Terri Hendrix confident at controls of her career

By: JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, October 31, 2007 12:35 PM PDT ∞

To hear folk singer-songwriter Terri Hendrix tell it, it was out-and-out fear that made her a songwriter.

"It just seemed a natural thing to me to start writing," she said of her earliest efforts at composition in third grade, as she started learning to play her older sister's guitar. "I started writing my own songs before I learned others' songs. It was easier for me to learn something I had written than learn a cover.

"I was thinking, 'If I play a song everyone knows, they're going to know when I screw up. If it's my own song, nobody will know.' "

Yet, despite a youthful start in the songwriting business and her immersion in lessons in high school, it wasn't until her early 20s that Hendrix (playing Friday with Lloyd Maines at Normal Heights United Methodist Church) played in public. The year was 1990, and she was attending college in San Marcos, Texas (she was born and raised in San Antonio) when her first public performance came about.

"I was waiting tables with a guy named Todd Snyder, and he told me about this songwriter night, and I went and I played some songs I'd written."

The open-mic night at the Cheatham Street Warehouse was "terrifying," she said, "But there was also something I found rewarding. That first time was good for me because I was in an atmosphere that was conducive to art. All the people there were nice to me. It was a good experience."

And that night led to a sea change in her life.

"About six months later, I got a gig of just my stuff and I made $50, and I thought, 'I can make $50 for playing my music? I'm there!' "

She dropped out of college and began gigging full time.

"From '90 to '96 I played solo pretty much all over Texas, just my pickup truck and my gear. I was working real hard, sometimes playing three shows a day, but making a living at it."

Her affiliation with longtime collaborator Lloyd Maines, father of the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines, came about during this period.

"I was playing Riverwalk (in San Antonio), and it was about then I met Lloyd, and he said if you want to go to the next level you have to stop playing while people are eating chicken-fried steak."

In 1997, Maines persuaded her to sell her gear, which Hendrix said forced her to change gears in her music career.

"It made me change how I viewed gigs," she explained.

Rather than playing for tips or at small clubs, it made her approach music as a business, fo find gigs at venues large enough to have their own sound systems.

"Had I not done that, I probably wouldn't be here today."

It was around the same time that she began her recording career, one that has led to her latest release, "The Spiritual Kind." It's her ninth CD, all of which have been released on her own indie Wilory label.

"Around '96, I came out with a record called 'Two Dollar Shoe' because it was time to have something to sell at the shows," she said. After it was rejected by the labels she pitched it to, she released it on her own.

"I sold 3,000 copies, and that gave me the budget to hire Lloyd to produce 'Wilory Farm.' "

Each CD since then has sold enough to allow her to record the next, and she said she's never been tempted to sign with a label since.

"People want to work with you when you make money, but what could they bring to the table?"

Terri Hendrix with Lloyd Maines

When: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 2

Where: Normal Heights United Methodist Church, 4650 Manfield St., San Diego

Tickets: $15-$20

Info: (619) 303-8176 or acousticmusicsandiego.com

Web: terrihendrix.com

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