Nashville,TN — When Brandy Clark sings about spunky women trying to survive life in a small town she often draws inspiration from her hometown, Morton.
“I don't think you can ever get away from where you grew up and thankfully for me, it's a great place,” she said.
Morton is a Lewis County logging town, about 45 miles outside Chehalis.
“If you come for a visit, I think you should definitely see the lakes and go to Spiffy's for a Spiffy burger and a shake,” she said.
It was in Morton at the age of nine that Clark first picked up a guitar, setting course for Nashville where she moved 20 years ago with dreams of becoming a recording artist.
Dreams that were at first dashed.
“You try real hard at it and after a while, you hear a lot of no's,” said Clark.
She wasn’t willing to give up her music career, so she took a job on Music Row where she became one of Nashville's most successful songwriters.
“You're writing a song every day,” she said. “It's like you're playing the lottery. You're just playing, thinking 'I'll hit it one day'. And hopefully, if you're lucky like I was one day somebody records that song and makes it a hit.”
That somebody was Miranda Lambert who took "Mama's Little Heart" to No 2 in 2011. More hits followed like Kacey Musgraves's "Follow Your Arrow" and The Band Perry’s “Better Dig Two” which went to No 1.
Most of her songs are co-written with frequent collaborator Shane McAnally, but they are all spiced with Clark’s sense of humor.
“I definitely think life is a dark comedy,” she said.
Clark finally became a recording artist at the age of 38, when her album 12 Stories earned Grammy nominations for best country album and best new artist in 2015. Grady Smith of Entertainment Weekly wrote Clark "keeps things edgy, singing about divorce, drugs, jail, and Jesus--a.k.a. country music's Golden Quadrangle, with matter-of-fact sass and ample twang." Her latest studio album, Big Day in a Small Town, on Warner Bros., offers listeners more dark comedies in places where everybody knows everybody else’s business. Last year she released Live in Los Angeles.
Travel provided by Alaska Airlines, accommodations provided by Hotel Preston.
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