Early history

Matraca Berg's mother, Icie Berg, moved from Harlan County, Kentucky, to Nashville in the 1960s to seek her fortune as a singer and songwriter shortly before Matraca was born. Her Aunt Sudie Callaway was a successful Music Row backup singer. Aunts Coleida Callaway and Clara Howard were backup vocalists on Kentucky’s Renfro Valley Barn Dance. Uncle Jim Baker was a steel guitar player who also spent some time running Mel Tillis's song publishing companies.

Berg's mother found only limited success in the music industry and eventually became a nurse. Berg herself then took up songwriting with her mother's encouragement. When Berg played her songs for songwriter Bobby Braddock, he volunteered to co-write with her. She found her earliest success in their collaboration, "Faking Love", which was sung by Karen Brooks and T. G. Sheppard, topping the Billboard Hot Country Singles (now Hot Country Songs) charts on February 19, 1983.

Career history

After her mother's death in 1985, Berg continued to have great success writing songs for other performers. Reba McEntire had a No. 1 song with her "The Last One to Know", and Randy Travis, Tanya Tucker, Ray Price, Marie Osmond, Sweethearts of the Rodeo, Michelle Wright and others recorded her songs.

Berg signed to a recording contract with RCA Records Nashville in 1990, releasing her debut album Lying to the Moon that year. Its first two singles, "Baby, Walk On" and "The Things You Left Undone," both charted in the country top 40 at No. 36, followed by the No. 43 "I Got It Bad" and No. 55 "I Must Have Been Crazy."

What was to be her follow-up album, Bittersweet Surrender, was recorded in 1991. It featured the single "It's Easy to Tell," which charted in November 1991. The album was rejected by the label, which wanted a more mainstream-sounding recording instead. One of the songs from this canceled album, "Wrong Side of Memphis," later became a Top Ten hit for Trisha Yearwood. She continued to write for others, and in 1994, released a pop album The Speed of Grace.

Berg co-wrote "Strawberry Wine" along with Gary Harrison, which Deana Carter released as a single. Berg won the "Song of the Year" at the 1997 CMA (Country Music Association) Awards. The same year, she released the album Sunday Morning to Saturday Night via Rising Tide Records; it produced the singles "That Train Don't Run" and "Back in the Saddle," the former of which was released by Pinmonkey in 2006. In 1999, RCA released a compilation album entitled Lying to the Moon & Other Stories which also included tracks from her 1997 Rising Tide release.

In 2004 and 2005, Berg was nominated for induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, making her one of the youngest nominees in history. She continues to be a prolific and respected country songwriter. She currently lives in Nashville with her husband, Jeff Hanna, a member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. She was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2008.

Discography

Albums

Title	Album details	Peak chart positions
		US Country	US Heat	CAN Country
Lying to the Moon	Release date: September 25, 1990 Label: RCA Nashville	43	—	—
The Speed of Grace	Release date: March 1, 1994 Label: RCA Records	—	—	—
Sunday Morning to Saturday Night	Release date: September 23, 1997 Label: Rising Tide Records	48	—	22
The Masters	Release date: 1998 Label: Eagle Records	—	—	—
Lying to the Moon and Other Stories	Release date: August 10, 1999 Label: RCA Nashville	—	—	—
The Dreaming Fields	Release date: May 17, 2011 Label: Dualtone Records	42	7	—
Love's Truck Stop	Release date: October 21, 2012 Label: Proper Records	—	—	—
"—" denotes releases that did not chart

Singles

Year	Single	Peak chart positions		Album
		US Country	CAN Country
1990	"Baby, Walk On"	36	61	Lying to the Moon
	"The Things You Left Undone"	36	44
1991	"I Got It Bad"	43	30
	"I Must Have Been Crazy"	55	58
	"It's Easy to Tell"	66	—	Bittersweet Surrender
1993	"Slow Poison"	—	—	The Speed of Grace
1997	"That Train Don't Run"	59	70	Sunday Morning to Saturday Night
	"Back When We Were Beautiful"	—	—
1998	"Back in the Saddle"	51	74
"—" denotes releases that did not chart

Music videos

Year	Video	Director
1990	"Baby, Walk On"	Dave Bridges
	"The Things You Left Undone"	Geoff Adams
1991	"I Got It Bad"	Dave Bridges
	"It's Easy to Tell"
1997	"That Train Don't Run"	Roger Pistole
1998	"Back in the Saddle"	Steven Goldmann
1999	"Lying to the Moon"
2012	"The Dreaming Fields"	Jon Morgan

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1987	Made in Heaven	Studio Singer	Cameo; performed the song "We've Never Danced"

Singles written by Berg

Year	Title	Artist(s)
1983	"Faking Love"	T. G. Sheppard and Karen Brooks
1987	"The Last One to Know"	Reba McEntire
	"Just Enough Love"	Ray Price
1989	"Promises, Promises"	Lori Yates
1991	"I'm That Kind of Girl"	Patty Loveless
1992	"Wrong Side of Memphis"	Trisha Yearwood
1993	"Hey Cinderella"	Suzy Bogguss
1994	"XXX's and OOO's (An American Girl)"	Trisha Yearwood
	"Somebody's Leavin'"	Patricia Conroy
1995	"Walk On"	Linda Ronstadt
	"You Can Feel Bad"	Patty Loveless
1996	"Strawberry Wine"	Deana Carter
	"We Danced Anyway"
	"Give Me Some Wheels"	Suzy Bogguss
	"Wild Angels"	Martina McBride
1997	"Cry on the Shoulder of the Road"
	"Still Holding On"	Martina McBride and Clint Black
	"Everybody Knows"	Trisha Yearwood
1998	"Somebody to Love"	Suzy Bogguss
1999	"Fool, I'm a Woman"	Sara Evans
	"All I Want Is Everything"	Mindy McCready
2001	"If I Fall You're Going Down with Me"	Dixie Chicks
2003	"You're Still Here"	Faith Hill
	"On Your Way Home"	Patty Loveless
2004	"98.6 Degrees and Fallin'"	Jill King
2005	"I Don't Feel Like Loving You Today"	Gretchen Wilson
2006	"That Train Don't Run"	Pinmonkey
2008	"They Call It Falling for a Reason"	Trisha Yearwood
	"Misery Loves Company"	One More Girl
2011	"You and Tequila"	Kenny Chesney and Grace Potter

[ Source: Wikipedia ]