Yes, She Sings Too

As Matraca Berg prepared for what would be a triumphant evening at the recent Country Music Assn. Awards, she felt excited, hopeful, and . . . well, a bit nauseated.

Berg certainly had reason to be optimistic about her nomination in the song of the year category. At 33, she has been one of the most prolific and respected songwriters in Nashville for 15 years. In the past year alone, Berg songs have topped the country charts for Reba McEntire, Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, Martina McBride and rising star Deana Carter. So few were shocked when Carter’s hit, “Strawberry Wine,” earned Berg and her sometime writing partner Gary Harrison the CMA statuette.

But in addition to accepting her award, Berg, whose efforts as a recording artist have brought her far less visibility than her songwriting, was about to perform a new song on the nationally televised program--”Back When We Were Beautiful,” a delicate, intensely moving ballad about a woman’s struggle to come to terms with old age. That’s where the queasiness came in.

“The Pepto Bismol is probably still affecting me, ‘cause I drank so much of it,” Berg says a week later, winding down over a late breakfast after taping an episode of “Live With Regis and Kathie Lee” in midtown Manhattan.

“It was pretty nerve-racking. I had never been on national television, and no one had ever heard that song before. And no one knew who the hell I was.”

With a little luck, next year’s ceremony may be a different story. Berg released her third album, “Sunday Morning to Saturday Night,” on the fledgling label Rising Tide last month. It’s a collection of typically witty, poignant, empowering songs that has been garnering rave reviews. “Back When We Were Beautiful,” the current single from the album, is among the most requested songs on country radio, and Berg has been promoting it with a series of TV appearances, including “The View” and “Politically Incorrect.”

Those unfamiliar with the Nashville scene may find it puzzling that an artist who has helped define the voice of the strong, soulful woman in contemporary country music has had a difficult time getting her own voice heard. With her tangy vocals and softly exotic beauty--she’s part Irish, part Cherokee Indian--Berg certainly looks and sounds as much like star material as any of her peers, even if her dressed-down style is a long way from the stereotype of the big-haired, heavily made-up country diva.

But unlike the rock arena, where singers are encouraged--if not expected--to have a hand in writing their own material, the country industry tends to relegate its vocalists and its writers to mutually exclusive groups.

In fact, Berg had originally wanted to record “Strawberry Wine” herself, but she was without a record contract at the time, having left RCA Records after her second album in 1993.

“Sometimes I’ve wondered if they didn’t want us to have record deals because they needed our songs for the rest of the artists,” says Berg, reflecting on what she calls “a prejudice” against songwriters who want to make albums.

Berg is well acquainted with the inner workings of her field, having grown up in a Nashville-based family full of professional musicians. Her mother, Icee Berg, was a popular session singer who backed such artists as Merle Haggard and Mel Tillis, and her aunts are the vocal group the Callaway Sisters, who appear on “Sunday Morning” alongside other guests including Loveless, McBride, the Mavericks’ Raul Malo and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Jeff Hanna, who is Berg’s husband.

As a youngster, Berg was inspired by the music of Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson; but she also spent her high school years listening to rock bands such as the Cars and Pretenders. At 18, she wrote her first No. 1 country hit with Bobby Braddock, “Faking Love” by T.G. Sheppard and Karen Brooks. (Though Berg frequently uses co-writers, an associate says it is primarily for feedback and moral support.)

Two years later her mother died of cancer, leaving Berg to look after two younger siblings. (Berg’s father, a physicist, split with Icee when Matraca was a child.) Berg married her first husband shortly afterward, but divorced in her mid-20s. So by the time she signed to RCA and recorded her debut album, “Lying to the Moon,” in 1990, the singer had compiled plenty of Sturm und Drang to draw on.

“I was a little moody and dark when I was younger,” Berg says, smiling. “My mother was always struggling to pay the bills. . . . I would watch my brother and sister and take care of the house. I didn’t have a social life. . . . And I had never had a good relationship before my relationship with Jeff. So my first album is an angry-young-woman album. I’m softer now, but in a good way, I think.”

The songs on “Sunday Morning” celebrate love and commitment without evading the challenges they require. They also pay homage to the sort of good ol’ girls and boys that Berg has known fondly throughout her life, proving that for all her laid-back sagacity, this singer’s no snob.

“I think being down-home is an art in itself,” Berg muses. “Someone like Loretta Lynn, with her long granny dresses and her huge hair, is a beautiful work of art to me. Some younger artists have no accents, and they look like they could be on MTV. People like Loretta and Tammy Wynette make us richer as a culture.”

Says Berg’s manager, Mike Crowley, “After Matraca got out of her last record deal, she really threw herself into writing. And I think her new album, more than anything she’s ever done, is her window to the world. It’s a very competitive time in country music right now, but the real pressure for Matraca as an artist is saying what she wants to say. And she loves this record.”

But judging by the way Berg’s eyes light up when she envisions the future, the artist clearly feels she hasn’t yet reached her peak, either career-wise or in her personal life.

“It’s easier to embrace humanity when you’re happy, and in love,” she says. “I feel so much different in my 30s than I did in my 20s. I can’t wait till my 50s. That’s what I look forward to--getting older, and coming into my own.”