Jackson Community College

Heaven, Heartache, and the Power of Trisha Yearwood:

Artist brings her country sound to Potter Center

Country superstar Trisha Yearwood is coming to the Jackson Community College Potter Center for a concert at 7 p.m. Sunday, March 16, with opening act Lori McKenna.

Yearwood’s new CD, “Heaven, Heartache & The Power of Love,” an acclaimed recording on her new Big Machine Records label, is now in stores, and her album “Love Songs” is on the Top Country Albums chart.  She has been a favorite on the country charts since her self-titled debut album was released in 1991.  With hits like “She’s In Love With the Boy,” “How Do I Live,” and “I Would’ve Loved You Anyway,” Yearwood has one of the most majestic voices in Nashville. 

The native of Monticello, Georgia served her apprenticeship in Nashville as a student at Belmont University, a receptionist at MTM Records and as a “demo” singer for dozens of aspiring songwriters. She was hired as a backup vocalist by the then up-and-coming Garth Brooks and appeared on Brooks’ 1989 debut and its blockbuster follow-up, “No Fences.”  Following her signing by MCA, Trisha burst on the radio airwaves with the frisky “She’s In Love With the Boy” in the spring of 1991. The single roared to No. 1, beginning a string of what would become nine No. 1 hits, such as “That’s What I Like About You,” “The Woman Before Me,” “XXX’s and OOO’s,” “Thinkin’ About You” and “A Perfect Love.”

She holds three Grammys, three Country Music Association honors, and 19 top 10 singles to her credit. In 1999 Trisha Yearwood was inducted into the cast of the Grand Ole Opry.

In 2001 she was chosen to sing in Washington, D.C. by the National Endowment for the Arts at its “Songs of the Century” celebration, was honored by her hometown with the naming of “Trisha Yearwood Parkway” and was called to reprise her recurring role on the CBS-TV series “JAG.” Yearwood has contributed to strong-selling soundtracks of such films as “Hope Floats,” “Stuart Little,” “Thing Called Love” and “Honeymoon in Vegas,” as well as to a number of charity CDs.

“Singing gives me such joy,” Yearwood says. “And it seems to give other people joy. It’s what I believe I am supposed to do.”

Lori McKenna

Opening for Trisha Yearwood will be the up-and-coming performer Lori McKenna of Massachusetts. McKenna, a mother of five, has released her album, “Unglamorous,” on Warner Bros. Records/Stylesonic Records. She is an acclaimed singer-songwriter who was thrust into the limelight last year when superstar Faith Hill included three of McKenna’s songs on her No. 1 album, “Fireflies,” including Hill’s poignant “Stealing Kisses.” “I don’t remember ever being impacted by a songwriter the way I was with her,” Hill says. “Her writing is masterful, with a pureness that is completely unaffected.” The songs on McKenna’s album traverse familiar domestic territory. “Unglamorous” — co-written with Nashville songwriter Liz Rose (Tim McGraw, Lee Ann Womack) — lovingly depicts the family home’s faded curtains, threadbare rugs, and crowded dinners at the kitchen table as “No frills, no fuss / Perfectly us, unglamorous.” Lori had the help of some top-notch background vocalists as well: Tim McGraw himself sings backup on “Drinkin’ Problem,” as does Faith Hill on “Falter.”

Tickets for Trisha Yearwood, with opening act Lori McKenna, are $55 and $50 and may be purchased by calling the Potter Center Box Office at 517.796.8600, or online at www.jccmi.edu. This concert is sponsored by A.G. Edwards, a division of Wachovia Securities, LLC, member SIPC.