on the CD are not new tunes, including Loveless’ version of the Delaney Bramlett song from the 70s, “Never Ending Song Of Love” and “When They Ring Those Golden Bells,” an old gospel standard which is included as one of two unadorned hidden tracks. Loveless describes the project as a “blend of styles including rockabilly, raucous rock ‘n’ roll, edgy country, bluegrass and blues.” It’s a diverse mix of musical styles, to be sure, but it was blended with dual intent. Loveless’ first desire was to duplicate on CD the dynamic scope of her live shows which range from a full-blown, electrified portion, as heard on “Keep Your Distance,” to a more scaled-down acoustic segment, illustrated by the lively bluegrass tune, “Big Chance,” which Loveless and Gordy wrote.

“The whole concept of this record, “ Loveless explains, “is to give you a feel from the very first song, “Keep Your Distance, “ to the last “When I Reach The Place I’m Going” that you’ve attended a Patty Loveless concert.”

Loveless’ other aim, with the hidden tracks in particular, was to provide listeners with some insight into her creative process.

“I wanted to give people an idea of how it all starts from a song – just me picking up a guitar in a dressing room and messing around and singing or just sitting around with somebody after the show and singing a song together. The hidden track, ‘I’ve Got Something In Mind,’ has that kind of feel. That’s the way it came to me after a show one night. I went backstage because I was still pumped up and the melody started to come to me so I brought it home to Emory. That’s the way it all starts – just the guitar and a voice.”