Suzy Bogguss
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Suzy Bogguss, At Home, and in Outer Space
It was an earthy wakeup call for astronauts aboard the space shuttle Columbia -- Suzy Bogguss, crooning "Someday Soon," called the crew to work during the last NASA mission. For her part, the down-to-earth Bogguss says she was "tickled to death." But more often, Bogguss's big, rich vocal gifts are employed with understatement and nuance, underscoring the subtext of each song as a way of adding an edge to the storyline. Gifted interpreters always do that. And on her new SUZY BOGGUSS, Bogguss tackles a range of styles, from the blues-oriented swooner, "Goodnight," to a taste of western swing on "Love Every Time," to the exquisite folk strains tempering her own "Hammer and Nail," and a stirring pop ballad, "Look What Love Has Done to Me." As she set out to begin touring, Bogguss spoke with David McGee about the course of her career and the events that made her most ambitious album.
barnesandnoble.com: This album has a looser, more casual feel than anything you've done before.
Suzy Bogguss: We had a great time making it. It's the first time Doug [Crider, Bogguss' husband, coproducer and occasional cowriter] and I have been able to do so much of the work at our house. We did a lot of the recording in our home studio and it made it so comfortable. It was relaxed, there weren't any clocks tickin', and it was really nice. You're not sitting there telling road stories in between takes. It was really fun.
bn.com: When you listened to the entire album played back for the first time, did you feel you had captured something of your artistry that you hadn't heard before?
SB: First, it took me a week to sequence it because it is so eclectic. It has about every type of song I could sing if I wanted to. It took me a long time to get comfortable with the flow of the record. That's real important to me. I don't like to be jolting people from one song to another, emotionally, messing with their vibe. I was really excited about what I was going to get to do with this record: I knew I was really going to get to sing my kind of songs, melodies I'm really comfortable with, and that was a good feeling. And the ones we had written, I felt proud of; there was a particular vibe that I feel was very me.
Except "Love Is Blind." And I demo'd that song and had done all sorts of stuff to convince myself that I could sing it, because I love the song. But it wasn't until one morning when I woke up and went, "No wonder you can't sing it -- it's supposed to be a duet!" Until that bounced off my brain, I kept wondering how I was going to pull it off. Once I got that landed, the rest of the thing came together.
bn.com: Smart move to bring T. Graham Brown in as your partner. We don't hear enough of him. You two are great at playing off each other and bringing the emotions in the song to life.
SB: He was what I was looking for when I felt I wasn't landing the song. I needed somebody to impassion me, which he does. You cannot even be around the guy without feeling more alive. That's the way he is.
bn.com: That song was written by your husband Doug, and the lyrics have an "us against the world" theme. Were folks in the music community taking shots at you two or questioning your professional relationship in some way?
SB: Yeah. I don't know if anybody's ever taken shots at us, but the business is a business. Doug and I are a very tight couple, writing and working in the studio together. We really play off of each other well. We're probably codependent, or something [laughs]. But we definitely do, from time to time, get in that us-against-the-world thing -- but in a positive way. Like, no matter what goes on out there, nothing is as important as we are. I tell you what, in the crazy world we live in right now that kind of solidarity feels really good.
bn.com: SUZY BOGGUSS really is close to a folk album in a lot of respects.
SB: That's what Doug and I will do. He knows me so well, and he knows what will freak me out. When something gets too big, too contrived, it doesn't feel right to me anymore. And he's so good at helping me to achieve that without it being so understated that it doesn't really have any production. Those songs, if they were played down a lot, could take on a folk feel to the point of having zero commercial value. So you have to walk that line where you say, I want to appeal to a broad group of people here, but I have to stay within my comfort zone. Otherwise I'd have David Foster produce the album. If I wanted to be a pop singer, I could be a pop singer, but that's not who I am.
bn.com: You've been in the business for awhile. Have your goals, and your reasons for doing what you do, changed from what they were at the beginning of your career?
SB: I'm still like a really goofy fan who buys tons of music and loves being inspired by other people to work harder because I want to be as good as they are. One of the biggest challenges is to try to keep in touch with the initial excitement you had for the music that drove you so hard and makes you want to do it so bad. I still feel in touch with that. I can still go to a concert, appreciate what the artist is doing, enjoy the music and be totally in awe. There's also a little flicker inside of me that's saying, "I've got to get home and get a rehearsal together, because we have got to get tighter on this stuff. Look how good he's doing this!" There's still that little thing of being critical of myself and wanting to work harder, to be a better player, a better singer and be where that artist is. That's still there.
David McGee
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