Rocky Country Road Turns Smooth : After Rejection by Record Label, Rosie Flores Is Back on Track With New ‘After the Farm’

Nobody ever promised that the road to country stardom would be easy. Just as she was about to shift into high gear with her first major label recording contract, Rosie Flores found a series of unexpected roadblocks in her path.

Flores, whose unique blend of traditional country, country rock and Tex-Mex music has been a longtime highlight of the Southern California country scene, seemed poised in the late ‘80s to follow fellow L.A. country scene star Dwight Yoakam to mainstream success.

Her first single, “Crying Over You,” stalled just short of the Top 40. But then, when her next two singles died on the lower half of the charts, Flores found herself dropped by Warner Reprise. It has taken her four years to get her career back on track.

Now solidly back in the driver’s seat with an excellent album, “After the Farm” on the independent Hightone label, Flores--who will play the Harvest Festival at the Orange County Fairgrounds this weekend--talked about what went wrong in Nashville.

“There just wasn’t enough creative input and marketing behind my first album,” she said. “I think the label was more interested in promoting Hank Williams Jr. and Randy Travis, who were their hottest selling acts at the time. They were also doing well with Dwight Yoakam and had just signed k.d. lang. I become the lowest priority to all those guys.

“I kind of felt as though they dropped the ball on me. I also feel there was a miscommunication between the record company, management and artist. They wouldn’t listen to me when I was trying to tell them what my direction was.

“I basically wanted to be the Kitty Wells or Loretta Lynn of the ‘90s,” Flores explained. “I wanted to be the traditional female country singer. I still don’t think that niche has been filled. I also wanted to try out the strengths of my Tex-Mex roots and to show off the balladeer songwriting side of myself.

“It was hard to explain that to them. They said I needed to get a Top 40 hit. They said I had to sound the way they thought I should and that when I broke through with a hit single, I could do whatever I wanted. I said I wanted to do what I do from the beginning so that I could establish my own identity.

“That kind of argument led to a breakup. They said, ‘Why don’t you go to a label that understands whatever it is you do?’ I was fine with that except that no other label wanted to take that chance because they deemed me hard to work with, and not conforming to whatever it was that Nashville does to people.”

Flores said she became even more frustrated a few months after her falling out with Warner Reprise when Patty Loveless took “Blue Side of Town,” a song on Flores’ album, into the Top 5.

“A few months before Patty cut ‘Blue Side of Town,’ I had pleaded and argued with the label to let me release it as my third single,” Flores recalled, “and they wouldn’t have it. I could have gone around them and released it anyway, but they let me know that if I did, I wouldn’t get any support behind it. I ended up compromising and releasing something else.

“I actually had a meeting with Tony Brown, Patty Loveless’ producer, at about that time,” Flores continued. “I told him how frustrated I was because I thought the song was a hit. He ended up cutting it with Patty. I convinced them it was a hit. Why couldn’t I convince Warner Brothers?”

She said Warner Reprise dropped her with almost no warning. “I didn’t even know I was getting dropped. I had gotten into a big argument with my A&R; person about my direction as an artist, who I was and what I was trying to say. She tried to tell me that what I am doesn’t work. We got into a big argument, some strong words were exchanged and that may have been the beginning of the demise of Rosie Flores on Warner Brothers. That’s what you get for sticking up for yourself and saying what you feel in Nashville sometimes.

“I’ve always been sort of a nonconformist,” she added. “I’ve always taken pride in having my own way of doing things. All through art school, my stuff would always be a lot different than everybody else’s. I would stretch the boundaries and see how far I could take an idea. My teachers would encourage my creativity, and I would get A’s. I was trained to be different. Being different has always excited me. That’s what Nashville is afraid of.”

Spokesmen for Warner Reprise in Nashville were unavailable for comment.

In any case, Flores continued, “the sparse production of my album was not considered very radio friendly (by) deejays and program directors (who) would send letters to Warner Brothers saying ‘sounds too edgy’ or ‘sounds too unproduced’ or ‘her voice doesn’t sound very commercial.’ They would actually send Warner Brothers letters like that. I saw a couple of them and I figured that if radio couldn’t get it, how could the label get it?”

Flores was only one of several country artists from Southern California who failed to score in Nashville at the time. Honky tonk singer George Highfill and the exciting country rock group the Lonesome Strangers met with even less success. The huge breakthrough that Yoakam’s success might have meant for California country never happened.

“Dwight didn’t give a helping hand to his comrades,” Flores said. “I don’t feel there was a lot of support from him. It seems as though he might have taken me under his wing and toured me for a year the way Garth Brooks did for Trisha Yearwood. I felt he was a little bit selfish and on his own there.”

The Nashville experience wasn’t entirely negative for Flores, however. “I’m thankful I was able to cut an album on a major label,” she said. “If I hadn’t have had the major label contract, I would never have been able to meet some of the great songwriters that I’ve been able to co-write with. I would not have been able to establish a base in Europe.

“It has been a blessing that I was on Warner Brothers. In one sense it was difficult because I felt that I could have gone further but, on the other hand, without the major label contract, I wouldn’t have been able to go so far.”

* The Harvest Festival arts and crafts fair takes place today through Sunday at the Orange County Fairgrounds, 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa. Admission: $3 to $6. Rosie Flores sings today at noon and 5 p.m., Saturday at 1:30 and 6:15 p.m. and Sunday at 12:45 and 4 p.m. Information: (714) 751-3247.