Think mini-skirts, cowboy boots

Pop-country singer-songwriter Bri Anne Michelle is not the kind of performer who sits around hoping to be discovered.

The Grass Valley native manages her own career, produces her own albums and books her own gigs in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.

She's working on Nashville.

“It's not easy,” she conceded. “I got online and started contacting booking agents. It definitely takes the fun out of it.”

But that's the nature of show business. Talent is only part of it. Luck and hustle count as much, if not more, when it comes to making it in the music world, she said in a recent interview in Nevada City.

“I do a lot more than most other artists” in terms of booking, managing and producing, she said. “I do all the behind-the-scenes stuff right now.”

As tough as it is, managing her own career gives her degree of creative control that some other artists under contract can only envy.

It's not like Michelle hasn't had a chance at signing a recording contract. She performed in a showcase sponsored by Atlantic Records. She got into contract discussions with Atlantic, but she didn't like the direction they wanted to go in packaging her.

“It was way too pop,” she recalled. “They didn't see me.”

So she went ahead and produced her own album, “Surround Yourself,” which she released in April.

Home-grown talent

Born and raised in Grass Valley as Brianne Hodges, she now goes by her stage name of Bri Anne Michelle.

She is the daughter of Randy Hodges, who has operated the beloved Humpty Dumpty Kitchen on Nevada City Highway for 40 years, and Catherine Peters, who owns the new

Bon Bon Salon in downtown Grass Valley.

Her grandparents include longtime residents and business people Bev and Amos Seghezzi.

Although Michelle grew up surrounded by music and began singing and playing piano by ear when she was five, Michelle didn't set out to be a singer-songwriter.

At age 15, she signed a modeling contract and ended up in Milan, Italy, and New York City, among other places. She continued her high-school studies through Nevada Union High School's home-based studies program and graduated with valedictory honors in 2001, she said.

After six years of modeling, Michelle decided to quit modeling and return to one of her earlier passions — interior designing — in New York, which she considers her second home.

“I've been blessed with various professional opportunities,” said Michelle, who is also an accomplished painter.

Although she was concentrating on interior design, “I was singing on the side,” she said. Friends encouraged her to record a CD “just for fun.”

“The feedback was so amazing, it kind of kicked my butt into gear,” she reported.

That's when she got serious about becoming a singer-songwriter.

Although she had a positive response from her first trial album, she chose an entirely new set of original songs for her first commercial CD “Surround Yourself.”

Recording that album was a cross-country experience. She started recording it on the East Coast, cut a track in a living room in Nashville and, “I came back here to finish it. I needed to be home.”

Surrounding herself

The title cut from Michelle's album pretty much sums up her philosophy of life:

“Surround yourself with the people you love,

“Surround yourself with the people you trust,

“And if you if you let them know, then I know for a fact,

“The people you love, they'll be watching your back.”

“I've had some amazing people with beautiful hearts in my life,” she concluded with quiet gratitude.

Tom Durkin is a freelance writer based in Nevada City. For comments on this article, e-mail tkleist@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4230.