Jo Dee Messina‘s The Best of Jo Dee Messina came out earlier this month, celebrating 11 of her biggest hits, including her debut single, “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” her “Bring On The Rain” collaboration with Tim McGraw and more. In spite of her illustrious career, The Best of Jo Dee Messina is her first record on vinyl, a milestone Messina celebrates almost as much as her previous successes.
“I’ve never had anything on vinyl,” Messina tells American Songwriter. “So, I’m like, ‘I’m gonna have an album!’ like when I was a little kid, they used to have albums. I remember my older brother used to get the new Rush album and you’d flip it over and you’d read all the album liners and everything, and so, now I have one of those myself.”
Messina did not write any of the songs on The Best of Jo Dee Messina, a fact that is not indicative of her talent, but rather her confidence, at least in that period of time.
“I think I was so just insecure,” Messina reflects. “I was trying to please—I was just like here you go, the best song wins. It doesn’t have to be my song. It has to be the best song. And so I would bow out a lot of times in submitting stuff that I had, or a few things that I wrote made the record, but I would listen down and I’d be like, ‘Nah, I like ‘Bye-Bye’ better.’ And I think that was due to my own insecurity of my writing at that point. These days, totally different. I’m writing up a storm, and for other people as well, which is a blast.”
Messina not only has a new record out, but her own headlining tour as well. The 52-year-old is currently on her massive Heads Carolina, Tails California Tour, which is playing in more than 45 cities, before wrapping up in November.
“Never have we toured under that umbrella,” Messina says, adding that the tour, appropriately, kicked off in North Carolina, and wraps up in California. “We’re gonna hit just about every place in between throughout the year. But I’m excited. We’re going way back, like retro. Everything’s retro. We found posters from my first album and they’re still together, so they did a great job making them. But we’re gonna have those as limited merch throughout the tour. It’s gonna be really exciting. We’ll have all the hits, then we’ll have unique merchandise and new songs so that’s where I’ll start to debut some of the new songs as they come about. It’s just going to be such a fun year.”
Messina might be spending a lot of 2023 on the road, but she is also working on new music, music that this time will be written by her.
“It has been a while since we’ve had new music, and that’s my hope for this year is to get all these writing sessions and just put together a project that’s really me, and be able to release that at some point this year,” she hints.
Find all of Messina’s music and upcoming shows at JoDeeMessina.com.
Photo Credit: John Zocco