MELINDA Schneider hasn’t released a solo album of new material for about seven years and the popular country star has enjoyed the break – but she used the term loosely.
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"Sometimes as a solo artist you become a bit of a navel gazer and obsessed with your own material. It's a bit self indulgent,” Schneider says.
"Sometimes it's nice to have a break and just sing some other great songs.
"I've been doing a bit of that for probably the past six years because the Doris album came out in 2010 … I did Doris and Dancing with the Stars that year and wrote the big theatre stage show that I toured.
“Then I had a baby, then I did a Best Of album and then I did Great Women Of Country, so I haven't had a solo album out for about seven years, and I'm working on that now to be released later in the year.
"But it has been a nice break.”
Schneider released Great Women Of Country – And The Songs That Made Them with Beccy Cole and did a series of concerts early last year.
Now Schneider, 44, will bring the Great Women Of Country show to the Commercial Club Albury on Friday, February 19, and Club Mulwala on Saturday, February 20.
"Beccy's off doing her Sweet Rebecca Tour with her book so she was only able to work on this project for a little while,” she says.
"But it has still got a lot of life left in it, so I'm doing half a dozen more shows around the clubs and regional areas of Australia with it.
"So I sing all the songs, all 23 of the songs."
The show will cover classics such as Stand By Your Man, Ode To Billy Joe and D.I.V.O.R.C.E. from the likes of Tammy Wynette, Linda Ronstadt, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton and Olivia Newton-John.
“They're the best written songs in the world really, so you are singing absolute quality and that's what it's all about,” Schneider says.
"It all comes down to the song. They are really well written songs and they've been hits several times over.
“You can't go wrong, they're just classics you never get sick of singing them. I never get sick of singing Doris Day songs, and of those amazing ones from Calamity Jane and all of that, and I don't get tired of these well written songs.”
Outside the Women of Country shows, Schneider has been staring in Doris a musical based on the life of Doris Day, which Schneider also co-wrote.
Work on the stage appeals to Schneider, and ensures she will return to the Border.
"I really enjoyed writing that Doris show and seeing it come to life,” she said.
"Having to learn a script and sticking to that script every night, there was a discipline in that that I really enjoyed.
'I'm probably going to be doing more Doris dates regionally now because I've never taken that show regionally.
"So I have to bring that to Albury."
