She'll slide under that guitar strap, just as she's always done.

And she'll inch up to the microphone in her usual way on Aug. 2. Even the setting will be familiar - the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville.

But Roxie Randle won't be the same singer-songwriter Bluebird crowds have heard before, belting out tunes such as "If You Could Only See," "The Speed of My Heart" and "Todo Mi Amor (All My Love)." That just isn't possible. Within the past year, this 26-year-old who grew up in Hutsonville, Ill., absorbed the deaths of her best friend, stepfather and cousin. Randle had never lost anyone so close.

"I can already tell that it's changed me," Randle says.

She hasn't done much performing or songwriting since last fall, when cancer took the life of her stepdad, Ron Randle. He helped raise Roxie from the age of 5, with her mother, Sue Randle.

All those memories - of Roxie singing into rolled-up magazines and hairbrushes in the center of their living room, duets with her mom at county fairs and talent contests, high school, college and the move to Nashville in 2001 - were the backdrop for some "personal time to get it all out, grieve and just heal," she says.

Now, Roxie adds, "I'm at a real crossroads in my writing and my singing."

"Real" is an apt word in that phrase. Though she came to Music Row with aspirations, Randle also arrived with a realistic outlook.

Gradually emerging
That move from Hutsonville to Nashville was preceded by some impressive musical successes, dating back to Oct. 17, 1998. That night, Randle got to sing on the Hulman Center stage as a guest vocalist with superstar Shania Twain after winning the WTHI Sing-to-Win Contest in Terre Haute. The next year, she sang at the Illinois State Fair and later opened for the band Ricochet in Taylorville, Ill. By 2001, Randle served as the opening act for country legend Mel Tillis that February and won another WTHI event - the Tammy Wynette Sing-to-Win Contest - in July.

That path had real musical roots. Randle's mother and father, Eugene Brown, who now lives in Cartersville, Ga., performed in a band together for many years. Her grandfather played the piano. "So I would definitely say I inherited it," Roxie says.

Nonetheless, in the Hutsonville High School choir, Roxie insists, "I didn't really stand out too much." Or at least not until her senior year, when she and a friend sang Pam Tillis' "Cleopatra, Queen of Denial" while dressed in togas and gold jewelry.

"That was really the first time I stepped out and took center stage," Roxie says.

That summer, she started singing at class reunions and festivals with her mom and their cousin, Gary Peak. But college, at St. Mary-of-the-Woods, and a turning point would soon follow. After two years at The Woods, her plans changed.

"I was just really burnt out with school and just ready to be out of school," Randle says. "I was studying to be a teacher, and I said, 'I just don't want to do this.' And then I had this revelation that, hey, I don't have to be a teacher. I can be anything I want. And I was like, 'Duh, Roxie, isn't that want you should be saying your whole life?'"

So she transferred to Indiana State University, switched to a major in geography and a minor in Spanish and graduated two years later. And within a few months, Randle was ready to give Nashville and a music career a try.

Politics on the country ladder
She didn't plunge into Music City's rapid waters. She waded in, watching and learning from others first.

"I was very cautious about Nashville. I sort of learned the ropes first. I was not expecting things to happen right away, just being realistic," she recalls. "Once I got comfortable, I just went crazy."

Randle filled her schedule with gig after gig, and wrote songs three or four times a week.

A couple years later, she's eased up on that pace a bit - partly because of the "hell of a year" she's just gone through, and partly because of that realistic outlook. She plans performances in blocks now. "It's just kind of sporadic," she says. Randle has a full-time day job as sales and marketing coordinator at Halford Co., which produces personalized music CDs for appreciation gifts. Corporations reward clients with those CDs, which contain a variety of classical, holiday, jazz or patriotic music. Ironically, country isn't part of that.

Randle has learned a lot about that genre and its star-making process.

"You have to play the game if you want to be where Faith Hill is or Tim McGraw is," she explains. "You have to schmooze and play politics. Nashville has lost some of its shininess, in my eyes. When I first got here, it was like, 'Ooh, it's Nashville!' And now, I'm like, 'It's OK.'"

Her goals now simply center around the chance to write and perform.

"I don't necessarily want to be Faith Hill. And I'm not knocking Faith Hill. She's great," Randle says. "But I want to do my own songs. And I want to play guitar on stage."

It could take time
In Nashville, even that can be a massive feat. Take that upcoming date at the Bluebird on Aug. 2, for example. Randle will do a half-hour show as part of the cafe's Chick Singer Night. Last July, she sent the club a CD of one of her live performances. Then in January, the Bluebird notified Roxie that she'd made the card for the event this August. That's a 13-month process for one 30-minute show.

The songs those audiences hear from Randle are sometimes composed solo or with a songwriting partner. Both methods have their difficulties. She finds writing alone hard. And working with a co-writer sometimes leads to awkward pauses in the process where both are left asking, "OK, what are we trying to say here?"

So Randle has found success in creating her folksy, alternative-country tunes by sticking with co-writers who are close friends - Jamie Prosser, Brent Baxter and Shantel Adams. Alan Jackson fans would know Baxter as the co-writer of that country superstar's hit "Monday Morning Church." One of the Baxter-Randle compositions includes their 2003 song "Something Real." In it, her strong soprano voice sings this passage:
"That Hollywood ending used to seem like enough,
But now she'd give anything for one honest touch."

Songwriting hasn't been easy following the passing of those three people. Doing other things has been difficult too.

"I had three funerals in a year, and that takes a lot out of you," Randle says. "So when those traumatic things happen, little things seem like such a burden."

While enduring those losses, her religious faith rekindled.

"It's already improved my relationship with the Lord," Randle says from her cell phone while on a lunch break from work. "I'd always prayed, and I went to church, but I didn't know him. But I've grown in that area."

And she's seeing Nashville and the rest of the world from a new perspective.

"It's sombered me quite a bit," she says. "But I think it's definitely going to change my life and my priorities and who I spend my time with and what I value."

Those changes will likely emerge in her upcoming Nashville shows at the Dan McGuinness Restaurant on July 18, the French Quarter Cafe on July 28 and then at the Bluebird.

"It's definitely going to make a difference in my music too," she says. "I've already heard and felt a difference in my singing. It's more emotional now. And this is just the start of my healing. So it's hard to tell what's going to happen.

Mark Bennett can be reached by telephone at 1-800-783-8742, Option 6, Ext. 377, by e-mail at mark.bennett@tribstar.com

Roxie Randle at a Glance
Hometown:
Hutsonville, Ill.
Age: 26.
On the way to Nashville: She won the WTHI Shania Twain Sing-to-Win Contest in 1998, and sang as guest vocalist at Twain's concert in Terre Haute's Hulman Center. In 2001, she won WTHI's Tammy Wynette Sing-to-Win Contest. And she's served as an opening act for Ricochet, Mel Tillis and Terri Clark.
Some of her original songs: "If You Could Only See," "Get Outta My Way," "The Speed of My Heart," "You Were Wrong," "Something Real," and "Todo Mi Amor (All My Love)."
Upcoming performances:
Click HERE for an updated schedule
ON THE WEB
www.roxierandle.com