By Brian Ives
Best Blues Album isn’t a GRAMMY category that gets much hype, but it’s home to one of the most compelling backstories this year, and likely one you haven’t heard yet.
Singer Beth Hart and guitarist Joe Bonamassa are nominated for Seesaw, their second album as a duo. It’s one of two albums that Hart released in 2013 (the other being her solo effort, Bang Bang Boom Boom). A few years ago, the idea that she would have two albums and a shot at a GRAMMY would have been unlikely at best. Hart was an up-and-coming singer-songwriter in the ’90s, headlining Lollapalooza’s second stage back when it was summer tour and not one of Chicago’s biggest tourist attractions. She had a hit single in 1999 with “L.A. Song (Out Of This Town)”, a staple on adult contemporary radio that year.
And then things went bad, as they often do in this business. Drugs, alcohol and a (then-) unmedicated bipolar disorder ran her career into the ground. A lackluster performance on Leno led to her losing her record deal, and things got worse even from there.
In a conversation with Radio.com last year, Hart described how she came back from the abyss.
“At some point, instead of me dying or living on the street, there was something in me that said you’ve got to fight back, you’ve got to get some help,” she said. “That wouldn’t have happened without my husband [her former road manager, Scott Guetzkow]. But music was over for me. I had no record deal, no touring, no nothing, I couldn’t leave the house, I had agoraphobia. But after a year and a half of therapy… I called my manager and said I really want to start working again. This was in 2001 or so.”
Read more at Radio.com
