Suzy Bogguss

Suzy Bogguss earned widespread praise as one of the leading female voices in country music during the final years of the 1980s and across the 1990s, deftly uniting longstanding genre traditions with an accessible, radio-friendly style that resonated with both fans and reviewers alike. Born in Aledo, IL, in 1956, she first sang publicly in her local church choir at the age of five. With parental support she studied piano and drums during childhood before picking up the guitar in her teens. While pursuing an art degree at Illinois State University she sang regularly at nearby coffee houses and clubs; after receiving her diploma in 1980 she began touring, taking any available performance slot throughout the Midwest, the Northeast, and portions of Canada. She relocated to Nashville in 1985, where she recorded demos by day and performed in clubs after dark, later securing a singing position at the Dollywood theme park while also hawking her own self-produced tapes. One of those cassettes reached a Liberty/Capitol executive, leading directly to her signing with the label.

Her initial singles arrived in 1987, followed the next year by the debut album Somewhere Between. Critics responded with strong enthusiasm to its fusion of country’s heritage and current sound; the set included interpretations of Patsy Montana’s “I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart” and Merle Haggard’s “Somewhere Between” while generating a solid chart success with “Cross My Broken Heart.” The 1990 successor Moment of Truth steered Bogguss toward a smoother production approach yet did not expand her audience significantly. That situation shifted with the gold-certified Aces in 1991, which yielded four charting singles—“Someday Soon,” “Letting Go,” “Outbound Plane,” and the title track, the last three of which all reached the country Top Ten. Now established as a major artist, she issued the more pop-inflected Voices in the Wind in 1992; it delivered her career-best peak at number two with a cover of John Hiatt’s “Drive South” and earned gold status for the second consecutive release. Somethin’ Up My Sleeve followed in 1993 and added two further Top Five entries: “Just Like the Weather” and “Hey Cinderella.”

For 1994’s Simpatico Bogguss chose an unexpected detour, recording an intimate collection of duets with guitar legend Chet Atkins; she also put out a greatest-hits package that same year. After pausing to raise a family with husband and frequent songwriting collaborator Doug Crider, she returned in 1996 with Give Me Some Wheels, which underperformed commercially. The same outcome met 1998’s Nobody Love, Nobody Gets Hurt, prompting her departure from Capitol and a move to the smaller Platinum imprint. Her Platinum debut, issued as Suzy Bogguss (also known as It’s a Perfect Day), could not halt the sales decline. Following a short break she reemerged in 2003 with Swing, a polished set of pop, jazz, and swing standards associated with Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, and Duke Ellington, then released the holiday collection Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas later that year. In 2007 she unveiled the all-original Sweet Danger on the Loyal Dutchess label. Operating outside the major-label system, Bogguss later turned to Kickstarter to fund the self-released Lucky, a 2014 tribute comprising Merle Haggard songs.