Singer-songwriter Oleta Adams’ long musical journey brings her to Meridian this week when she’ll be part of “The Heart Behind the Music” Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the MSU- Riley Center.

Adams, a soul, jazz, and gospel artist, will be joined by three country music singer/songwriters: Richie McDonald, Beth Nielsen Chapman and Lee Roy Parnell. The quartet will take turns presenting songs and stories about life in the music business.

The youngest of three girls and two boys, Adams spent her formative years in Seattle, and later Yakima, Wash. Her musical abilities were first noticed in the Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, where her father served as minister.

After 17 years of paying her dues in clubs and hotels, Adams hit it big with her 1990 debut album, “Circle of One,” which went platinum. The record featured the hit single “Get Here,” a Brenda Russell composition that became an unofficial anthem of the 1991 Gulf War. Since then, Adams has released seven more albums and has toured the world. She spoke to The Meridian Star recently after returning from a festival in Frankfurt, Germany.

MS: Do you tour Europe a lot? Are you big there?

OA: I do tour Europe a lot. I went over there for the end of Musikmesse Festival, a music festival they have every year in Germany. It’s very big, which includes trade industries in regards to musical instruments, and they have artists from all over the world. So it’s even more diverse than some of the festivals we have here in America. I was very honored to close the festival with the HR Big Band. It was really great.

MS: Have you been to Meridian before?

OA: I have never been and I don’t really have any idea what it is like, so I’m really excited about it.

MS: How does Thursday’s show work? Is it like a round table, do y’all talk a little?

OA: Well I have no idea (laughs). I see there will be Q&A and people telling stories about backstage incidents or things that happened on the road …. probably stories on how you came up with a particular idea to write a song and probably most people are probably interested in how you create and what happens when you get writer’s block and how you get out of it and what inspires you and how many songs do you throw away probably will be questions like what song where you about to throw away and it ended up being a really popular song.

MS: Were you a songwriter first or a singer first, or did it all just come together at the same time?

OA: Definitely a singer first, pianist second. I played on all my gigs. I always say I’m the only piano player who has never left me. The reason is – I have been left a couple times on opening night in my career. Somebody probably got nervous because there must have been too many chords to have to play and I could play back then, but not as experienced as I am now. You have to get yourself coordinated, it just taught me a lesson: Oleta depend upon you.

It served me very well because versatility came along with that and you get more jobs by that. Some people just want you. They want to hear your voice, hear you interpret songs and sing to them, entertain them, bring them joy. But then you can also fit into other circumstances, like this Big Band job I did this past week in Germany. I worked that also in Holland. It varies what people want, but it really has paid very well to be versatile.

MS: When did you know you had a gift as a songwriter and that this could be part of your versatility?

OA: I think early on in my career. First, you start writing songs about your life. I think there is a song that happens to be a favorite and I wrote it a long time ago, its called “I’ve Got to Sing My Song.” I’m a preacher’s kid and my great-uncle raised me, and he obviously as a Southern Baptist would not want me to go off and sing pop music. But I had to explain to him that I was meant to do this and it wasn’t enough to sit at home and church and play; I needed to go around the world and do this.

And that was my first experience with writing a song that meant so much to a lot of people. And even to this day, fans from all around the world are trying to express to their parents, “I love you, I respect you but I gotta go down my path, my own destiny. You can’t live my life for me, let me do this on my own.” And that is what that song means and I think watching the reaction to that and several other songs that I have written have felt really good and therapeutic. It was personal, so it gave a lot more meaning to what I was doing, instead of feeling like you’re just a jukebox.

MS: So you knew early on this was it, this was your destiny?

OA: Yes, I mean at first, it starts with all the popular songs, because I love interpreting other people’s songs because that was what I was really good at – making those songs sound like my own. I really enjoyed that and then as an extra I would kind of throw in one of my songs and they were received so warmly. I will be honest and say that I don’t feel that I have written enough and I know I haven’t written enough. The problem is that I can write for a reason but I can’t just throw out a song and that slows me down. If I feel that I don’t have anything to say or haven’t found a way to say it then I don’t write.

MS: When did it click that other people wanted to record your songs and how did you feel?

OA: It was such a thrill. So interesting, for example, several groups of people who have recorded or have sung “Window of Hope.” There has been a lot – I think it’s Morehouse Male Chorus and also recently there was a young high school group of kids in Holland who sang that song when the Princess of Holland came to visit them. I was so stunned and so honored that they like positive songs and it is upbeat. I sang it in February at the Ladies of Soul, we did three shows in Holland … Watching everyone sing the words and all, it is so humbling. And some of the Dutch artists have re-recorded that song; so it is inspiring to watch how it touches other lives.

MS: Did you ever think this is where your journey would take you?

OA: No, not at all. When you come from Seattle and are raised in Yakima, Washington … It’s a small town and you come out of the Pacific Northwest, and you just want to sing. I was big fish in a little pond and then worked my way around. It took me 17 years before I got a break in Kansas City, discovered by a British pop group (Tears for Fears). I didn’t even believe it when they called me. They called two years later out of the blue, I still didn’t think much of it. Sung on their CD and some things blow up. 

With all that has happened, even to this day, you get standing ovations at the end of your show, you say thank you, you bow, and when you walk off that stage, you have to start all over again. That’s how I take it; every wonderful thing that has happened. I’ve forgotten some of it because I don’t live off it. I’m just so thankful to have had this kind of life and this kind of career. I caught a cold because people like to hug me and I don’t back away – they come up with tears in their eyes and haven’t even heard you sing yet. One lady said, “You helped me through two divorces.” And another guy said, “You helped me through college, med school.”

MS: Did you ever want quit?

OA: Every other day. Obviously playing clubs is not easy. In less than a month, I will be 64. When I was in the clubs, they were still smoking in there, okay? Inhaling that all the time and the long sets in Kansas City, I did three one- hour shows, six nights a week, 50-52 weeks a year. It was a lot of work…those were difficult days. I did a lot of hotel clubs where you didn’t know who was coming in. It wasn’t just your fans, it was farmers and insurance people and medical people, ball players.

MS: So what has kept you going?

OA: Those people, those comments and the drive inside knowing I gotta sing my song. It wasn’t the need to be a star. I’m not really into that; I don’t live that kind of lifestyle. I live in Shawnee, Kansas …I love being here in the heartland of America with my feet on the ground. I go out and do these shows with a lot of famous people and then I come back home and play for Sunday School for people in their 90s. And that’s the way my life is.

I’m not the showbiz type people. It’s too hard and very expensive to try to keep up with – and I wouldn’t know how to. It’s about the music; it’s about meeting a need. I always said soothing the savage beast in man, that is what you go for. Then when no one else wants to listen, then I will hang it up. I still have Sunday School.

AT A GLANCE

THE HEART BEHIND THE MUSIC: Songwriter’s showcase Featuring Oleta Adams, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Richie McDonald & Lee Roy Parnell, Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Pre-show party 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $39 and $33 and are available at msurileycenter.com.

Richie McDonald is lead singer of the country group Lonestar (“My Front Porch Looking In,” “Mr. Mom”) and a solo artist. Oleta Adams (“Get Here”) sings soul, jazz, and gospel and has performed with Tears for Fears and Phil Collins. Beth Nielsen Chapman has written many hits for others (“This Kiss,” “Nothing I Can Do About It Now,” “Five Minutes”) and has a new album with Amy Sky and Olivia Newton-John. Guitarist Lee Roy Parnell (“Tender Moment,” “Heart’s Desire”) has notched several blues-tinged country hits.