Jennifer Nettles: A Star Goes Back To Her Roots

Four years after Sugarland’s split, Jennifer Nettles is supporting Hillary and advocating for female artists (bro country be damned): “It’s in my blood”

- Jody Rosen

Jennifer Nettles has one of those singing voices that cuts through speakers. so it makes sense that when the country star talks about her craft, the metaphors quickly turn, well, sharp. “I love being able to work with a fine dentist’s tool as a singer in terms of nuance. I appreciate that as much as I do taking out my big sword.” she laughs. “And don’t get me wrong: I love taking out the big sword. The big sword is absolutely jubilant and victorious.” 

No one who has heard Nettles at full volume would doubt the power of her instrument. You can hear it all over her new album, Playing With Fire, out May 13 on Big Machine. the album’s 11 songs move from the hopped-up sass of the title track (“here’s the way the world sits to me/Good girls rarely make history”) to bruising power ballads (the lead single “Unlove You”) to “Drunk in heels,” which features a string of feminist punchlines. All of the songs find Nettles in peak vocal form, a burly, blues-tinged tone she links to Douglas, the small, South Central Georgia city where she was born and raised. “It’s in my terroir, as we say,” she says. “All of the rich heritage of music from that part of our country — gospel, R&B, blues, country — I can’t get out of it. It’s in my blood. I’m from the swamp of southern Georgia.”