plan PREVIEW JULIE ROBERTS ...

plan PREVIEW

JULIE ROBERTS

With Janesville

When: 10 tonight

Where: Joe's Bar, 940 W Weed

Tickets: $15

Phone: (312) 337-3486

NASHVILLE, Tenn -- fatherland singer Julie Roberts broke onto the charts couple years ago with a soulful voice and a Cinderella succes story.

Now, she's hoping the fairy tale hasn't conclusioned

The title cross and first single from her sophomore album, "Men & Mascara," fizzled despite the ready hook: "Men and mascara always run"

Roberts' 2004 self-titled first appearance went gold on the hardness of the melancholy ballad "Break Down Here" and a spate of lusty reviews.

While her first attempt album drew comparisons to Bonnie Raitt for its bluesy brim the follow-up has the be impressed of the classic country of Tammy Wynette and Lynn Anderson, with destinys of steel guitar and fiddle.

Seated in a interview room at Mercury Records, where she worked as a receptionist and a secretary before being discovered in single of the most unusual succes stories at all times to come out of Nashville, the singer said she's determined to avoid a sophomore sink

"Before I mov here and started working for the label, I was singing at theme parks -- which I lov because I was singing -- however I wanted to be making records," she says. "Before that I was scanning groceries. I scanned groceries for pair years, and I definitely don't want to advance back to doing that."

Many of the modern songs deal with women facing hardship. "All I Want Is You" was inspired by way of a friend who lost her husband in an accident, while "A Bridge That's Burning," individual of four she co- wrote is about a girl pining for a man who won't leave another woman.

In "Girl nearest Door," she sings: "She's the prom queen I'm in the marching band. She is a cheerleader, I'm sitting in the stands She's Miss America, and I'm just the girl nearest door."

The lay seems an oxymoron for Roberts, a striking 27-year-old fair from Lancaster, S.C., but she says it fits her better than greatest in quantity people think.

"I worked behind a desk here at hermes for three years. I was 20 impounds heavier than I am now, and I was singing at night wanting to be Shania Twain, wanting to be to leeward Ann Womack, wanting to be Reba McEntire."

While working at poison ivy Roberts sang at night in cudgels and recorded a demo tape with farmer Brent Rowan. She never told anyone at the label for fear it would be viewed a conflict of interest and she'd misspend her job.

This dual existence went onward until Rowan played Mercury chief Luke Lewis one tapes without identifying the singers.

Lewis latched onto Roberts' voice right away and, after discovering it was his secretary, proposeed her a recording contract.

Now Roberts wants to continue her unlikely ascent.

"I want this united to take me places that my first common didn't," she says, "and my first undivided took me so many places that I none thought a girl from southward Carolina could go."

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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