Jann Browne ’94 Album Soon in U.S.

American listeners finally will have a chance to hear Jann Browne’s superb 1994 album “Count Me In,” which has been available only in Europe and Australia.

Browne, a leading figure on the Orange County country music scene since the late ‘70s, said this week that she has struck a verbal agreement with Cross Three Records, a small, independent label based in Nashville. Label owner Mitchell Cohen said he plans an early-summer release and intends to send the Laguna Hills resident on her first U.S. tour since the early ‘90s, when she was on Curb Records.

Cohen had courted Browne for months in hopes of securing the rights to “Count Me In.” Initially, Browne planned to sign with a new record company being launched by Barbara Orbison, widow of Roy Orbison (Browne is under contract to Orbison’s Nashville-based publishing company, Still Working Music). But Browne said Orbison’s negotiations for major-label distribution took longer than she would have liked, and she decided not to risk having her album’s U.S. release delayed until 1996.

“I felt it could be another year before everything happened,” Browne said, “and no one from Virgin (the label with which Orbison had been negotiating) had ever contacted me” to express enthusiasm for the music. “I didn’t want it to get lost in the shuffle, and I didn’t know where I would fit in their roster. I wanted somebody who absolutely loved the album, and that’s what I felt from talking with people at Cross Three.”

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Cohen, a Santa Monica resident and a fan of Browne’s two Curb releases, said he fell for “Count Me In” instantly after getting a copy from its Australian distributor.

“It’s a wonderful album. It’s everything I love about country music, and I’m thrilled we’re going to be able to release it,” he said.

Cohen said he launched Cross Three Records three years ago, naming it after the Montana ranch that was the childhood home of the first artist he signed: Wylie Gustafson of Wylie and the Wild West Show. Besides two Wylie albums, the label has issued records by Jerry Donahue, former Highway 101 singer Paulette Carlson and comedian Judy Tenuta. Cohen said Cross Three’s biggest seller has been a 1991-vintage Mavericks album recorded before the now-famous country band signed with MCA.

Cohen, who describes his company as “the most left-of-center label in Nashville,” says he has written off conservative mainstream country radio as an outlet for his releases. He said he will promote Browne’s melodically rich, lyrically vivid album by relying on video networks and radio airplay on stations in the new “Americana” format, which is geared toward country artists who avoid the typically bland songwriting formulas of mainstream Nashville.

As she demonstrated in February with a show at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, Browne already has come up with a good deal of strong new material since the release a year ago of “Count Me In.”

“I’ve lived with it a year and half,” Browne said. “Let’s get it out there.”