Columbia country singer Meredith Shaw brings lived-in songs to her second chance

Meredith Shaw knows how her story might sound.

The local singer-songwriter is making the most of a fresh chance at country music: booking gigs around the area, enjoying Nashville studio sessions, anticipating October's Roots N Blues festival, where she and her band will open the entire three-day weekend of music.

But when Shaw declares she's having the time of her life, she isn't casting a shadow over life until now. The years when music was simply a wish dream gave her so much: the children she loves, a deeper and wider view of life, something to say when the time came to seize the microphone. Every moment led Shaw here — and prepared her to enjoy her share of the spotlight.

"Even if I blow this, it’s better than I ever thought," she said. "I never expected any of this to happen."

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Raised on radio

Shaw grew up in a small Scotland County town, close to Missouri's northeast corner. The youngest of eight, she benefitted from the records her older siblings brought home — everything from Linda Ronstadt and Olivia Newton-John to the Eagles and R.E.M.

Drawn more to songs than genres, her tastes expanded during college days at the University of Missouri to include the likes of Pearl Jam and Blind Melon. Shaw works a cover of the 4 Non Blondes' early 1990s staple "What's Up?" into her live set as well as, most recently, Skid Row's "I Remember You."

Any song that tells a great story, that pulls the listener into a time and place, earns Shaw's attention, she said.

A teenage job at her local radio station carried over — and carried Shaw through — when she left MU for a time; she would eventually return to school, working her way up to a doctorate degree.

She worked for several country radio stations around mid-Missouri at a time when she harbored her own musical ambitions, but was too "chicken" to act on them, she said.

"It was like being really close to something you wanted to do," she said.

Shaw feared rejection the way anyone might — "What if I went and they told me I was no good?" she recalled asking — but couldn't shake off her passion. Meeting musicians at her radio job, she would pose the dozens of questions swirling through her mind, about the nature of art and the music business.

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Radney Foster was among the artists who took time to answer. Shuttling the stalwart Texas songwriter to and from a radio interview, Shaw ran through her laundry list. Foster asked to see her at the end of the day, and articulated a plan for how Shaw could get to Nashville.

While he had yet to hear her music, the very way Shaw talked told him she was holding on to something special, she recalled him saying. Foster encouraged her to head east without hesitation, before life and children intervened.

Shaw recalls scoffing at the suggestion, but years later saw how Foster was telling her future. Family and career made new plans for Shaw, but she doesn't consider them lesser plans. Sometimes, talking through the arc of her life, Shaw's children flinch a little at the story.

She's quick to remind them dreams change over time, expanding to fit everything and everyone that matters.

"My dreams just shifted," Shaw said, summing the message she relays to her kids. "I had different dreams, but I had dreams for you. Everything in my whole heart changed."

'Nothing but fun'

Time passes, and rhythms change. Returning to music, and assigning it a different priority, Shaw sometimes struggles to recognize this life as her own.

“I’m having trouble believing some of it," she said.

Singing her way into rooms such as Nashville's iconic Bluebird Cafe, collaborating with Music City producers and enmeshing herself within a supportive community of mid-Missouri artists is more than Shaw ever thought to ask.

And she recognizes how her songs sound different by degrees, how they ring a little longer than they might have if she broke through in her twenties.

Shaw's songs lay themselves down like a bridge, spanning any gaps left between her '70s icons, a '90s country aesthetic and up-to-the-minute production. They sound lived-in, finding what's both wrenching and wryly funny about divorce, cheaters, hard-earned lessons and "whiskey situations."

Participating in songwriter circles, especially in Nashville, Shaw sometimes runs across remarkably talented young artists. But she notices they often dress the same, and sing about very similar concerns. She knows she has something else to offer audiences, and they respond in kind.

"I definitely know that I have different things to say," she said.

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After so much time off, she's surprised by the speed at which some milestones have arrived. At last year's Roots N Blues, she recalled watching local acts such as the Burney Sisters and Violet and the Undercurrents and thinking, "I am four years away from this."

To play this year's festival and, in her mind, set the tone and tempo for everything to come is just another dream come true. Shaw and her band will open the weekend late Friday afternoon, before yielding their stage to Jaime Wyatt and Tanya Tucker.

This season of song could take Shaw any number of places. But if it ends tomorrow, she said she's amassed the memories and relationships necessary to keep living her way.

"It’s nothing but fun for me. While I’m trying to make a run at this, it’s not necessarily my whole life," she said.

Shaw is set to appear at Thursday's Voices of Columbia concert at The Blue Note, benefitting Heart of Missouri CASA, and will appear around mid-Missouri ahead of October's Roots N Blues.

Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. Find him on Twitter @aarikdanielsen.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: How Columbia country singer Meredith Shaw is seizing her second chance