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Heidi Newfield sensed right away that she was on to something special when she wrote “Johnny and June,” the song that doffs a Stetson to the long-standing love affair between the first couple of country music, Johnny and June Carter Cash.
The challenge for her, Newfield says, was to make sure the song resonated beyond what could have been merely a well-chosen bit of name-dropping.
“I wrote it with complete reverence for these people I had been able to spend some time with,” she said backstage at CBS studios in L.A., just moments after wrapping a performance of the song for “The Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson.” “It wasn’t, ‘Let’s take two iconic people and use them in a song.’ It was very personal. And we scrutinized every word because I wanted it to transcend the big personalities it was about and become something everyone could relate to. Who doesn’t want a love like that?”
After writing the song, “I brought a demo to Tony’s office and played it for him and a couple other people,” she says, referring to Tony Brown, veteran Nashville, Tenn., producer and record label exec. “I said, ‘I think I’ve just written my first single.’ I played it for them and they said, ‘We think you did, too.’ It was a no-brainer. The song really fit my voice.”
It also brought her new fans and attention from the Academy of Country Music. At the award ceremony in April, she vied for top female vocalist, single and song for “Johnny and June” and video. Her five nominations are topped only by Brad Paisley’s six. Not bad for someone who just put out her debut album, “What Am I Waiting For.”
Of course, it never hurts to be a “new” artist with a track record, which in the 38-year-old Northern California native’s case includes the three albums and eight singles she charted earlier this decade as songwriter and lead singer for the trio Trick Pony.
In fact, it was Trick Pony that enabled Newfield to meet the Cashes in the first place. Johnny was a fan of their music and befriended the band members, even recording an introduction on one of the songs on their debut album. He and June would periodically have the band over to their home to talk and play.
Newfield says she felt “joy, elation and validation” when she heard her name called repeatedly on the February morning the nominations were announced on CBS’ “The Early Show.” But the icing on the cake was feedback she got on “Johnny and June” from John Carter Cash, the couple’s son. “He said he loved the song, and the really great thing was he said he knew his parents would be honored and proud.”
The success of the song has kick started the new phase of her life and music, reinforcing her feeling that she made the right decision in leaving Trick Pony, which she’d formed with guitarist Keith Burns and bassist Ira Dean nearly a decade ago.
Each of the trio’s three albums outcharted its predecessor, with 2005’s “R.I.D.E.” reaching No. 20 on the country chart. But Newfield felt, musically if not commercially, the band had gone as far as it was likely to, and she decided to make a break.
That’s probably more of a risk in country music, where fans tend to develop deep loyalties to acts they latch onto and can perceive a departure like hers as an act of disloyalty.
Scoring a hit single out of the gate, she notes, “has been a catalyst that’s allowed me to keep the Trick Pony fans and helped to create a new audience for me. Now there are a lot of people who are asking, ‘Who is this woman and why should I want to buy her music?’ ”
She’s a woman whose dusky voice was honed in many a bar gig, where she sang and played blues harmonica, an instrument she still plays in performances. When she came to Nashville, she says she was crushed when she was told her unusual sound meant “I wouldn’t make a good demo singer, because I didn’t sound like anybody else. I was too young and green to know then that that was a good thing.
“Timing has so much to do with everything,” she says. “We named the album ‘What Am I Waiting for,’ and it’s really been like, ‘What was I waiting for?’ ”
