Time to play another round of Why Haven\u2019t You Heard Of This Person?<\/p>\n
After all, by the time this album came out in 1997, Matraca (rhymes with mesa) Berg had already written Top Ten country singles for Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, Suzy Bogguss, Martina McBride and Deana Carter.<\/p>\n
One big reason you might not have heard of Ms. Berg is the dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks RCA execs who demanded, after Berg had produced a sharp, interesting set of contemporary country-folk tunes in her 1990 recording debut Lying To The Moon<\/i>, that she give pop a try.\u00a0 Her second and third albums for RCA (a label that now seems to specialize in American Idol<\/i> finalists \u2013 nuff said) promptly tanked and put her back to square one as a performer, even as her songwriting career continued to prosper. As if to prove that you can\u2019t keep a good writer down, though, Berg returned four years and at least three #1 songwriting hits later with Sunday Morning To Saturday Night<\/i>, the best album of her career and — if you ask me — one of best albums of the decade by a female country artist.\u00a0 Freed from the clutches of RCA and recording for indie label Rising Tide, Berg was finally able to realize her full potential as both a writer and a performer.\u00a0 Sunday Morning<\/i> is the perfect showcase for Berg\u2019s knack for pairing her writer’s eye for sharp lyrical details with a singer’s ear for catchy melodies.<\/p>\n Form the start, Berg \u00a0mixes smart, upbeat country-folk tunes like “Along For The Ride” and “Some People Fall, Some People Fly” with more traditional contemporary country fare like \u201cThis Train Don\u2019t Run\u201d and the sin-and-redemption-themed title track. \u00a0The latter are consistently goosed to the next level, though, by Berg\u2019s sassy sense of humor and gift for clever yet insightful rhymes.<\/p>\n The latter traits are on fine display when she cuts loose with the country grrl anthem “Back In The Saddle,” featuring a giddy background chorus of Bogguss, Loveless, McBride and Faith Hill and a whip-smart, rib-tickling lyric about a city girl ready to try something new: \u201cWell, it must\u2019ve been the burned out new age coffee house \/ So called sensitive guys \/ I never thought a leatherneck suckin\u2019 on a long neck \/ Could make my temperature rise \/ But you\u2019re so sweet baby, you\u2019re so fine \/ You bring the barbecue and I\u2019ll bring the wine \/ We\u2019ll dance all night \u2018til your belt buckle shines…\u201d\u00a0 (Interesting footnote \u2013 Berg\u2019s co-writer on this one was ex-Heartbreaker and sometime Don Henley collaborator Stan Lynch.)<\/p>\n Midway through the album, \u201cHere You Come Raining On Me\u201d offers a nice change of pace with an intense country-blues.\u00a0 Berg\u2019s songwriting chops shine the brightest, though, on the delicate, wistful “Back When We Were Beautiful,” a gorgeous piano ballad she brought down the house with at the 1997 Country Music Awards. <\/p>\n The last third of this album isn\u2019t quite as special as what came before, but cuts like the mid-tempo \u201cGive Me Tonight\u201d and the contemplative country-rocker \u201cThe Resurrection\u201d are still impressive for the emotional nuance and detail Berg pours into them.\u00a0 There are no weak tracks here, only good ones and even better ones.<\/p>\n Sunday Morning To Saturday Night<\/i> is a triumph, and should have been Berg\u2019s big breakthrough.\u00a0 But working in a genre largely driven by formula and dominated by a few big names, it didn\u2019t sell.\u00a0 For the past decade, Berg has returned to writing for others.\u00a0 Let\u2019s hope she steps up to the mike again one day soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8256],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41054","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-matraca-berg","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41054"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}