Spotlight On
Paulette Carson

A life well lived is the best foundation for a successful music career. So as Paulette Carlson enters the next chapter in her career, the petite blonde with the distinctive voice is infusing her music with a wealth of experiences that take her artistry to a new level.

She returns to the country music community with a new album, “It’s About Time,” filled with songs about life, love, family and the universal human experiences that unite us. The same voice that sent sparks through country radio leading the groundbreaking band Highway 101 has returned with a compelling collection of new songs that will quickly remind listeners of Carlson’s place in the country music firmament.

As a founding member of Highway 101, Carlson helped re-define the face of country music in the late 80s with such innovative hits “Whiskey, If You Were A Woman,” “The Bed You Made for Me,” “Somewhere Tonight” and “Cry, Cry, Cry.” The band won vocal group of the year honors from both the Academy of Country Music and Country Music Assn. in 1988 and repeated those victories in 1989. Carlson left to pursue a solo venture in 1990, briefly reuniting with the band for its 10th anniversary in the mid 90s. Then she disappeared.

Fans who loved her sassy stage demeanor and emotion-packed vocals have no doubt wondered where Carlson has been for the past few years. In reality, her priorities shifted. “I had a daughter and she traveled on the road with me,” recalls Carlson of juggling the demands of a successful country music career and motherhood. “I didn’t want to be on the road. I felt I couldn’t raise my daughter the way I wanted to. Not that a lot of people don’t do a fine job with their kids on the road, but she didn’t want to go on the road anymore. We had just bought this home in Montana. She had a pink bedroom with white ruffled curtains and she didn’t want to go on the road. So I said ‘Well, that makes my decision very easy, I’m staying home.’”

For the past nine years, Carlson has devoted herself full-time to being a wife and mother, enjoying life in Montana with her husband and daughter, Cali. Not many women could walk away from a successful career, but for Carlson the priority was clear. “I’ve enjoyed it,” she says of her choice. “It was real different than being focused on music, which I have been since I was very young, and not perform anymore, not travel anymore. It was quite different and I had to get used to that other part of me. It’s like there’s a couple different people inside. I put the entertainer/singer/songwriter aside and chose to be mother and wife. It worked for me.’

Carlson, however, could never totally let go of music, a passion she’d had since her childhood in Moose Lake, Minnesota. In the spring of 2005, she returned to Nashville, bought a house and settled in to record her new record. It was completed in 11 days. She had a good reason for her self-imposed deadline. “I wanted to have it for our Vietnam Vets for Operation Homecoming in Branson,” she says of the June event that honored vets. “I had a deadline to meet so I could have it there, so I did it and it was wonderful actually. It all came together so easily.”

Honoring Vietnam vets is a cause near and dear to Carlson’s heart because her brother Gary served in the war. “Just before I decided to move back to Nashville, I had written a song called ‘Thank You Vets,’” she says. “My brother Gary was over there in 1968 and 1969. He was 17.”

Carlson wrote the song as her brother was in the hospital battling cancer. “I pulled my guitar out and I sat on my bed with a pencil and paper and this song ‘Thank You Vets’ wrote itself in a matter of about 10 minutes and I don’t think I changed a lyric on it,” she says. “When a song comes that quickly, all you have to do is pick up a pen and it writes itself. Those songs I take very seriously.”

Carlson says she had written song songs in Montana, but nothing had compelled her to record again the way this song did. “I just put the songs on a shelf and didn’t do anything with them, but in good conscience, I could not put this song up. I feel that it was a very sad time in history for this country to not support our boys and girls, our young people who were over there giving their lives. They came home, you know all that happened to them, it was disgraceful. Who knows why a song like this writes itself after all these years? I cannot question it, and it does not need an intellectual pursuit of why it came now and not then. It came now and I decided I’m going back to work so this song can be heard.”

The song became the catalyst that propelled Carlson back into the music industry. Opting to exercise her creative freedom, Carlson recorded the album on her own. After completing the project, she connected with Pandean Records, a scrappy indie label with an organic approach that matches Carlson’s independent spirit.

“It’s About Time” is a landmark album in an already impressive career, but even more importantly is a potent collection of songs written and sung by a woman with a gift for taking her wealth of experience and channeling it into songs everyone can embrace and their own personal statements. “You grow from your struggles,” says Carlson, smiling as she recalls the different seasons in her life from aspiring club singer to award-winning country artist to wife and mother. “There was a lot of growth. I think I’ve come back with a very down to earth view of life. I feel my feet are on the ground. I’m coming back with more maturity, with the maturity that I didn’t have before.”

Call it maturity. Call it wisdom. No matter what you call it, thankfully Paulette Carlson refuses to call it quits. With her signature long blonde mane flowing and her torchy voice soaring toward the rafters, it’s obvious when she takes the stage, Carlson is a woman who will never be content to rest on her laurels and “It’s Just About Time” is only the latest chapter in a timeless career.

Thanks for the Music!