Matraca Berg’s “You & Tequila” Scores A Grammy Nomination
December 4, 2011
Matraca Berg’s “You & Tequila” Scores A Grammy Nomination
Track from her Acclaimed Dreaming Fields Continues Earning Kudos
Nashville: With rave reviews in The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, Rolling Stone and NPR, Matraca Berg’s The Dreaming Fields has resonated with critics. The Songwriter of Hall of Fame member has found herself in the Top 5 on the Americana chart. And now “You & Tequila,” the haltingly lovely track from Berg’s first album in 14 years, picks up another nomination: Country Song of the Year.
“When Kenny (Chesney) and Grace (Potter) cut ‘You & Tequlia,’ they did an amazing job,” says Berg. “They found that sweet/sore spot of wanting and remembering, that knowing how much you shouldn’t, but sensing how good you know it’s gonna feel… Fighting that is tough, and you can hear it in their voices.
“And it’s funny, I never heard it as a duet, only a personal struggle. But, man…”
For Berg, who won the 1997 CMA Song of the Year for “Strawberry Wine,” this marks her third Grammy nomination for Country Song of the Year . In addition to “Strawberry Wine,” she was nominated for Gretchen Wilson’s “I Don’t Feel Like Loving You Today.” Reba McEntire (“The Last To Know”), Patty Loveless (“You Can Feel Bad”), The Dixie Chicks (“If I Fall”), Martina McBride (“Wild Ange;s”) and Trisha Yearwood (“Wrong Side of Memphis,” “Xs+Os”) have all – like Kenny Chesney and Grace Potter – received Vocal Performance nominations singing her songs.
“You don’t write songs for nominations,” says the woman who writes from the center of the human heart, “you write to make things clear, to sort stuff out, to really feel the feeling. But when you get nominated, dom’t kid yourself, it feels great ‘cause to me, it means you hit the bulls eye for so many other people, too! That’s the greatest feeling: that other people know just what it is.”
Iconic songwriter Kris Kristofferson tis certainly one. In a recent interview, he proclaimed, “I don’t listen to a lot of music at all any more, but I just heard a great album that Matraca Berg did… She’s one of the best singer/songwriters now.” Sharing his opinion are USA Today, who declared, “One of Nashville’s most graeful singer/songwriters…,” The New York Times’ Jon Pareles who wrote, “With melodies steeped in hymns and Appalachia, she sings character studies that ponder the inevitability of loss…” and Rolling Stone offered, “a writer more concerned with making tradition her own.”
With a performance at WRLT’s Music City Roots earlier this week, a benefit with acclaimed authors Lee Smith and Jill McCorkle Dec. 1 and an appearance with Billy Joe Shaver on West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Mountain Stage to be taped Dec. 4, it’s starting out as a busy December for the woman headed to LA for the 2012 Grammy Awards. With a video of “the Dreaming Fields” shot with noted photographer Jack Spencer in the final stages of editing, it’s looking like her new year is going to be just as intense.