Kelly's back

Willis' new album, 'Translated From Love,' shows how family life – with husband Bruce Robison and their four kids – and a break from recording can revive one's vocal spirits

"So, uh, when's the new record coming out?" In the spring of 2006, Kelly Willis was doing phone interviews to promote a few gigs in the Midwest and the question kept coming up. After all, it had been four years since the release of the acoustic-themed "Easy" and seven years since Willis declared herself a true artist — not some Nashville reject — with "What I Deserve."

Willis told one interviewer that she's been busy raising four kids and hadn't written a song since the last record. She didn't feel the need to make a statement, as she did on the previous two LPs. "Who cares?" the reporter responded. "Just go in and make a record, even if you have to sing songs by other writers." Every album doesn't have to be a grand expression.

Deborah Cannon
AMERICAN-STATESMAN

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It's been 20 years since Kelly Willis, with her big voice and strong songwriting skills, moved to Austin. Willis takes on a lighter tone on her new album that is out today.

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Willis, 38, took a look at her situation and saw what was holding her back. She was used to being in full control of her records, but with her hands full at home, she was too tired to produce another one. But the reporter was right: It was time a to make a record, and Willis, whose songwriter husband Bruce Robison owns a professional recording studio in East Hyde Park, had no excuses.

Willis tapped her guitar player at the time, Chuck Prophet, to produce. "I knew I couldn't be as involved as I had previously, so I needed someone I could trust," Willis says. "When I told Chuck I wanted to make a fun record, not a dark and deep one, his eyes lit up."

"Translated From Love," which comes out today on Rykodisc, finds Willis revisiting her rockabilly filly roots on "Teddy Boys," sashaying in the bouncy pop of "Sweet Sundown," ladling Tex-Mex sauce all over Iggy Pop's "Success" and mashing up "Kid" by the Pretenders on "Don't Know Why." A couple of songs are almost New Wave.

The new record, whose cover was shot at a booth in Ego's, is more a showcase for the versatility of Willis' voice than the depth of her songwriting, though she does have co-writing credits on the six songs that sound most like they could fit on "Easy" or "What I Deserve."

The album's two strongest tracks, however, were written by occasional Austinite Damon Bramblett. "I've had 'Nobody Wants To Go To the Moon Anymore' on my list for awhile," Willis says of the album's lead track. "And 'Sweet Sundown' was one of my favorite tracks. I had to fight to keep it on the album."

Willis, who was labeled as "difficult" during her years on MCA Nashville because she has an opinion and knows what she wants, didn't always agree with Prophet's suggestions. The two had lengthy e-mail exchanges over material. When he played the Iggy song for her, soon after sessions began in July 2006, she said, flatly, "no." But after Prophet, who first came to prominence as the guitarist of Green On Red, recorded a solo acoustic demo of the song, Willis eventually warmed up to "Success."

The biggest difference in Kelly now vs. the Nashville Kelly of the '90s, she says, is that she's come to love performing. After years of being tutored on how to loosen up for country music crowds who expected a show in those years of Garth and Reba, the formerly stage shy Willis has finally found the joy of public singing.

"It's just so much fun up there," she says, crediting a Rosanne Cash flub during an "Austin City Limits" taping a few years ago with turning her around. "She had made a mistake, but she just laughed and joked with the crowd for awhile and you just got this warm feeling for her." Willis has always been hard on herself, but seeing the graceful, human touch of imperfection inspired her to lighten up. Plus, she says with a laugh, when you've been chasing kids around all day, the stage becomes a sanctuary.

"I think I got the self-critical thing from starting out in rockabilly," she says, recalling her days in the D.C. area channeling Wanda Jackson in Kelly and the Fireballs. "The rockabilly crowd is full of purists who are always judging who's the most authentic." After some gigs, Willis says, she'd be quizzed by guys in leather jackets and pompadours about her knowledge of vintage rock 'n' roll records.

Willis and first husband, drummer Mas Palermo, moved to Austin in 1987 at the suggestion of Monte Warden's Wagoneers, who'd played with them in D.C. After a few gigs at the Hole in the Wall, the scene was abuzz about this gorgeous strawberry blonde with the big voice who came from Patsy Cline country.

She was signed to MCA Nashville by Tony Brown and released three albums that were critically acclaimed, yet failed to sell many copies. Even hiring producer Don Was on the self-titled third LP couldn't lift Willis above all the other pretty girls with big voices.

"I wasn't ready for that deal," Willis says in retrospect. "I was pretty uncomfortable the whole time." A "can't-miss" prospect in 1990, Willis was washed up, at least in her mind, by 1993, when she was dropped by MCA and started making her living singing Henna Chevrolet jingles.

She later married Robison, who has written hits for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill ("Angry All the Time"), George Strait ("Wrapped") and the Dixie Chicks ("Travelin' Soldier"), and got ready to settle down and raise a family. But first she wanted to make one last record, something she could give to her children and grandchildren to show what music had been inside her all along.

"What I Deserve" was massively successful, with KGSR eventually putting five of the tracks in rotation. The record sold more than 100,000 copies — one of the biggest sellers ever on Rykodisc — and was voted the best Austin album of 1999 in the Austin Music Pundits (AMP) awards. "Easy" would top that critics poll for 2002.

Five years later, Willis has re-emerged with a record that just wants to have fun. "We had sent some rough cuts to the label, and everyone was real nervous," she says. "We didn't know that until later, when they heard the full album and they finally got it." This wasn't "Easy, Part 2."

From the experience, Willis learned a big lesson. "Never send rough mixes," she says with a laugh. Especially when your record is a distinct departure.

mcorcoran@statesman.com; 445-3652