Hi! Sorry I haven't written in a while...I have been in Nashville at Country Radio Seminar - pretty fun...lots of work though! At the seminar it was announced that I will be touring with Brad Paisley. If you don't already know his stuff, he's great! He is a throw back to the old school type of artist who writes, sings, and plays great - and in his case, he really plays GREAT! Maybe he will give me a few guitar pointers! I just gotta start playing a little lead guitar - there's no excuse besides pure laziness on my part! I know alot of you would rather see me solo acoustic in a theatre rather than with a band before Brad, but I promised myself I would invest in my career, and reach out to new fans, and keep building my career - so this will be good for me, and alot of fun hopefully along the way. Brad is really a nice guy, and I think you will appriciate his talent and musicianship. I'm excited for my fans to get to know him, and for his fans to get to know me.

I can recomend two great songs of Brad's that you may like - one is called "Letter To Me", which is on the radio now, and is really good. My favorite song of Brad's is "Waiting on a Woman" - actually, a friend of mine, Wynn Varbil, helped write that song. It's really a great song - wish I wrote it! I'm gonna post a video blog with me and Wynn. An interesting side note: Wynn also wrote a song with me on my album called "Anyone But You." I know him from the bull riding circuit - he's friends with Justin McBride, the current PBR champ.

What else...Oh - I finally finished my album! I picked the sequence of the songs, and polished it all up - can't wait for you guys to hear it! I'm pretty proud...this is the first album I have produced almost entirely alone, so it was pretty fun to see the whole thing through. John Rich (of Big & Rich) was with me for the band tracking and he was amazing. It definitely wouldn't have come out as good without him there. But after that two days, I've been on my own - and what a rush to record the vocals, and harmonies, and overdubs and mix it and weed through parts and arrange the songs, and simplify and refine the tracks,  and everything...it feels good not to have to go through everyone else to get my music across. The album is named PERFECTLY CLEAR and will be out in stores on June 3!

I'm flying to NYC today for a show tonight - a private show, an industry thing for retailers who help get my albums in stores...then I go to San Diego to do a charity show, (for St. Jude's hospital) then to Calgary for another charity show...(Another children's hospital) then back to TX for a few days.

Oh! Did you guys see the video on Perez Hilton's site? I was too chicken to go look at it cause everyone is so snarky, and I have thin skin! Perez is a friend actually - he saw me sing in Miami years ago in a tiny club- back when i was about 19 or so - and he still has the ticket stub. I know we seem like odd friends, but he really loves true music, and hates fake posers...and I guess he's made a living at it! His music taste is pretty amazing, and he's always turning me on to new bands and singers, and I was flattered he wanted to debut the video (he gets like 2.5 million hits a day!) But I told him I was too afraid to watch! But hopefully you guys got to see it, and if not, they will start playing it on CMT and GAC this week...lemme know what you think!

I haven't been bringing my computer out with me the last few runs, so it's been hard to catch up on how you all are doing, but I will set time aside this weekend...and post a new drawing soon, and a new "short story/prose type thingie" soon, too. Thank you for requesting "Stronger Woman" at your local radio station! Until then take care, xxJewel