Biography

Terri Clark

"Real. Organic. Actual instruments.

"It's who I am, where I've been, what I've done…

"This, to me, brings the singer/songwriter thing that's so much a part of me and puts it through the larger, louder Pain To Kill aesthetics. And, because of the touring and the way I am, it's not just seamless, but it finally makes me feel unified."

With The Long Way Home, Terri Clark emerges as her own woman. A platinum-selling artist, a hard-charging performer, a CMA Female Vocalist of the Year nominee, the 8-time Canadian Country Music Association Fan's Choice Entertainer of the Year assumes true ownership of her music: making an album to her own truth – and the result is a record that captures the tides of adult lives, great passions and the struggles that mark our journey.

"People aren't getting anything from country music the way I think people should, the way I did," says the woman who used to tie her guitar to her wrist to take the bus to an afternoon shift playing for tips at Nashville's storied, but at the time squalid Tootsie's Orchid Lounge. "Poverty, sobriety, drinking, loss, hurt, redemption, fear, desire…

"You know I've put on a lot of miles literally – and in terms of all that's happened in my life. The more I was looking at what I was doing, the more I thought: let's do something really novel, let's tell each other the truth."

"You wanna scream, you wanna cry
You want someone to tell you why
All the hope that's in your heart is not enough
You hit your knees, you shake your fists
Oh, it's the deepest wound there is
When you can't help the one you love…"

Three years earlier, Clark found herself signed to Sony/BMG on the verge of the next phase of what had already been a stellar career. Then her mother Linda was diagnosed with cancer. The woman who'd driven her then18-year old daughter across the Canadian border to pursue her dream of writing and singing country songs was suddenly facing the fight of her life.

In that moment, everything about the dark-haired beauty's priorities shifted.

"When the most important person in your whole life… when the doctors tell you they're going to be taken away, it pulls you up short," Clark allows. "You don't think about expiration dates with the people you love, but that's the reality. And that kind of thing makes you get very real very very fast."

Pausing, Clark smiles and acknowledges it even made her reconsider the songs she was being asked to sing. "I wasn't connecting with what people wanted me to record. It felt like I was on an assembly line: nothing new, nothing fresh or true to me – and it seemed like the fire was going out.

"After facing this thing with my Mom, some things in my own life, how could I be limited to what I was recording based on a notion? That would leave so much of the growth, so much of me on the table. I realized I wanna be a grown-up dealing with adult issues and deeper things, the things that really really matter… Not in this heavy way, but in a way that puts people in their lives in a real way.

"All those things add up and really make you think about what you're doing, what a privilege this is – and the responsibility to your fans. And if you're being honest about what matters, how can you make music that doesn't matter? I've had some great songs for where I was, but if I was still recording things like 'When Boys Meets Girl,' that would be tragic."

"When the ride leaves you dizzy and life's such a blur
There's no difference between where you are and where you were
It's movin' too fast, and God knows it will
Sometimes you need some time sittin' still"
"Merry Go Round"

So, Terri Clark put everything on hold. She returned to Canada and her mother's side. She thought long and hard about who she was, what she wanted, choices she'd made and who she wanted to be. With a clarity from facing her mother's illness, it was a matter of priorities and quality.

With Linda Clark in remission, she returned to the U.S. and asked for a release from one of the most powerful record companies in the world. She had a vision for what she wanted her music to be, to say, to do – and she was willing to embrace the risk of making a record on her own to create the music she wanted.

What emerged was an album that was as alive, as strong, as soul-country as the woman herself. Enlisting some of Nashville's best session musicians – Shannon Forrest, Glen Worff, Brent Mason, Kenny Greenberg, B James Lowrey, Paul Franklin, John Hobbs, Bryan Sutton, Stuart Duncan, – Clark decamped at SoundStage for two days, three sessions and brought her music to life, Whether it's the aggressively turbo-charged country of "Poor Girl's Dreams," the steamy "If You Want Fire," the randy blues-steeped "Gypsy Boots" or the seeking solace in the insanity "The One You Love," her full-throated tenor continues to blaze with a full spectrum of emotions.

"I actually cast this record based on everything that these guys know and do – because to put these guys in the room, they will respond to the songs and translate them in a way that's more than any given 'play this part.' It's trusting the musicians and their hearts, knowing they'll feel this stuff.

"So we got Studio B. It was cramped, sweaty, very live – and we were all on top of each other. But we really went for it rather than dissecting. It was very much a mandate of 'Do what you feel…' Everyone was very much in the moment, playing and laughing, doing what they do best – and very much feeling these songs. As the writer, it was thrilling to see them respond to what we had."

"I was born in gypsy boots with a guitar on my back
"Rebel soul and attitude just like Johnny Cash
This is just another town and I'm only passing through
And I get around… in my gypsy boots"

"That song's not just about being a musician," allows the woman who's had eleven Top Ten country hits, "but being a freespirit, the things that make you different from everybody else. To embrace that rather than runaway from it, that's a celebration… That's one of the things I think I've always offered my fans.

"There are fans now who've grown up with me. They were 12, 13 years old, coming with their parents and now they've got kids of their own. They've always come up to me, telling me they feel better about being who they are because I wasn't just a pretty girl, but someone who maybe played that guitar, who laughed too loud, told stories where I was kind of a goof… and that's stuck with me.

"If I can do anything for my fans, I want them to feel strong just the way they are…"

That thinking you should be someone else is examined with compassion on "If I Could Be You," the rush to catch up and be more gets addressed in "Merry Go Round," the will for another to drop their guards and defenses anchor "Tough With Me" and the delicate balance of two lives in one love is explored in "You Tell Me."

"Look, I am way more like my fans than a lot of the country stars," Clark allows. "I have a passion for making music, but my life is pretty normal. Once my Mom got sick, well, I looked at a lot of the things I was doing, ways I was coping, things I was chasing and realized: there is a better way."

"I took shelter hiding from the pain
In any place to make it go away
In the arms of a stranger
Keeping company with danger
Or staring down the barrel if a gun
At the botton of a bottle
Getting numb with every swallow
It's easy when it's what you've always done
With a million ways to run…"

"Not only am I not ignoring the big pink elephants, I'm putting it right out there," Clark allows. "You know, 'Million Ways To Run' is a hair uncomfortable, but do you know how many people are going through this? Who're really struggling? I've had a lot of years of partying – and I had a lot of friends go through it, too.

"And there are some regrets, but there's no reason for regrets. That's part of growing up. When you look around and you get scared, you make choices – to escape whatever it is; but I don't think I'm special, and this isn't some big responsibility. This isn't about being a spokesperson or a hero, it's about telling the truth, my truth, which happens to be a truth a lot of other people live, too… Honestly, it's that thing of what brings you to the crossroads is never some big deal, it's just a lot of wrong turns, you turns, tough moments that all add up.

"Just like 'The One You Love' happens to way too many people. All of a sudden, there you are.

"But in the end, it's all part of the journey, what life's about – and maybe if we slow down, go a little deeper, we can savor it more. I think we sometimes need permission for that, to be real about being human, but that's okay, too. That's what these songs are about, why I made this record: to remind me as well as share with the people who love my music.

"You know, I'm being as I am… not 'I-am-woman-hear-me-roar' or 'I'll rip your face off'," Clark offers with finality. "No, this is the part of me that gets hurt and scared, that wants and dreams and knows it's all so much bigger than I am. Once you figure that out, you decide to make the things you do matter. That's all you've got that you can deal with – and that's something it took me all the way to hear to figure out."

It may be The Long Way Home, but listening to the songs, it was absolutely worth the journey. In a world where stars fall from the sky, sizzle substitutes for meaning and people often get so bogged down in the pain, they forget the beauty of living, Terri Clark has come to realize what matters to her. Once she did, she knew how to make music her way: country injected with force, rock, soul, strength, clarity, blues, passion, conviction.

"All of this has given me more of that desire to be how I am as an artist. There is a permanence to my songs that maybe they didn't have before. But I know this: they can be here long after I'm gone – and honestly, facing what I've been facing the last three years – that is a very big thing."