Patty Loveless begins new journey
By PETER COOPER • Staff Writer
September 9, 2008
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Patty Loveless cried in the dressing room the night she told her band and crew that she was shutting it down.
“It was like walking away from family,” she said, recalling a time when her family was in crisis and music didn’t mean as much. In 2005, her mother-in-law died. And her brother, Roger, had a stroke from which he barely recovered. And her record company imprinted her Dreamin’ My Dreams album with data that messed up the hard drives of those who purchased it and attempted to play it on their computers. The latter fact seemed at once insignificant and indicative.

“I didn’t have patience for all this that was going on, and I thought it was meant for me to get off the road. I felt like there was a door that was closing.”
Loveless had been to the top of the contemporary country world. She’d won female vocalist of the year, and she’d won album of the year, and she’d been praised and admired and even adored. Sometimes, as she approached 50, she felt like she was 100 years old. And the thing that made her feel childlike again wasn’t performing or doing interviews or prepping for photo shoots, it was listening to records with her husband, producer and bass player Emory Gordy Jr.
“That was the healing process,” said Loveless, who today releases her first album in three years. “At dinner, we’d talk and listen to satellite radio, to classic country songs, and I’d say, ‘I remember this. I did this when I was 12, with Roger.’ And Emory and I wrote down some old songs that we’d like to record one day.”
The healing process was hindered by the death of Loveless’ mother, in 2006. Loveless was off the road by that time, and she was with her mother. She listened for her mother’s breathing, and the lack of that breathing was what woke her up. And in that time of mourning she often thought about her sister, Dottie, who died in 1996, at age 48.
“She was an amazing singer,” Loveless said. “A lot better than me. She had so much soul in her voice.”
Loveless’ voice has that soul, too, though it is often understated. Her conversation is the same way. She isn’t prone to raising her voice or to shouting superlatives. She just tries to tell the truth, whether speaking or singing. The latest example of that is Sleepless Nights, which arrives in stores today. It’s the 19th album of her career, and it’s filled with Loveless’ versions of classic country songs, the same ones she and Gordy listened to in hopes of dulling the pains of loss and transition.
“Making this, I felt like I could just breathe,” she said. “There was no pressure from the label to find ‘the next Patty Loveless hit.’ It was much more about, ‘Let’s do a record that Dottie would appreciate, and that Roger will appreciate.’”
Loveless and Gordy called in instrumental masters including Country Music Hall of Famer Harold Bradley, legendary piano player Hargus “Pig” Robbins and steel guitar hero Al Perkins. Old friends Vince Gill and Carmella Ramsey sing harmony vocals.
They also called Loveless band members Pete Finney and Deanie Richardson to play, and Loveless didn’t feel a bit like crying when she told them that the “shutting down” thing was impermanent.
Beginning Sept. 26, she and the band will be back on tour. And then Loveless may well begin looking for some new songs that impact her like these old ones: something with the hurt of “There Goes My Everything” or the sadness of “Color of the Blues.”
“I believe those songs are out there, and the challenge is to find them,” Loveless said. “They’re within writers like Matraca Berg, who wrote ‘On Your Way Home’ and ‘My Heart Will Never Break This Way Again.’ And I think if you believe in a song and what it says, even if it’s sad, you shouldn’t be afraid to do it. There’s more to life than romantic songs.”

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