Country singer plans ‘intimate’ show as a thank-you to fans

PUBLICITY PHOTO

Jo Dee Messina’s next album, “Unmistakable,” is due out in the spring.

By Jerry Fink (contact)

Friday, Nov. 6, 2009 | 2 a.m.

The audience controls the show when Jo Dee Messina performs.

“It’s all up to the fans,” says Messina, who plays an acoustic show Monday at the House of Blues. She says she’ll start off with a song and then the fans take over with requests and questions.

“Each night is different because different people will want to hear different stuff. It’s a pretty intimate evening.”

This is part of Messina’s Music Room Series Tour. It won’t be confused with her regular concert tour, which requires tractor-trailers for all the equipment for her band. A small trailer is enough for this one.

“We know a lot of hard-core fans are buying the tickets and this is just our way of saying thanks,” the 39-year-old entertainer says from a Nashville studio where she is finishing the last two songs on her next album, “Unmistakable.”

She did her first Music Room tour in the spring and it was so successful she decided to do it again this fall. She’s making a West Coast swing this month and will play a few more dates in the Midwest after the first of the year.

The intimate night of entertainment is designed to let folks get to know her, and vice versa.

“I wanted to connect with them,” she says.

Messina was born in Massachusetts and attracted to country music by Hank Williams Sr., Alabama, the Judds, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Reba McEntire. She was 19 when she moved to Nashville in 1989 to pursue a music career.

Her self-titled first album was released in 1996 by Curb records and produced by Byron Gallimore and rising star Tim McGraw. It included the hits “Heads Carolina, Tails California” and “You’re Not in Kansas Anymore.”

Her second album, 1998’s “I’m Alright,” included three No. 1 singles — “Bye Bye,” “I’m Alright” and “Stand Beside Me.” Messina’s first No. 1 album was “Burn” in 2000, which included a hit duet with McGraw, “Bring on the Rain.”

Her 2005 album, “Delicious Surprise,” included the hit “My Give a Damn’s Busted,” originally recorded by Joe Diffie.

That was about the time she began “Unmistakable,” which spent a lot of time on the shelf. It’s now scheduled to be released in the spring.

“It’s been a long struggle to get it out,” she says.