Bogguss returns after 10 years with pocketful of Haggard tunes

The opening of the Clinton Presidential Center almost a decade ago was the last event that lured country singer Suzy Bogguss to central Arkansas, she recalls, so that is her first clue that it has been a while since she played hereabouts.

The Arkansas Sounds concert series is bringing back the Illinois-born and -raised singer, whose career has continued since 1987, with occasional interruptions to raise her son, Benton Crider, now 19.

She has recorded 19 of her own albums, and collaborations with Chet Atkins, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Kathy Mattea and Alison Krauss, among others.

Her latest album, Lucky, released Feb. 4 on Loyal Duchess Records (named for a memorable pooch), is a collection of Merle Haggard songs, which, she hastens to point out, is not strictly a "tribute" album.

"I got his blessing before I did it, yes, because I didn't want him to think I was doing a tribute to him in that sort of a way after someone is gone," she says from her Nashville, Tenn.-area home.

"I wanted to continue what I had started when I named my debut studio album Somewhere Between after his song of that name. I kept hearing my audiences asking me to do that song, so I started thinking, 'maybe I need to do some other Merle Haggard songs, and I especially thought it might be interesting to hear a woman's take on some of them.

"It was hard to decide on just an album's worth of his songs, because he's got all these amazing songs. He's just had this wonderful life of writing about the human condition. When I grew up, I was listening to my dad's eight-track tapes in the car of Merle Haggard music."

Bogguss' best-known songs are "Cross My Broken Heart," "Someday Soon," "Drive South," "Outbound Plane," "Aces," "Letting Go," "Just Like the Weather," "Hey Cinderella" and a duet with Lee Greenwood, "Hopelessly Yours."

Bogguss will be bringing a couple of musicians to make up a trio, including Chris Scruggs, grandson of the legendary Earl Scruggs, on acoustic, electric and steel guitar.

Bogguss has an Arkansas connection via famous country (and Western) singer Dale Evans, who was raised in Osceola and grew up to be a sidekick, as it were, to Roy Rogers.

"My grandparents in California, whom I would visit as a child, went to the same church as Roy and Dale, and lived on the same block in Apple Valley, Calif.," she recalls. "I was about 12 when I picked up the guitar, but I was really more inspired by another Arkansas woman, Patsy Montana, as I set out to be a yodeling cowgirl. She was a real salty character."

Bogguss postponed her musical career to go to college, graduating from Illinois State University in Normal in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in metalsmithing. That led to her developing her own line of earrings when she began recording and touring.

"That's something I've kind of been getting back into," she says. "My husband, Doug Crider, built a little studio for me to do metalwork in. And he's also a great sound man who's on the road with me. He's a producer and recording engineer. I didn't tour much when our son was younger, so now it's something we can do again -- hit the road."

Weekend on 09/25/2014