The Dreaming Fields [Exclusive Green & Blue]

When it comes to songwriting, Berg’s new album is a reminder of the remarkable alchemy she’s capable of.

Since the age of 19—when she had her first number one cut—Matraca Berg has rarely been without an outlet for her songs. Sometimes it’s been her own progressive country albums, other times an album of Trisha Yearwood’s, or Patty Loveless’s, or Deana Carter’s, and so on. But if Berg was going to record a song that she wrote or co-wrote, she’d always do it before anyone else did.

On The Dreaming Fields—the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer’s first album of new material in nearly a decade and a half, and one she says she needed considerable encouragement to make—the old order no longer matters. So what if Yearwood cut a regal version of the title track four years ago? Berg reclaims it with her own breathy, from-the-gut performance. And both Carter and Kenny Chesney (with Grace Potter for a duet partner) had already done “You and Tequila”. Berg lends it quiet desperation.

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American Songwriter
Matraca Berg - The Dreaming Fields Review