Jo Dee Messina

I recently attended a private Jo Dee Messina concert at the Louisiana Boardwalk that benefited Toy for Tots.
While I’ve often bopped along to her music – loudly singing in my car, “heads Carolinaaaa, tails Californiaaaa,” I was never more than a casual fan, but Messina’s honestly during her show has made me a convert.
In this world of haves and truly have nothing – it’s easy to think that everyone is doing better than you. No one else has worries or has seen their dreams crushed. It’s easy to live in an isolated world of poor me.
But, Jo Dee shared her recent woes with the audience and we felt for her.
We grieved as she said, “I put my whole heart in to this album and it was the greatest album I’ve ever turned in.”
She turned it in to her record label, Curb, only to find that they wanted to shelve it and not put it in to the stores.
She was really sad and mad, and it reminded me of all the times, I’ve been disappointed and devastated and had to really try to go on.
That’s where my faith has never failed me and I realized it’s not just a pithy saying when we say, “whenever there’s a door closed, a window opens.”
It’s not over by a long, long shot for Messina, who also said she’ll be getting married in the coming year to a man, “who’s not connected to the music industry and doesn’t want to be.”
It’s also not over for her or anyone else who believes that what they’re doing is exactly where they’re supposed to be.
“I do what I love to do for a living,” Messina said. “I love music because it’s part of me and it’s who I am.”