A triple treat

Jennifer K Mahal

He gets anxious to go home to his retreat at the foot of the Smoky

Mountains. She has wanderlust, getting itchy for the road after a few

weeks. He dances onstage. She says she’s the “chick singer that stands

with the guitar.”

But Billy Dean and Suzy Bogguss have been friends for more than 15

years, and these days they are trading off singing lead and backup with

one another and John Berry in a triple treat tour that will come to the

Orange County Fair tonight.

“It just seemed like a good idea, so we tried it last year,” Dean

said, “and it worked so well -- that and our voices really blended

together.”

Among the three of them, the country music hits could fill more than

one compact disc -- Dean’s “Somewhere in My Broken Heart” and “Billy the

Kid,” Bogguss’ “Outbound Plane,” “Drive South” and “Hey, Cinderella,” and

Berry’s “Your Love Amazes Me.”

“It’s fun for us because we were all touring for a while,” Bogguss

said. “This way we get to sing some new songs and yet the show gets to be

hit-oriented.”

Both said having the other on the tour bus is like having a sibling.

“We always tease onstage that I have the middle bunk,” Bogguss said.

Dean said he and Berry appreciate having Bogguss around.

“It’s great, because having Suzy on the bus, John and I are always

dipping into her hair products,” Dean said.

The friends share a number of similarities. Both have children --

Bogguss has a son with husband Doug Crider, Dean has a daughter and a

son. Both grew up in families involved with the farming industry --

Bogguss’ dad worked as a machinist for International Harvesters in

Illinois, Dean grew up on his family’s farm. And both grew up with music

in their lives.

Florida-born Dean said he can’t remember ever not knowing how to play

the guitar.

“My dad was kind of a weekend warrior,” the 39-year-old said. “He had

the same band and they played at the same place up until the day he died.

I used to go sit in the band room and watch him.”

Dean wrote his first song when he was 15 after taking the family car

out for a joy ride. He was pulled over and the police gave him a ticket.

“My mom found out about it because I had to find the money to pay. It

broke her heart,” said Dean, who is working on an album to be released

next spring. “I ended up writing a song to her.”

He even went into a studio and made a 45-rpm record of it, much as

Elvis did. The song, titled “Dear Momma, I Love You,” became his mother’s

Christmas present that year.

Though he tried a semester in college on a basketball scholarship,

Dean dropped out and moved with his high school music teacher to

Nashville to pursue a career as a singer-songwriter. His debut album,

“Young Man,” became a crossover hit in the early ‘90s, and his first

single, “Only Here For A Little While” made No. 2 on the charts.

“If I could choose between writing and performing . . . I would choose

writing and working in the studio any day,” said the man who substituted

songs for term papers in high school. “Don’t get me wrong, I like

performing. But it’s that agonizing creative germ in me that has to come

out. It’s more powerful than my urge to perform.”

Bogguss said her first memory of public singing was when she did her

first solo for a church choir around age 5.

Her road to Nashville passed through Illinois State University, where

she earned a bachelor’s degree in metal smithery.

“You have to be very tenacious to work with metal . . . because it’s

mean. It bites back, cuts you and hurts you,” the 44-year-old said.

“There must be something I like [about that] because the music business

is like that too.”

Bogguss sang her way through college, making money through gigs in

bars and coffeehouses on weekends.

“I remember a conversation with a professor saying ‘The overnight

trips you are taking to play are taking a toll on your work,”’ Bogguss

said, adding that the teacher asked her what she wanted to be, a metal

smith or a singer. “I said ‘I don’t know, I think I’m gonna be a singer.”

She bought a camper truck and started traveling all over the country,

starting a mailing list as she toured. She booked herself into clubs

using an alter ego named Rachel to do the actual wangling. Only one place

ever caught on that Bogguss and Rachel were the same.

“There was a place in West Yellowstone, Montana, that I went back to a

couple of times,” Bogguss said.

The lady there told her that she sounded a lot like her assistant.

Having an alter ego made it easier for Bogguss to build herself up. It

also was simpler when it came time to negotiate accommodations for her

and her dog.

“As a third person, it was easier to say, ‘We don’t like to have her

out there without her guard dog,”’ Bogguss said.

After five years on the road, she “stumbled” onto the idea of becoming

a recording artist and headed to Nashville. Bogguss lacked the confidence

to market herself as a lead singer, however, planning to go into backup

singing because she was good at harmony. That is, until a producer told

her to stop telling people that.

“‘No one’s gonna build you up for you,’ he said,” said Bogguss, who

recently released a live hits album on the Internet. “You can be humble,

but you can’t be too modest.”

FYI

WHAT: John Berry, Suzy Bogguss and Billy Dean

WHEN: 8 p.m. today

WHERE: Arlington Theater, Orange County Fair, 88 Fair Drive, Costa

Mesa

COST: Free with general admission, which is $7. $10 for reserved

seats.

CALL: (714) 708-3247