It's not an uncommon event for artists and labels to part ways - Patty Loveless, Vince Gill both did - and it often happens for the better.
As a little girl, I remember thinking how great it was going to be, to be a musician when I grew up, how I was going make a jazz album, then a country album, then a rock album.
Music is like church to me. It's as spiritual a connection as I just about ever make.
Anytime you get attention for something, you want to keep doing it.
I found when I started getting serious about writing music, that my writing was country songs. It was basically country subject matter, country melodies and simple chord changes.
That's the ideal to me - to make music that is well-crafted and sophisticated technically, but has a soul and a heart that touches a lot of people.
Getting up in front of an audience is my biggest motivation.
There's nothing better about being a musician than live performing.
Now that I'm married it's hard to be away from my husband, the house, my dog. But I really love being on the road.
To willfully harm another human being goes against everything I believe in.
If things are just gliding along easily and there's no real obstacles or hurdles, those typically aren't my most productive times, personally or professionally.
To make a label change is a difficult time because there is that lag period between the product you had out and the next project you're going to make on your new label.
I'm not a mainstream country artist, and I never will be.
I'm building my fan base around the fact that here's someone who does things a little differently, who brings other musical influences into country music, and you never really know what she's going to do next.
They love soul music in the U.K.
It's a great thing not trying to make music for a label but just for the love of music again.
It used to be that labels would spend two or three or four albums developing a new artist before they threw in the towel and moved on, which kind of gave the artist an opportunity to grow.
If there's any profit to be had in Nashville-Underground, it's very long term. We're not about money, which gives us an edge over the labels.
No one would ever have heard Marcus Hummon's version of 'Cowboy, Take Me Away' if he hadn't recorded it on the Sampler. I would have heard it because I hear him sing all the time, but no one else would have been able to enjoy it, and now they can and will be able to for years.
The most difficult part is just to get heard.
