Jo Dee Messina heads to Italy to perform for troops

Me

Jo Dee Messina wears her defiance on her sleeve. She leaves no doubt what she has in mind on her new disc from the title (don't think of that as being egotistical) to the instrumentation where the first instruments you hear is the banjo to Messina's proclamation: "I've paid my dues, gotten bent and bruised/I've walked a 1,000 miles in these shoes/I'm here and I'm well/I've felt the fire; I've been through hell/I'm a little out of breath/But baby ...

Unmistakable: Love

If at first you don't succeed, your record company will punish you. That's what Jo Dee Messina learned in the past five years. What was one new album has now been converted into a trilogy of EPs to be released over the course of 2010 and grouped loosely by topic. This breaks the deadlock of Messina's wish to offer up all the new music she's been making against the business requirement of a monster hit. Messina's had a lot of those (nine number ones), so maybe it wasn't wholly unfair. ...

Delicious Surprise

Despite the phallic guitar fondling on the enclosed poster, Jo Dee Messina's latest targets mainstream country's chief demographic - women. The 12-song set sports the usual Bryon Gallimore - Tim McGraw bag of tricks - '70s rock guitars and heavy pop chorus augmented with smatterings of hard fiddle, twangy Dobro and banjo. Yet, Messina's brassy humor, positive attitude and full-throated passion triumphs over the formulaic production chops. Messina's sassy asides transform "My Give a Damn's Busted" ...