We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

I became a Suzy Bogguss fanatic the first time I saw her perform (at the Dakota in downtown Minneapolis). I was unfamiliar with her work at the time, but I knew she’d been a country star for a while back in the ’90s. When Dakota owner Lowell Pickett sent out an email urging his A Train customers to check out her show at the club that night, I thought it couldn’t be bad.

In the event, that understated matters considerably. Suzy took the stage with lead guitarist Pat Bergeson and bass player Charlie Chadwick. She promptly kicked off the show with three of her hits: “Outbound Plane,” “Aces,” and “Someday Soon.” They’re the kind of songs that many artists would save for an encore, but she put them right up front. I was wowed.

I’ve gone back to see Suzy almost every time she’s returned to town over the past 14 or 15 years. I love her personality. I love her sense of humor. I love her singing. I love her taste. She’s a wonderful performer. Her husband is the talented songwriter Doug Crider. He is a friendly gentleman who attends to the details on the road.

This past Wednesday evening I attended both of Suzy’s two shows at the Dakota. I snapped the photo at the right from my seat in front of the stage — probably not the best vantage point. This time around Suzy was accompanied by Craig Smith on lead guitar and Rob Price on bass. In posting the videos below I’m drawing exclusively on Suzy’s setlist at the Dakota this past week.

Suzy’s vocals are transcendent. The gentlemen accompanying Suzy both contributed harmony vocals. Together the three of them produce a rich sound on the strings. The live video of “It’s Too Late” (below, a song from Suzy’s Prayin’ For Spring disc of late last year) displays the lineup and gives a good idea of their sound. The song was written by Suzy along with her husband and Pat Bergeson. It is, I think it’s fair to say, hot.

Suzy entertains with abandon. She knows a good song when she hears it and she makes it better when she performs it. She has also written good ones with her husband and others.

Suzy always says that Aces (1991) is the album that put her on the map. She revisited Aces as a more mature artist with a less highly produced sound in a twenty-fifth anniversary recording she titled Aces Redux. Suzy began both of her sets on Wednesday night with Nanci Griffith’s “Outbound Plane.” This is the version from Aces Redux.

The folk artist Cheryl Wheeler wrote the title track of the album that put Suzy on the map. Aces, by the way, was her third album. She was frustrated by the failure of her label to take full advantage of her abilities up to that point. When Suzy pressed producer Jimmy Bowen for a song that would showcase her stuff, he suggested “Aces,” and he was right. (See this Music Row interview with Suzy.) Again, this is the Aces Redux version.

Suzy also played “Someday Soon” in both of her sets on Wednesday night. Below is the Aces original. The song was written by Ian Tyson and originally appeared on Ian and Sylvia’s Northern Journey (1964). Those of us of a certain age had it brought to our attention by Judy Collins on Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (1968). Suzy’s cover pays respectful tribute to — i.e., closely follows — Judy’s version.

Suzy played “Night Rider’s Lament” when someone called it out during her first show, but I think it was on her setlist in any event. She also played it in the second show. She originally recorded it for Somewhere Between, her 1989 debut album. I think it’s a song she has had in her repertoire since she was an itinerant folkie making her way up in the business playing spots like Minneapolis’s Coffeehouse Extempore. After she played it during her first set, someone asked Suzy who wrote the song. She seized on the opportunity to talk warmly about Michael Burton. The song lets her show off her yodeling chops. It’s a staple of her live shows. I think it grabs her audience every time she performs it.

Suzy recorded John Hiatt’s “Drive South” for Voices In the Wind (1992). It turned into a number 2 country hit. I don’t think the video hurt one bit.

Suzy played “Hey Cinderella” in both sets. She wrote it with Matraca Berg and Gary Harrison. The song turned into another one of her hits when it was released as the second single off Something Up My Sleeve (1993).

Suzy recorded the crowdfunded Merle Haggard tribute album Lucky on her Loyal Dutchess label in 2014. I still have the t-shirt and autographed disc she sent out to thank her contributors. She sang two songs from it during her first set. This is “Today I Started Loving You Again.”

Suzy’s husband wrote “Letting Go,” another highlight of the album that put her on the map. Below is the version she recorded for Aces Redux. She really poured her heart into it on Wednesday night.

Suzy and her husband produced Prayin’ for Spring for her own label. They also wrote or collaborated with others on the writing of all the songs. “Sunday Birmingham” paints a picture drawn from her life on the road.

“It All Falls Down To the River” seems to me a brilliant song. American Songwriter briefly wrote it up upon its release last year. It comments on American life and history in a Faulknerian mood. With the gospel backing by the McCrary Sisters, what we have here approximates a legitimate Sunday morning song.

Suzy recorded American Folk Songbook (2011) for her own label. She stepped out from behind the microphone with her accompanists to play “Red River Valley” for the encore of both shows on Wednesday night.

Walt Whitman wrote the poem “I hear American singing.” I allude to it frequently in this series. In Suzy’s work you can hear America singing “strong melodious songs.”