Throwing Caution to the Wind

Terri Hendrix’s literate, off-kilter narratives, delivered with a voice that is equal parts playful, intimate and sweetly fragile, has won over audiences throughout the country.

By: Matt Smith
   Terri Hendrix is spending the morning of her 35th birthday sick at home. The singer-songwriter, who lives in San Marcos, Texas, is resting up for two weekend gigs in the Lone Star State and an upcoming mini tour of the Northeast.
   "It’s just a little cold. I’ll get over it," she says in a friendly drawl, returning to the phone after locating a box of tissues. "Last night there was supposed to be a surprise party, but I was so sick. My friends were planning on taking me out to dinner. I decided not to hit the wine."
   Ms. Hendrix promises to be fully healed when she plays at Concerts at the Crossing in Titusville Feb. 22. The San Antonio native, who’s been crisscrossing the country for more than a decade, contends she’s never canceled a show because of illness.
   "Feb. 1 of last year I had two shows in Austin," she says. "It was packed — I hadn’t played there in months and this was my hometown crowd. I was as sick as I’ve ever been and had no voice, but the crowd was singing along and I had one of my best shows. I literally should have been hospitalized."
   Audiences respond to Ms. Hendrix’s literate, off-kilter narratives, delivered with a voice that is equal parts playful, intimate and sweetly fragile. The do-it-yourself success story recently released her fourth studio album (and sixth overall), The Ring, on her own Wilory Records, but feels most at home on the road.
   "If I don’t have to hack through chicken wire to get to the stage and I’m not in the middle of a Bud Light commercial, I feel like it’s gonna be great," she says. "I really love to travel, and don’t enjoy being in one place. And what’s really fun is that the same songs work (or don’t work) everywhere. ‘The Fact Is’ (from ‘The Ring’) doesn’t go over like it should… ‘Wallet,’ an old song, gets the same reaction wherever I go."
   To music fans in Texas, the genre-bending Ms. Hendrix is anything but an unknown, playing about 40 shows a year in her home state. She’s also popular in the Philadelphia area thanks to WXPN, where songs such as "Gravity" (from 1998’s Wilory Farm) and the title track from Places in Between (2000) found their way into rotation. Yet, despite consistent critical praise, a mailing list of 30,000 people and a strong presence on the Web, Ms. Hendrix fights to get played on the radio in other parts of the country.
   "I know my music’s quirky, but with radio airplay you can reach so many more people," she says. "I’ve been doing the business since 1990 and the label since 1996, and the road became a lot easier with the Internet… but I might not get on radio stations or even press a lot of times."
   Ms. Hendrix is currently enjoying her biggest brush with fame, thanks to a song she co-wrote with business and musical partner Lloyd Maines, a venerable Texas musician and producer who’s also the father of Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks. The country superstars recorded "Lil’ Jack Slade" on their latest smash release, Home, and it’s up for a "Best Country Instrumental Performance" at the Grammy Awards, which she’ll attend the night after her Titusville performance.
   "It’s really exciting," Ms. Hendrix says. "I’m thrilled. I’m bringing my sister, and Lloyd’s taking his wife — and I’m actually going to wear a dress for the first time in a long time."
   Behind the multi-platinum sales and stadium tours, the Dixie Chicks (Ms. Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison) are, like her, "musicians who just want to play," Ms. Hendrix says. "And they’re just good people. It’s a fluke that they took off, three strong-willed Texas women."
   "Lil’ Jack Slade" is actually an older tune Ms. Hendrix couldn’t ever find the lyrics to fit. "It had never felt right," she says. "A lot of times I write the music and lyrics separately, and often end up with music that I can’t use… but thank God I saved my leftovers."
   "The Fact Is" and "Truth is Strange" on The Ring both endured similar gestation periods before Ms. Hendrix found lyrics to match, as did the title track. "The Ring" is the true story of the piece of jewelry her father began crafting out of a 1955 half-dollar coin on a ship returning from the Vietnam War and finished for her mother years later.
   "I worked on that for seven years," she says. "I wanted it to be right, but it was always too personal to put on a record. I agonized over the lyrics — I kept calling him and reading them to him: ‘Dad, they gave you the Purple Heart and the Soldier’s Medal?’ ‘They don’t give you those,’ he said. ‘You earn them.’ I really had to make sure."
   The bouncy "From Another Planet" came together a little more spontaneously. "I was calling Lloyd on his cell phone, while he and his wife were Christmas shopping," Ms. Hendrix says. "I’d sing a verse and then call back, humming the bass line. I wanted it to sound like the Violent Femmes, but it ended up sounding more like light-hearted jazz, more bubbly than angst-driven."
   It’s not unusual for Ms. Hendrix to reference two seemingly unrelated musicians or music styles in once sentence. As her hard-to-pigeonhole songs attest, her music collection includes as much jazz and pop as it does country, as much Ella Fitzgerald and Rickie Lee Jones as Patsy Cline and Hank Williams.
   "I love music," she says "I remember the first time I heard Patty Griffin or Joan Osborne. I love John Prine and Paul Simon, all the different colors. And I don’t think it should matter what people think of your music — if you have to worry, something’s wrong. Just put it out there and throw caution to the wind."
Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines play Concerts at the Crossing, the Unitarian Universalist Church at Washington Crossing, 268 Washington Crossing-Pennington Road, Titusville, Feb. 22, 8 p.m. Rebecca Hall opens. Tickets cost $15. For information, call (609) 406-1424. On the Web: www.crossingconcerts.com. Terri Hendrix on the Web: www.terrihendrix.com