Sally Barris and Her Reluctant Daughter

Sally Barris is finding success on both sides of her musical career these days. Lee Ann Womack recorded Barris' song, "Some Things I Know" (RealAudio

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excerpt), as the title track of her 1998 album and, with Kathy Mattea and Jon Vezner, Barris cowrote "The Innocent Years" (RealAudio excerpt), which became the title track of Mattea's latest disc.

Now, Barris is pushing her own album, Reluctant Daughter, a highly personal work, which she is marketing primarily through off-stage sales at coffeehouses and festivals and on the Internet. Larry Michael Lee, from the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, produced the album and such stellar Nashville musicians as Sam Bush and Viktor Krauss play on it.

"I kinda divide myself between writing for the commercial market and promoting my own career," she said, "and that keeps me really busy."

The two aspects of her career come up in how she approaches songwriting. "When I write for myself, it's a matter of being open to the muse and to inspiration, just taking the time to sit down and be really, really brave as to what comes. And to allow myself to write some really bad songs," she said.

"When I work with a co-writer, that's usually about writing a more commercial song," she continued, "and that's about being open too, really open with your co-writer and trying to write something that's universal."

Barris, whose co-writers include Pat Pattison and Kate Wallace, in addition to Mattea and Vezner, reflected that, "You try to write something that lots of people will understand, as opposed to something really personal, but ironically, the more personal you get, sometimes the more universal it is. So it's an interesting combination.

"Actually, my first song was a co-write," Barris recalled. "I was sixteen and I wrote a song with a high school friend of mine — it was terrible!"

Learning to play the ukulele from her dad when she was five, at sixteen Barris moved on to guitar. "My dad bought me an Ovation, because that's what Glen Campbell played and Glen was pretty cool in my dad's eyes," she said.

Barris, whose style on Reluctant Daughter ranges from the rockin' swing of "Weatherman" to the haunting ballad "All Night Cafe," was exposed to all sorts of music growing up in Chaska, Minnesota, with two older brothers and two older sisters. "Beatles, black soul music, British rock bands. Jim Croce, country music, musicals — I heard it all," she said.

Beginning her own musical career, though, Barris found a different tack.

"I was listening to the radio one day and I heard this beautiful guitar music — it was William Ackerman — I called the station and they said you can buy it at the Homestead Pickin' Parlor, which was a music store in Minneapolis. I went in to buy the record and there was a bluegrass jam that day. I just walked into this room full of musicians. I knew a couple of Linda Ronstadt songs, I sang them, and they accepted me. That was really life changing.

"I started hanging out there every Saturday, and from that formed my own band," Barris said. "I went into bluegrass because it just seemed that it was tangible, it was something I could do. And it was a great opportunity to do songs I had written."

Recalling how she felt playing her own songs with the band, called Northern Hospitality, she said, "It was embarrassing at first and really shaky, but the band was supportive. We actually went out to Telluride and won first place with some of my original songs, so that was a huge confidence boost."

Barris would tour Europe with the group before relocating to Nashville.

Issues of faith and following one's heart permeate the cuts on Reluctant Daughter, from the lover's plea in "Adriel" to the searcher's tale in "Never Wrong" and the economical vignette of a relationship's turning points in "In The Name of Love," as well as the explicit turn to prayer in the title track (RealAudio excerpt), on which Gillian Welch and David Rawlings lend backup vocals.

It was that faith that got Barris to Nashville in 1992. "I wanted to be around other writers and learn," she said. "Around here, no matter how many great songs you write, when you go out you see somebody at the Bluebird or Douglas Corner who just kicks your butt. I really thrive on that because it pushes me. If I had stayed in the midwest, I would not have pushed myself to what I've done now.

"I think that writing for me is a spiritual path," Barris reflected. "I feel like we all come down here and we have a mission, and our mission is a million different things … I feel that this is my calling. There's a lot of faith involved in that, because when you do something where you're following your heart, it's always a matter of, 'Can I really do this?' So faith is a big part of that."