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After years playing bigger role, singer back on stage

Michelle Nixon found early success as a bluegrass singer, then stepped out of the spotlight for several years for one big reason. Now she's back and moving along toward stardom.

By LOGAN NEILL
Published April 28, 2006

SPRING LAKE - It's interesting to note that one of bluegrass music's fresh new faces has been around the music game for quite a while.

Sixteen years before she was named Female Vocalist of the Year at this year's Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America awards ceremony, Michelle Nixon earned the same nod from the Virginia Folk Music Association.

It wasn't necessarily that such music appreciation organizations felt Nixon was unworthy of such honors all those years. Rather, the affable singer-songwriter had tasks more important than being a dedicated performer. Like being a dedicated mom.

"I guess I did it a little backward," Nixon told the Huntington Herald-Dispatch last year. "But I was really committed to being a mother and a wife, and I think people do kind of respect that my priorities were in the right place. I am still juggling that."

By all accounts, Nixon, who performs with her band Drive on Saturday and Sunday at the Sertoma Youth Ranch Spring Bluegrass Festival, has done both well. Since relaunching her music career four years ago, the 40-something mother of three has been steadily building a dedicated legion of fans throughout the country.

Nixon, however, is the first to admit that she's not the dyed-in-the-wool bluegrass singer in the mold of contemporaries such as Alison Krauss, Rhonda Vincent and Claire Lynch. Rather, her influences run more along the lines of country songbirds such as Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton.

"I sing like I sing, and I like to intermingle both audiences," Nixon told the Herald-Dispatch. "We try to pick selections and songs that really capitalize on that sound."

Indeed, Nixon's voice wraps itself around classic country anthems such as Blue Kentucky Girl and Roses in the Snow.

However, one song has brought Nixon more success than she ever imagined. Following the release of her 2003 debut album, My Turn, her version of Tom T. and Dixie Hall's Harlan quickly caught on with bluegrass radio, and is still in heavy rotation on XM Radio's Bluegrass Junction broadcast.

Nixon is a fairly prolific songwriter herself. Her latest project, What More Should I Say? contains two originals, Prisoner of Your Love and Heart of Stone. Nixon says that more are on the way.

"I love to write, and getting to perform on top of that is a real blessing," Nixon said. "Probably the neatest thing for us and our biggest compliment is when someone requests an original.''

[Last modified April 28, 2006, 08:34:54]