Berg’S First Being Re-Released

Remember Matraca Berg? Do you remember?

l. Her stunning rendition of the bittersweet “Back When We Were Beautiful,” one of many exceptional songs she has written, on the 1997 Country Music Association Awards show?

2. Her playful video of “Back in the Saddle”?

3. Her critically-lauded “Sunday Morning and Saturday Night” album that vanished from record stores, just as sales were heating up and Rising Tide Records folded last year?

Somebody in Nashville apparently has recognized that it is an artistic and commercial crime that this package hasn’t gotten picked up by another record label. RCA now has decided to re-release Berg’s first album, “Lying to the Moon,” with a new cover, a new video and several new songs - including “Back in the Saddle” and “Back When We Were Beautiful.”

A third song added to the package will be “Eat at Joe’s,” which was on a later Berg project that never got released. It was later recorded by Suzy Bogguss.

An exceptional songwriter and singer who has written huge hits for longtime friend Deana Carter and others but whose own career so far has been star-crossed, Berg was signed at RCA by executive Joe Galante. Then her RCA career languished when Galante left for a stint in RCA’s New York offices.

Signed again several years later, this time by Rising Tide, Berg saw the Tide become the Titanic, once again before she could build any momentum.

Husband Jeff Hanna of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, who says the new RCA package should be out in “May or June,” reports that his long-suffering wife hasn’t gotten overly discouraged.

“She loves making records, so sooner or later you’ll see something else by her. She’s not quitting the record business.”