Rebel with a cause

Wynonna does things her way

by Jim Macnie

"I'm feeling fine and sassy tonight, y'all!" Yup, I agree, it sounds like typical bullshit stage rhetoric, like when George Jones bellows about "playing all night long" while keeping one eye glued to that minute hand on his watch. But Wynonna, at a concert in Nashville last summer, in front of an adoring hometown crowd, lived up to both qualifiers. The Starwood Pavilion was packed with 17,000 Wyheads who sang along with their hero during an exclamatory -- meaning fine, sassy, and rocking -- bash. When one of country music's most voluptuous voices is working to its full potential, harnessing the clout of gospel music as it flies around the venue, it's hard not to be impressed. Indeed, the show's audience was frenzied, offering the kind of zealous response that Springsteen generated during the mid-'80s.

And it's not an anomaly. Wynonna's live shows are often meticulous searches for ecstacy. Her rather probing country music is based on the union of soul, hedonism, and sentiment. Some country fans think she's drifting too far from the shore as far as twang goes. Others hear her keyboard-based balladry as an antidote to the increasing predictability of Music City's strategies. Last year's Revelations (Curb/MCA) was a winner, containing the definitive take of "Change the World," which Eric Clapton took to the upper echelon of the Billboard charts. Her latest is Collection, which proves what a great ear the 33-year-old has for melodies. On stage, she's been dealing with many of Collection's songs for years now; they're her basic set list. Interpreted on stage, tunes like "She Is His Only Need," "Is It Over Yet," and "To Be Loved By You," usually offer a potent charisma and unmistakable authority. There are plenty of listeners smitten with the way she whoops and purrs. "You give me hope," she told the Starwood audience, and though that too sounded like stock line, I'm pretty sure it wasn't. There's something about Lady Wy that rings true, no matter how show-bizzy the facades around her may be.

Q: People write about every aspect of your life. Does being a public figure remain interesting at all?

A: I wish you could spend the day with me and see just how . . . well, I sort of laugh at this point. It doesn't make any sense, but it's all very exciting. My mom recently said something I loved: "In the moment of complete uncertainty, everything is possible." I mean, dad-gum-it, everyday is different and I relish in the mystery I guess. I think the tabloids and all the other schlockheads miss the point. Which is life is full of chaos, but it doesn't have to be a drag. I don't live in the world that they think I do. I think they see all the stuff that happens to me as deeply affecting me in a negative way. But quite the opposite, my dear . . . oh ye of little faith . . . I've actually learned to embrace it and say, "I dare anyone to step across this line with another pile of crap."

Q: The last time I saw your show, you were unusually pumped up. Do big shed gigs do that?

A: You're not too off-base. The places you've seen me before -- the summer tent kind of venues -- are a bit more mellow and low-key, cause you're so intimate with the audience. But with the sheds, you definitely have to work more to get that back row involved. 18,000 people is a lot. Plus I wanted to impress people. I've got my gynecologist and my preacher in the audience -- I want to work a bit extra. They were both at that Starwood show in Nashville. I'm always nervous, because I have to live with these people. But I have to also say that the hour on stage is my release. So I'm a bit out of control up there. I'm acting out all the frustrations, joys, pain and hardships that come along.

Q: The schematic of a show helped keep it from going over the top. I think it was positive energy, not negative. Just like the dramatic flow of Revelations. It's always on the verge of bursting into melodrama, but it ultimately tows the line. That's creative tension.

A: Thanks. Well, not because of the kind words -- though, of course, those are the pat on the back kind things we love -- but the fact that you really listened means something to me. I think a lot of these characters don't take the time to try and understand the work. I'm extremely aware of how heavy Revelations is. I have to remind myself, "Wynonna, not everyone is as intense and emotional as you are, bless your little heart." I often feel like a missionary in an atheist land. I feel so frustrated by the lack of sensitivity in this day and age that I'm constantly feeling like a misfit. The fact is I laugh probably more than most of your relatives do.

Q: That's the other part living in the public eye: you might start to believe your own press. The media portrays you as a hand-wringer, but they forget about, or don't see, the part of you that's a hot shit.

A: You know what it is? I'm, and put this in capital letters, a paradox. A walking paradox who confuses people. When I got [to the Starwood] that night, I'd been stuck in traffic, hadn't put my lipstick on or anything, I was late because my lovely little son Elijah decided to jump into a mud hole. You know how that goes. It's a big, fat, hairy deal to get everything together. We finally get there and I'm in a whirlwind trying to get ready. Sweating like a dog, wearing the wrong clothes, and saying whatever comes to my brain. I literally come out without a clue.

Q: Listeners would be able to discern a script anyway.

A: Well, I'm the lazier Judd. My mother was always the one with the buttons perfect and the matching underwear and perfect hair. I was always the mess. She always said, "You don't know your hole from an ass in the ground" -- bless her heart she got it backwards, she's so funny. She constantly was mad at me because I'd try to make it by the skin of my teeth. So I have to say that what people perceive me to be . . . if they only knew. And I don't want to give it away . . . I'm not a knucklehead loser. But I remind people that it's not an agenda that I pride myself on having. I wake up and take things as they come.

Q: I think in the performances and on the records, people hear that lightheartedness.

A: Well, some think I am. You say I'm the hot shit but the real hot shit in this family is my sister [Ashley]. She's the one who drives the convertible with the top down. I'm the one that constantly walks the line of feeling that "I'm totally a goob, and I'm following my gift." That's the combination of Wynonna that makes it work. The minute I start thinking that I'm a big deal, I'm in trouble. I'm a real self-conscious person, the kind of person who changes two or three times a day to make sure I'm wearing the right thing -- but I'm working on that. Everybody gets a kick out of watching Wynonna succeed and fail, but people assume that I'm this dramatic, palm across the forehead, victim. I should send you my press file. It's pathetic. Some people don't understand that I'm on fire for life, and I don't take crap from anybody anymore. Now that I've had a kid? I am woman, hear me roar, my ovaries are flaring, get outta my way. I'm in a really great place now, and I hope people see it.

Q: Do people come up to you and go on about what your songs mean to them?

A: I thrive on that to the point of it probably taking up too much of my time. I think about that probably more than any aspect of the business. Umm, it's fortunate and unfortunate. I thrive daily on connecting with somebody to the point where I seek it out. I drive people in my organization nuts. "Wynonna, you don't have time for this stuff. You can't do it." I'm a sucker for the human relationship, between me and the fans. [Her husband] Arch has to say, "Wynonna, get in the car." I'm way too trusting.

Q: The end of your show is wild. By that point, the gospel elements are overt, real Amen Corner stuff, don't you think?

A: I don't think, I just do. One thing about me is I don't like to categorize stuff. What I like to do during a day is kick a little butt, laugh and cry, then, at the end of the day, pray. I'm a real prayer. That's as natural to me as eating supper.

Q: And singing is a viable way for you to pray?

A: Absolutely. Breath is inner thought, so singing is sort of my inner voice coming out. I have to be careful, I don't talk about this with many people about my faith, but that's just as much a natural part of my actions. As natural for me to sing "Live with Jesus" as it is to sing "Strongest Weakness" or "She Is His Only Need." I don't have an agenda with it; I don't do it because I want to end my show with a church vibe. The show is sort of a group prayer. On the outside it perhaps looks a bit showmanshippy. But for me it has to mean a little something more. And for me that's knowing where my gift comes from and returning it. God knows I would never want to come off that stage feeling that I just did all that for fluff.

Q: How orthodox to you find country music these days? Do you see yourself as

an outsider at all?

A: Hmmm, I think it's all the same, whether it's L.A., New York or here. I really do. I think it has more to do with success than the type of music being played. We're really greedy right now, and when you get greedy, you don't put out your best product. You get too into the cookie cutter mentality. It's not that I don't feel plugged into country, 'cause I do. I was born and raised here. But it's sort of like they're my relatives . . . they may not always be my family. Know what I mean?

Q: But it's not as if people think you're going to put out an old school honky-tonk album.

A: But you know what? I might. That's what really freaks 'em out. They don't know what I'm going to do. And that's the joy of it. All the publishers call Tony Brown and say, "What's her next move, we need to find songs." Ha! Country accepted me and nurtured me, but there's a bit of "she's not like all the other kids" vibe, which I like. A rebel with a cause.

What's great about the new country is that we're allowed to get away with some things. I want to sing with my guitar one minute and have a full choir and horn section the next. I'm even thinking of looking for these producers out there . . . gosh, what would it be like to work with a Don Was or a Babyface?

Q: Or, as you said, the other direction: Wynonna Sings Ernest Tubb.

A: I've thought about it. Can't you just see me doing all that stuff. I'm an explorer; it keeps me from being bored. It might piss everybody else off. But there will come a day. Mom and I have talked about doing a sort of mountain-top record, about where we came from. Personally or professionally I think we call come back home sometime. Look at what Springsteen's doing. He's out on the road by himself with a guitar. So I think that's natural, to want to get naked and raw again. Start over. But personally I still feel like I just left home a little bit. I told an interviewer: my first record was "Hey, look, I've moved out, I've got my own place." Second record was "I'm drinking from the milk carton, staying up late." Third one is "gotten married had a kid." Progression of life, right? So the next record I'll probably go out of my mind with wacky ideas and test the waters and really freak 'em out. Then come back after that and do a completely orthodox "moon, June, croon, spoon" record with fiddles.

Wynonna will perform at Warwick Musical Theater on Saturday. Jeff Wood opens at 8 p.m. Call 821-7300.