Heading East

Rosie Flores

July 8 at Dancin’ in the District

When Rosie Flores arrives in Nashville this Thursday, she’ll do more than prepare for an evening performance at Riverfront Park as part of Dancin’ in the District. She’ll also begin looking around for a place to live. After more than two decades in Los Angeles—where she’s long been one of the most popular members of the city’s club scene—Flores has decided to move to Nashville. That decision says a lot about changes taking place in the two American music capitals; but as Flores is quick to point out, it also says something about her as well.

“Whenever I’m there,” she says of Nashville, “it’s never long enough. It’s always a sad experience when I leave. It always feels wrong. A lot of people I love live there, and I’m always saying, ‘I’ll be back soon, I promise!’ When I leave L.A., it’s not like that. So I’m moving to Nashville for the simple reason that I’ll be able to get to see my friends and work with people I like and respect. I figured it was time for me to stay there, at least for a while, and see what happens.”

It wasn’t an easy decision. Flores loves Los Angeles, and she has always been embraced by the city’s music scene and by its seen-it-all entertainment press. “I’m a big fan of the weather and the film community and the whole creative scene there—especially how the rock and country worlds mix and crisscross a lot,” she says. “But I’ve done everything I can do in Los Angeles. The pace in Nashville just fits me better, maybe because I’m older.”

Flores began considering the move five years ago, when she saw Greg Garing and BR5-49 performing the kind of country music she loves on Lower Broadway. The crowd that gathered in Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge and Robert’s Western Wear suggested to Flores that Nashville had changed significantly since the mid-’80s, when she first spent extensive time here—an experience that didn’t quite work out so well.

Indeed, one of the reasons Flores is considered a leading light of the ’90s alternative-country crowd is because Music Row failed to embrace her when it had the opportunity. The Mexican American singer recorded a fine major-label debut in 1987 for Reprise Records, but country radio didn’t play it, and Flores quickly parted ways with the record company and with Music Row.

Looking back, it’s easy to see why Flores believed she had a chance to make it as a mainstream country hitmaker. At the time, several like-minded acts—Dwight Yoakam, Patty Loveless, the O’Kanes, Foster & Lloyd, Sweethearts of the Rodeo—were enjoying success on radio and on the sales charts. Moreover, the so-called neo-traditionalist movement was the dominant trend of the mid- to late ’80s, and Flores was (and still is) particularly gifted at putting an energetic spin on traditional country sounds.

As it turned out, though, her music, her look, and her personality had a bit too much of a rock flair for Nashville in the ’80s. Country radio preferred its traditional music smoothed over with a pop gloss and presented with a mild-mannered, Middle American flavor—hence the successes of Randy Travis, the Judds, Ricky Skaggs, and Ricky Van Shelton. When Flores gave the same musical form a sexier edge and a bit of rock ’n’ roll vitality, Music Row just didn’t know what to do with it.

That’s too bad, because Nashville missed a chance to broaden its audience to include a hipper sound—one personified by Flores, Steve Earle, Kevin Welch, k.d. lang, Lyle Lovett, and others. There shouldn’t have been any reason why Flores couldn’t have flourished alongside George Strait and Reba McEntire, but it wasn’t to be.

That setback didn’t stop her from continuing to record and to tour. Before she’d ever come to Nashville, she’d enjoyed a long musical career, first as leader of the L.A.-based roots-rock band Rosie & the Screamers in the late ’70s, then as guitarist, singer, and primary songwriter for the outrageous, punk-influenced, all-female band the Screamin’ Sirens in the early ’80s. After her one Nashville album, she kept going, recording for such alt-country mainstays as Hightone and Rounder Records.

Through it all, Flores’ grasp of traditional American music was obvious. A talented and tasteful guitarist, as well as a singer who can wring loads of personality from her breathy and urgent soprano, Flores has always tapped into a wide variety of roots-music styles. Rockabilly, Western swing, honky-tonk shuffles, blues, zydeco, acoustic folk, Tex-Mex waltzes, and conjunto all figure into her music.