Jo Dee Messina is known for her powerful anthems, confident kiss-offs, and heartfelt ballads. Throughout her career, the singer has amassed nine No. 1 hits and 16 Top 40 songs. A fixture on country radio in the ’90s, Messina made chart history in 1998 as the first female country artist to garner three consecutive multi-week No. 1 songs from an album with “Bye Bye,” “I’m Alright,” and “Stand Beside Me.”
Nearly 30 years later, the Massachusetts native returns. Her first album of new music in over 12 years, Bridges finds Messina as a confessional songwriter willing to tell her story. She wrote nearly every track on the project, a first for the singer. While Messina has penned songs on past releases, including several solo, she says her songs often took a back seat on those projects.
“There’s a lot that goes into making a record, and people had staff writers, [and] they wanted to get those cuts,” Messina tells American Songwriter from her home in Nashville. “I didn’t think my songs were very good. I didn’t think that they held water to the songs like ‘Bye Bye’ and ‘I’m Alright,’ which they didn’t at the time.”
Messina says she had a lot to say when it came to writing Bridges. So, she decided to “grab some writers” and get it out.
“Heading into the project, I had no partners, management, publicists, marketing, label, so people weren’t going to give out the greatest material,” she admits. “It was, ‘OK, I’m on my own. Let’s write this stuff,’ and then I started to get calls from really fabulous songwriters.”
Songwriters on the project include veteran country hitmakers Tim Nichols, James Slater, and Mark Trussell, alongside Christian-based artists and writers Mia Fieldes, Ethan Hulse, and Blessing Offor. Messina, who at nine years old wrote her first song, “Here I Am,” about Jesus, says she has more confidence in her songwriting today.
“There’s also more wisdom where it’s coming from,” she says. “I’ve lived a lot more life since then.”
Messina moved to Nashville at 19 to pursue a career as a country singer. She soon found herself in the writing room with veteran songwriters. “To sit in a room with an established writer was very intimidating, because they know how to do it, and they’ve got ideas,” she says. “I would walk in with an idea—one—and they’d be like, ‘Oh, we can write this. We can write that; we can do whatever.’ So, it was a little scary at first.”
Messina’s early life was surrounded by music. There were always instruments around her home, and the family has pictures of Messina at 18 months sitting at the piano with her hands on the keys. She never took a lesson and learned everything by ear. By the time she was in middle school, Messina also played guitar and saxophone, while her brother played drums. The pair jammed at the house together. Pretty soon, her sister joined in on bass, and they served as her backing band when Messina performed around New England.
Around 13, she was introduced to country music and was immediately hooked. Songs like “Baby I Lied” by Deborah Allen and “Break It to Me Gently” by Juice Newton were early favorites, she explains as she sings verses from each track.
“The ones that were really gut-wrenching, heartbroken songs, those are the ones I gravitated towards at first,” she says, “and I think it’s because I was a teenager and going through all that.”
Before she could drive, Messina’s mother chauffeured her to performances. A charismatic and personable artist, Messina gradually built a following. Knowing her dream of moving to Nashville, some fans who relocated to Music City told Messina that when she got there, she would have a place to stay. “They used to come to a lot of my shows, so I stayed with them until I found a place to rent,” she recalls.
Messina and her brother drove from Massachusetts in her manual-transmission Pontiac Sunbird. “I had everything I owned, which was nothing, packed in the back of my car,” she says. “Then my brother left the next day, flew home, and that was very sad for me.”
While her father thought she was crazy and hoped she would get “a real job,” her mother was supportive and gave her the $500 she had in savings.
“I didn’t have a plan B,” she says. “I was naive. I didn’t realize everyone else who lived here had the same dream going.”
For rent money, Messina entered talent contests and began to win. She also won a radio show in which the prize was to perform every week. She eventually secured a deal with Curb Records and released her self-titled debut album in 1996 following the success of lead single “Heads Carolina, Tails California.” Numerous radio hits and studio albums followed, including the crowd-funded 2014 project Me. Bridges, her first release in more than a decade, picks up where Me left off.
“It is a bridge from then to now, which is these songs bridge that dark, quiet period to a bright, hopeful period,” she says. “Usually, an album reflects the season of life that someone is going through, but my current record reflects 10 years of seasons.”
Messina wrote the album over the past year. Frequent co-writer and producer David Spencer encouraged her to record an album while on tour, promising that fans wanted to hear new music. From the overwhelming response on the road and on social media, he was right.
The singer’s faith is at the forefront of Bridges(“If He Knew Jesus,” “The Jesus I Know”) as is her love for melodic-driven country anthems (“Days You Don’t Get Back,” “Don’t Let Them Hide Your Beautiful”). She also has powerful messages for those struggling (“Can Anybody,” “Let Me Love You”) and others navigating narcissists in their lives (“Welcome to the Show,” “It’s All About You”).
“A lot of this record is groove-oriented,” she says. “I love to rock out. I love to have fun with melodies.”
The upbeat tongue-in-cheek “Where the Cowboys Ride,” written by Messina, Spencer, and Emily Falvey, started with a simple question from Messina.
“I walked in, and I was like, ‘I want to know where the real cowboys are,’” she says with a laugh. “We live in Nashville, so you can find people dressed to the nines. They’re wearing the fancy boots. They got the pickup truck that’s never seen dirt.”
The trio started listing the characteristics of cowboys: true to their word, work hard from dawn to dusk, and put God and family first. Quickly, the lyrics came together.
He don’t climb no corporate ladder / He puts in the work / All about what really matters / God and family first.
While “Where the Cowboys Ride” highlights Messina’s undeniable vocal power alongside an ear-grabbing groove, the nostalgic “Days You Don’t Get Back” showcases her knack for creating radio-friendly anthems. Penned with Tyler Hubbard, Jon Nite, and Ross Copperman, “Days You Don’t Get Back” came together after Hubbard wondered how you look back in wisdom and say, “Don’t wish away the days you don’t get back.” The lyrics come straight from Messina’s life.
And when those babies come and knock and wake you up at two / One day, you’ll miss the cries and how they climb in bed with you.
“It’s true,” Messina says. “I have teenagers now. I remember there was a time where all three of us slept in the same bed, me with two boys. Not anymore.”
A mother and a ministry leader, Messina’s life and faith inspired Bridges. The first song written for the project, “Let Me Love You,” was a sentiment she wanted to share with her son, who was struggling in high school. She says it can also be interpreted as God talking to his children.
What if I told you, your past was just simply that / Those days, they’re behind you. Mistakes don’t define you. Don’t fall in that trap. / Don’t you think that I wouldn’t love you for where you’ve been / If you trust me, I promise, I’ll show you. Just let me in.
“It is the heart of the Father, and it’s the heart of any parent with their child,” she says after tearfully reciting the song’s second verse. “When you see them struggling, it’s like a promise, ‘I made tons of stupid mistakes. Let me help you.’ I remember when my son finally talked to me, I said, ‘You’re not made to carry that kind of weight on your shoulders.’ And I swear, that’s what God says to us.”
Piano ballad “Can Anybody,” a song Messina describes as “a teenager’s lament,” details feeling unseen. She says the idea for the song, written with Hulse, came from spending time around teenagers while teaching Bible study.
“With social media and all the things that kids, especially girls, are getting hit with these days, they feel invisible,” she explains. “It’s not just teenagers. People in the industry who have taken their own lives, and they feel like they don’t matter, they’re not important, and my heart broke seeing these situations.”
Messina acknowledges the pressure to be an artist today and welcomes her role “to pray and be a shoulder for the new generation.”
“I think if I had one piece of advice, it’s don’t sell out who you are just to have success,” she stresses. “I did it, and it’s a deep pit to crawl out of.”
It’s a lesson Messina herself learned the hard way. So, how did she crawl out of that pit?
“A lot of it has to do with Jesus, and what my identity really is,” she says. “Who am I if I don’t have a hit record? Who cares about me? That was the mindset, and that’s why I was constantly chasing the brass ring.”
Messina recalls a dark period in late 1999 when her song “Because You Love Me” peaked at No. 8. During this time, she let the industry chatter of “she’s done” get to her.
“I started to let those voices really dictate who I was and what I thought of myself, and it was heartbreaking,” she says. “I may have screwed up, but I screwed up trying, and I feel more gratification in that, and more lessons learned in that than someone who never tried at all. So, I tell people, ‘Don’t take advice from people who have never been where you want to go.’”
Bridges shares this knowledge and more wisdom with listeners.
“I’m coming from a place of gratitude being able to still sing for people and share music, and share my love of music and my heart,” she says. “The willingness to love people, I’m able to share that. That’s the greatest gift right there.”
The post Bridging Past and Present: Jo Dee Messina’s Latest Project Marks First Album of New Music in 12 Years appeared first on American Songwriter.
Go To Source | Author: Annie Reuter
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