Loveless gets lots of love

Patty Loveless loves Georgia, and the Peach State is showing its love for Ms. Loveless by inducting her into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame on Sept. 17.

In keeping with tradition, she will close the hall of fame banquet by singing the Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael song Georgia on My Mind.

For several years, Ms. Loveless has lived on 150 acres near Dallas, Ga., with her husband, record producer Emory Gordy Jr. (who was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1992 in the nonperformer category).

They will become the first couple inducted individually into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, which began in 1979 with two inductees, Ray Charles and Bill Lowery.

"It especially is an honor to be with Emory in the hall of fame," Ms. Loveless said in a telephone call from her home. "That makes it even more special and meaningful to me.

"I didn't get to be there the night he was inducted. His daughter was there but I was on the road."

Tickets to the banquet in the Thomas Murphy Ballroom of Atlanta's World Congress Center are available at $75 by contacting the Georgia Music Festival at (770) 934-0906. The tickets include a reception at 6:30 p.m., dinner at 7:15 and induction show at 8:30 p.m. As usual, the show will be broadcast live over Georgia PBS television stations (WCES-TV, Channel 20).

Other inductees will be: Nonperformer, record producer Doug Johnson; Mary Tallent Pioneer Award, The Sunshine Boys, a Southern gospel group; and Best Group, Newsong, a contemporary gospel group.

Fans of Ms. Loveless also can catch her in concert Sept. 24 at Wild Adventures park in Valdosta, Ga.

Ms. Loveless' induction into the hall of fame couldn't come at a better time - just days behind the Sept. 13 release of her new CD, Dreamin' My Dreams.

She and her husband wrote Big Chance. Her husband and Joe Henry wrote When I Reach the Place I'm Going, a song about a young girl dying of cancer.

The first single off the CD is Keep Your Distance, composed by Richard Thompson.

Georgia-born songwriter Tony Arata, who wrote Ms. Loveless' 1994 hit single Here I Am, co-wrote Old Soul and Nobody Here by That Name.

"Emory and I discussed it, and what we tried to accomplish with this new record is to mix the two (acoustic and contemporary) together and make it feel sort of like a concert from the very first song to the very last one," she said.

Ms. Loveless' favorite song on the CD is a great ballad, When Being Who You Are Is Not Enough. It was composed by Jim Lauderdale and Leslie Satcher and features Emmylou Harris singing background vocals.

"Is there any time when being Patty Loveless isn't enough?'' I asked her.

"Sometimes I think it is for anybody," she replied softly. "I think that song speaks up for a lot of people. Sometimes you just don't feel like you're enough, but you can't let that control you.

Don Rhodes has written about country music for 34 years. Reach him at (706) 823-3214 or at don.rhodes@morris.com.