With country rocker Gretchen Wilson, what you see is what you get

08:46 AM EST on Thursday, March 9, 2006

BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer

While Gretchen Wilson has a strong voice, a rocking band and an impressive way with both butt-kicking country-rock tunes and heartbreaking ballads, what's really set her apart from the Nashville pack, what she's really selling, is a sensibility.

It started with her first single, the smash hit "Redneck Woman," and continues through such songs as "Pocahontas Proud" (from her first album, Redneck Woman) and "Full-Time Job" and "Not Bad for a Bartender" (from her latest, All Jacked Up).

Basically, the idea with Wilson, the reigning Country Music Association female vocalist of the year and seller of 5 million records, is that what you see is what you get. She did, in fact, grow up in Pocahontas, Ill.; she did, in fact, tend bar starting as a teenager; she is, in fact, a single mother as well as the daughter of a single mother; and she did, in fact, have to work a long time in Nashville before anyone would take notice.

Wilson doesn't write all her songs, but she's co-written most of her best. And she says that the first person -- the direct, autobiographical approach -- is the only way she knows how to write.

She started singing professionally when she was 15, but didn't start writing songs until she moved to Nashville in 1996.

"I really don't know that I write good enough to write for other people," she says in a phone interview. "I mean, the songs are good enough, but I just don't know that I can possibly write anything that anyone else would say. When I know I'm going to sing a song, I'm kind of uninhibited; I'll sing anything. If I would sit down on the couch and have a cup of coffee and say it to you, then I'll put it in a song."

Wilson is coming to town as part of her first headlining tour, which she describes as "awesome. It's everything I hoped it would be and more.

"[It's] a whole lot more pressure, a whole lot more excitement. You get all the stage, you get all the drama, you get to step on stage every night knowing that those people came to see you and not the act after you. . . .

"A whole lot of things became clearer to me; it all started to make sense to me this year."

Women have made plenty of inroads in Nashville over the years, but there's still something of a gender gap among the arena-headlining performers, Wilson says. "And I don't know why that is.

"Maybe just because most of the female music is -- I don't know, a little bit softer? I don't know; I haven't gone to that many country concerts, really."

Wilson promises that her show is loud enough to please anyone. "My show is a little more like a rock show, probably, compared to other females in country music. I've got pyro and an incredible AC/DC light show going on, and we're blowing stuff up, and it's loud and crazy and it's definitely rock 'n' roll."

13 cuss words

To paraphrase the show-business axiom, it took Wilson eight years to become an overnight sensation.

Her music doesn't seem radically different from the mainstream, but she says, "It sounds commercial now, but it wasn't when I brought it to them. . . .

"Really, to the music industry, commercial is what radio will play. No matter what the song says, if radio's playing it, it's commercial. And nobody was playing stuff like that at the time. Most of the people I auditioned for, most of the people I was turned down by, I think they got it, I think they knew that it was good, but they just weren't willing to take a chance on it. . . .

"When's the last time a female came out with a debut song that had 'redneck' in it and 13 cuss words? It hadn't happened. I take that back; it had happened. It just hadn't happened in a long time."

She cites Loretta Lynn as someone who "sang about all kinds of crazy stuff that nobody would've thought was politically correct, or the right language for a lady to be using at that time. But she did it her way, and that's kind of what I do."

The big business of Nashville, she says, leads to a cookie-cutter approach.

"I certainly think that Nashville had this mold that everybody was supposed to fit into -- not only females, but I think males had the same problem over the course of the last 10 or 15 years. I think everybody wanted to follow in the footsteps of George Strait. . . . and when I was getting a deal, everybody wanted [the women] to be Shania Twain and Faith Hill. And I definitely didn't fit into that mold. And I guess you kind of have to go out on a limb with me, and that's why it took me so long. . . .

"You don't stand over a painter's shoulder and tell him what color to use. It's kind of the same thing to me -- having somebody try to sit there and tell me, 'You can't say this' or 'You should say it this way' . . . 'You'll have a better chance of radio playing it if you do this.'

"A lot of people have a lot of different opinions on how somebody should do their job. Nobody's rude and blatant that way, but you certainly get hints and a lot of ideas from people, sometimes that you don't really want."

Wilson combines the country and rock that she listened to growing up in Pocahontas -- about equal amounts, she says, of "stone-cold country -- old traditional George Jones, Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline" and Journey, Boston, Zeppelin and .38 Special.

But her lyrical attitude borrows as much from hip-hop as anywhere else. The sense of place, the braggadocio, the autobiography -- all signal a lyrical focus that's a little different from the insert-your-face-here school of songwriting.

Wilson discounts the idea of a hip-hop connection ("I've been around all kinds of music, but it's not something I've ever really listened to"), rather seeing her lyrical focus as a sign of the times.

"I think it's just more of a new generation, and I think people are more willing to just put it out there and say what it is they want to say now, maybe, than they used to.

"And I guess that would reflect in country music as well as in hip-hop. I mean, they're certainly saying some things in rap music that they weren't saying 10 years ago!" she says, laughing.

Looking for feedback

Wilson's songwriting was helped along by the Muzik Mafia, a group of singers and songwriters who would meet weekly to thrash out ideas and give each other feedback. John Rich, a major Wilson collaborator and a member Big & Rich, is part of the Mafia, and several other members have gone on to careers of their own.

Wilson says the Muzik Mafia still gets together, but things have changed.

"Everybody's taking off and doing their own thing. Our get-togethers are a little more private than they used to be. But yeah, we still get together and hang out and pick a little bit. . . .

"Anytime we get together, we play whatever we wrote last week. I don't think we really discuss the songs as much as we used to, because we were trying for something then. I think we've all kind of discovered ourselves, and we kind of know what we want to do and where we're going now. . . .

"We were trying to hone our craft, and we were looking for feedback from each other. . . . But I think we've all gotten comfortable enough now that we know when we've said the right thing."

Asked when was the last time she'd been back to Pocahontas, she says, "Not recently." But not recently to her, it turns out, means "six or seven months ago. . . .

"Everybody is crazy and excited and proud, and they think it's awesome that a hometown girl chased her dreams and made it happen. It's kind of like going home to a giant family."

Unbelievable fans

On All Jacked Up, Wilson got to co-produce, which gave her a larger measure of control, including picking songs, choosing musicians and the like.

"I felt so much more involved than on the first record," she says, adding that she'll be a producer on her next record "unless there's something I don't know yet."

Speaking only a few days after her first headlining sellout ("It was a night to remember"), she pays tribute to the fans.

"They're unbelievable. They're on their feet from the moment the intro tape starts until the curtain comes down, and they sing along with every word to songs that haven't even been released. It's amazing."

And, she says, there are plenty of redneck women in the audience. And she's not worried about the redneck look becoming a trend.

"To me, a redneck woman means a proud woman, a strong woman. And I definitely feel like the women I see coming to my concerts, and around me, are very proud and very strong and very comfortable in their own skin, which is all I really care about."

Gretchen Wilson is at the Dunkin' Donuts Center, 1 La Salle Square in Providence, Saturday at 7:30 p.m., with Van Zant and Blaine Larsen opening. Tickets are $44.50 and $34.50; they are available at the box office, by calling (401) 331-2211 or by going to www.ticketmaster.com.

rmassimo@projo.com / (401) 277-7206

HEAR Gretchen Wilson talk to Rick Massimo:

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