Heather Myles is talking from her favorite place - the road. And she apparently can move pretty fast also, covering three states during a cell phone interview as she is making her way from her Florida home to one in Nashville via a pit stop in Mississippi.

If only the career of the California honky tonker and traditional country singer moved as quickly.

Myles could not exactly be accused of being prolific when it comes to releasing music. Her latest, "Sweet Talk & Good Lies" (Rounder) comes four years after her fine CD, "Heartaches & Honky Tonks." Overall, Myles only has released a grand total of 4 albums in a decade.

Myles, friendly and talkative throughout, is the first one to admit, she wish the timing were different. "This last record took a lot longer than it should have," says Myles, while approaching the Florida/Alabama border after a stay at her condo on the Gulf Coast in Belle Air, Fla. "But this one, there were studio problems. The continuity of a record has to be to my liking. I want to make sure it's all right. All those songs on there are my babies. The album is my family. I want to make sure it's the best that it can be.

"All my albums in the past were a walk in the park. The last one, we went in there and did it in two weeks. They were always smooth sailing. This record was a test in every aspect. It was very very difficult and to the point where I said, 'do I still want to continue in the music business?' Everything on this album I had to fight tooth and nail for. I'm really glad because there were times I wanted to throw in the towel.

But don't think Myles is the disgruntled musician blaming her record label. Far from it.

Yes, she's had some differences of opinion (she wanted the new CD to be interactive, which led to debate with Rounder, and a different back cover of her album - a ripped jeans photo of her tush side was put inside instead), but "Rounder's really never given me any problems as far as the production of my albums. The reason I'm on Rounder is that I have complete creative control. Very few record companies give complete creative control, and Rounder does that.

Instead, the problems for Myles included getting time at the studio she wanted - Mad Dog where Myles always has recorded - and then the exact room she required to record the album.

On the personal side, there were management problems. "I"ve had big time management problems," she says.

She split with her long-time manager, though they have remained on good terms. Myles says she felt her former manager took her career about as far as he could.

"That was a big deal for me," she says of the change. "It was really very very trying. I wasn't leaving my manager because we didn't get along.

Booking agency issues also crept into the mix.

And then there was the issue of getting the musicians she wanted. Many have spent time with Dwight Yoakam, meaning they were on the road last year.

Yoakam himself proved difficult to get to sing backing vocals on "Little Chapel," a song about hitting the road for Vegas and marital bliss.

"Either he was on the road or I was on the road," Myles says of Yoakam. "I had to wait a year. I wanted to be there while he did it. He was very busy, and I was too.

"I wrote that with him in mind," Myles says of the song. "There was a (question) because of timing. Rounder really wanted to get this record out. It almost didn't happen. We almost released this record without that song on there. They said, 'just put it on there. You've already recorded it. You don't have to have Dwight on there'. I said, 'it's either Dwight or no song.'

Yoakam and Myles finally recorded the song at Mad Dog in March. "We actually recorded together. I sang it, and then Dwight finally came in the studio, and then we recorded again.

Myles, who shares a similar musical bent with Yoakam, says she was "pretty much anticipating this for a year and a half. In some ways, I was kind of nervous. In some ways, maybe it would have been better had he had not been there...I know Rounder would love to release that as a single, but we have to get permission from Dwight.

Myles says she was excited about the album. "I think I was a little bolder. I'm not as afraid to try different things. On this record, I was a lot more experimental in terms of material and production. Doing 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix'. Covering most songs people wouldn't think a Heather Myles would record. I put strings on this record, which is kind of taboo for a real traditional honky tonker. I thought if Buddy Holly can experiment, why can't Heather Myles? The producer in Heather Myles really came out on this album. I was very much involved in the co-production." (She co-produced with Michael Dumas, who worked in different capacities for Yoakam).

The Riverside, Cal. native certainly doesn't eschew her hallmark honky tonk sound, but she goes beyond that.

The disc closes with a ballad made famous by Julie London, "Cry Me a River.

"I like all kind of music besides country music," says Myles. "That's one of the songs that I really felt was cool...I wanted to countrify it every so slightly, but not lose its feel. I liked that song a lot as it is. I just liked that bluesy feel it has. I thought lyrically it could really work as a country song. I wanted to put steel (guitar) on that...and not ruin it. I thought we could take it to another place.

The disc also includes Glen Campbell's megahit "By the Time I Get to Phoenix.

"I live that song," says Myles. "It's very autobiographical. I've been there, done it. It does bring back childhood memories. I remember that song as a l little girl being such a huge hit. I liked it as a child, and then I ended up living the song. I don't recall anyone else ever singing it. It really does lend itself to a woman singing the song. It's actually one of my favorite songs on the album.

The advance thinking of how to tackle the song did not exactly materialize.

"We were going to do this, we were going to do that," she says. "I said, 'why?' It's not broke. We just tracked it and left it alone. I said, 'let's not even do any harmony on it. Let's just leave it that way.'

Myles, who recalls Tammy Wynette vocally, makes it clear where she's at musically in her anti-Nashville establishment song, "Nashville's Gone Hollywood," where she sings, "move over Ernest Tubb, Nashville's gone Hollywood.'

Myles said Nashville's Broadway "was once a very cool, hip, very honky tonk kind of scene there. It's kind of turned into Disneyland. That's what the song is about. I hate to see that even though I'm from there (she owns housing there)...I don't want to see it turn into Hollywood. Every time, I go there, there's some building and a new stadium. I wrote a song awhile (back) called 'Changes.' Changes don't come easy to me.

"On the music side, that's been coming for a long time," Myles says of the changes. "That's just really gone a way that I would really like to see traditional country music come to the forefront again. I really hope it's not forgotten. It seems to get worse and worse at radio. I mean every word of it.

Well not quite actually. The song contains a line about appearances on Jay Leno, who has been a supporter of country music.

So if Leno calls, asking Myles to appear on the show, "I'll be on Jay Leno tomorrow. I just don't want to lose my musical sense.

Fat chance.

When she sings in a shuffle "I hope your little homewrecker's crazy about you" in the jilted lover's lament, "Homewrecker Blues," you know this is traditional country with traditional themes.

Ditto the shuffle of the title track where the woman falls for "sweet talk and good lies.

With attitude too - ‡ la "Sweet Little Dangerous" about a ballsy woman.

Myles seemingly always has done things her own way.

Home was the Three C Ranch in Riverside, a thoroughbred race horse training center with about 50 horses there at any one time. Myles' father was a trainer, who managed the ranch. Her grandfather was a jockey for about three decades at the Santa Anita track.

"My mother was a big country music fan. She was the one that really laid the groundwork for me. She was a huge Loretta Lynn fan, Hank Williams. Every year, we would drive to Canada in a Ford (Myles' mother is Canadian), and she would play these Loretta Lynn and Hank Williams 8-track tapes. I would get tired of it, but I know every Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn song. People would say you say sound Loretta Lynn. No wonder. 16 years of Loretta.

"I guess I've always been a born adventurer," says Myles. "The music seemed to be a born adventure. I thought it would be a real challenge. I loved music. I wanted to be a songwriter. I wanted to be a singer, but I was afraid. I was very afraid...I had no one to go to (for advice).

So, Myles wandered into a local record store, Liers Music in Riverside. Myles says she went there because she thought "maybe someone here can help me.

"I saw this guy at the counter, and I said I made this tape for my mother. I went into a studio in Canada - I put down two Loretta Lynn songs, a Patsy Cline song. I asked him, 'I want to know what you think.'

"This guy (Fred Stuart) ended up like getting me into my first band and was really my musical inspiration in a lot of ways. He guided me, my spiritual musical guide. He kind of steered to me to the right people. There was nothing ever romantic.

Myles recalls Stuart telling her, "'It just so happens I'm in a country music band. I play guitar. Maybe you can sit in with us, and we're kind of looking for a singer'. The next day I rehearsed with them. Two weeks later, I ended up taking over the band.

Myles was 24 at the time. "I was a late bloomer," she says. I got into the business late because I was scared to leave the family business. I was afraid to leave the horse business.

Myles actually was an apprentice race horse jockey at one point, but left for music. "That didn't sit too well with my family. They thought I was nuts.

She also had spent a few years at Riverside City College. "I was trying to find out what I really wanted to do.

"I never really considered horses full time. I never really did it because I wanted to do it. I'm doing it because I'm the lightest one in the family. Everyone else is overweight. You have to be under 120 pounds to be a jockey. I was a good jockey. I definitely inherited that from my grandfather who was a terrific jockey. I loved horses, the ranch. It's just not that I did not want to do that for the rest of my life. I wanted to do music. Something drew me to that spotlight. There was something that drew me to music.

Myles hit area honky tonks. "Nothing but cowboys," says Myles of one joint in Chino, a dairy farm area. "I played some pretty rough honky tonks. I played some pretty great honky tonks because I could do pretty much whatever I wanted to do.

She did originals and covers, some "very obscure country songs. I always did exactly what I wanted to do, and oddly enough, people really liked it.

"I really enjoyed those times. Those were great learning experiences. That's how I learned how to play guitar, bass.

Myles' first break was appearing on a HighTone Records compilation, "Points West: New Horizons in Country Music" in 1990 with "Rum and Rodeo" and "Lovin' the Bottle" and other artists appearing like Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Buddy Miller.

That eventually led to her debut, "Just LIke Old Times" in 1992 and a follow-up, "Untamed" in 1995.

The albums received good press, but Myles complained that one of the problems of being on HighTone was the inability to find the record in stores.

HighTone executive 'Larry Sloven told Myles, "'we've taken you as far as we can take you. I think you've got a shot to maybe break in the big time, but you've got to have more financial backing, and we just can't do that.' They tried.

That led to Rounder. Myles previously had tried, mailing a demo. She heard back from Rounder honcho Ken Irwin saying he loved it, but the label was bluegrass oriented.

After her contract with HighTone expired, Myles was ready to split. She contacted Irwin again. "Are you ready yet?" Myles asked. Irwin said he was, but "he said I want to do a real honky tonk album. As honky tonk as you can do it. I said okay.

The result was "Highways & Honky Tonks" in 1998 with the usual assortment of honky tonkers and shuffles and a cover of "Kiss An Angel Good Morning.

Myles had a good career going in Europe as well where she lived off and on for four years in London.

Myles never tried the major label route. "I could see the writing on the wall about 10 years ago. I'm not going in that direction. I thought maybe, just maybe, by sticking to my guns and doing my own thing, (I'd be) getting recognition on my own.

Myles can't claim to be a starving artist at least. She has homes in Florida, Riverside, Nashville and London and a boat she often lives on in Marina del Rey, Cal.

"Everything that I have acquired has been because of financial planning. I have not received a nickel from my parents. I do have a lot of real estate. I've done well in the music business because I've done it wisely. When I played Europe, I kept my fees up and did not want to overexpose myself there.

And with the money she made, she would buy property.

"I knew in order to do this music business right, I knew I'd have to have some sort of income," says Myles, who had just hit the Mississippi border. "It's a very tenuous business. I'd have highs and lows. During the lows, I wanted to be able to sustain my lifestyle. It's been tough. It's been a real struggle.

Myles, of course, still hopes for a higher musical profile.

Her last album "put me on the map so to speak. That album really got me out there.

"Now, I'm hoping with this album that I can really do something. I have big expectations. I'm going to really try hard to have some sort of radio success with this album. I just want to reach as many people as I can. I've learned a lot about this business in the past 10 years, and I'm going to try everything.

"I still believe that I can express myself musically better than I can in person, in conversation. My songs are to me what canvas is to an artist. I'm going back to being a little bolder, a little braver, I'm saying a little more in my songs. Six years ago, I would have been afraid to put 'Nashville Goes Hollywood' on a record. Now, you can take it or leave it. Take off the Manuels, the boots and the rhinestones. This is Heather Myles. I hope you like it. I hope you enjoy my records. I can't please everybody. I can't please anybody. I can't any more. I just hope it's well received."