Suzy Bogguss was one of the most acclaimed female country singers of the late '80s and '90s, Born in Aledo, Illinois, in 1956, Suzy began singing in her church choir at age five. She learned piano and drums as a child, and took up guitar as a teenager. She starred in several musicals at Aledo High School, where she was crowned homecoming queen during her senior year.
While studying art at Illinois State University, she performed in local coffeehouses and clubs, and after graduating in 1980, she hit the road, playing wherever she could find a gig around the Midwest, Northeast, and even parts of Canada.
Suzy moved to Nashville in 1985 and worked as a demo singer while playing in clubs by night. She later took a job singing at the Dollywood theme park and sold tapes of her own music. One ended up in the hands of a Liberty/Capitol label executive, who singed her to a recording contract.
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Bogguss released her first singles in 1987, and her debut album, Somewhere Between, appeared the next year. It received hugely positive reviews for blending country's past and present, and featured covers of Patsy Montana's "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart" and Merle Haggard's "Somewhere Between," and also produced another hit with "Cross My Broken Heart." The 1990 follow-up, Moment of Truth, did well, but did not broaden her audience which was a goal for the album.
That all changed with 1991's gold-selling Aces, which spun off a total of four hit singles: "Someday Soon," "Letting Go," "Outbound Plane," and the title track. The last three songs all made the country Top Ten).
Her 1992 follow-up, Voices in the Wind - which was more pop-oriented - brought the highest-charting hit of her career in the number two cover of John Hiatt's "Drive South"; it also became her second straight gold album.
In 1993, her next album, Somethin' Up My Sleeve gave her two additional Top Five hits in "Just Like the Weather" and "Hey Cinderella." For her next outing, 1994's Simpatico, Bogguss featured an album full of duets with guitar legend Chet Atkins.
Bogguss took a bit of time off to start a family with her husband and songwriting partner, Doug Crider, and returned in 1996 with Give Me Some Wheels, which proved a commercial disappointment. The same was true of 1998's Nobody Love, Nobody Gets Hurt, and Bogguss subsequently parted ways with Capitol and signed on with the smaller Platinum label.
Her label debut, Suzy Bogguss (aka It's a Perfect Day), failed to reverse her downward sales spiral. In 2003, after a brief hiatus, Bogguss returned to the airwaves with Swing, a stylish collection of pop, jazz, and swing tunes from the likes of Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, and Duke Ellington.
Despite its huge leap from her country music origins, it was a critical success. She then released Sweet Danger in 2007, which failed to reach the country charts, but peaked at #4 on the jazz charts.
In 2007 she released a collection of all new tunes, Sweet Danger, on the Loyal Dutchess label.
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