Astute observers know that in the world of music, successful careers begin at the intersection of talent and opportunity. Alecia Nugent’s had talent all her life, but it took a long time for opportunity to come calling – and since then, her strong, graceful voice and exceptional ability to find and deliver the essence of a great song have earned a grassroots buzz that has made her Rounder debut, Alecia Nugent, one of the year’s most eagerly awaited releases.

Born and raised in Hickory Grove, Louisiana, Alecia grew up surrounded by music. Her father, Jimmy Nugent, started the Southland Bluegrass Band the year she was born, and even as a young child she was being invited with her brothers and cousins to sing a special number with the group. “We lived and breathed bluegrass and gospel,” Alecia recalls, and as she grew older, that immersion translated into a growing role with the band – first as a guest, singing a featured number like Holly Dunn’s hit, “Daddy’s Hands,” and then, from her late teens, as the Southland Band’s lead singer.

Between informal family singing sessions at home and her appearances on stage, Alecia developed a command of bluegrass and country harmony and a broad-ranging repertoire. “My dad was pretty much my biggest influence,” she says. “If we weren’t at a festival, he had us sitting at the piano with my mom, teaching us to sing harmony parts and how to blend them together.” Applying those lessons to bluegrass classics by the Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin, Flatt & Scruggs and more, she also found herself drawn to recordings by country artists such as Conway Twitty, Merle Haggard, George Jones and Reba McEntire – the latter, she says, “probably my biggest female influence at first.” With the passage of time, those influences and experiences were melded with her natural talent to form a singer of remarkable beauty and power.

Yet it seemed for years as though Alecia’s career would go no further. Family life and her devotion to raising three daughters would have been reason enough for that, but no less importantly, Louisiana was largely outside the bluegrass mainstream, imposing a kind of natural limit on her renown. “There wasn’t much of a bluegrass scene – just two or three mainly local festivals,” she notes. “We played over in Mississippi and up in Arkansas sometimes, but not too many other places.”

Still, by the end of the 1990s, Alecia had accumulated a small but devoted core of supporters, and one of them – Mississippi bluegrass promoter Johnny Stringer – eventually offered to bankroll a solo album that would spotlight her interpretive genius. Given free rein in choosing a producer, she turned to Carl Jackson, whose roots in the state’s bluegrass scene had blossomed into a world-class career as instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and producer, and even before the CD that ultimately became Alecia Nugent was completed, the confidence of her backers bore fruit. Jackson played a completed cut from the album for Eddie Stubbs, Grand Ole Opry announcer, WSM-AM disc jockey and a former member of the legendary Johnson Mountain Boys. Impressed by what he heard, Stubbs alerted Rounder Records’ Ken Irwin to Alecia’s talent, and by the time the CD, titled For Love’s Sake, was ready, talks were under way that resulted in her signing to the label.

Since then, the inclusion of two of the album’s tracks on best-selling Rounder compilations (O Sister 2: A Women’s Bluegrass Collection and White Dove: The Bluegrass Gospel Collection), as well as Alecia’s compelling new reading of “Beautiful Star Of Bethlehem” on O Christmas Tree: A Bluegrass Collection For The Holidays have helped to spread the word about the stunning beauty of the album, and the gifted singer who made it. Select appearances, including a late-night showcase at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s World of Bluegrass, and sets at Stringer’s Legends of Bluegrass festival and the prestigious Musicians Against Childhood Cancer festival, have been greeted with a rare enthusiasm and opened new doors. The result is that, more than a decade after she joined her first band, Alecia Nugent finally stands on the threshold of a career long since earned by her talent.

With its engaging mix of bluegrass and country classics and rarities, Alecia Nugent serves as a perfect introduction. All-star backing by a hand-picked instrumental and vocal ensemble – including the disc’s Grammy-winning producer Carl Jackson, IBMA award winners Ron McCoury, Rhonda Vincent and Aubrey Haynie, respected performers Randy Kohrs, Ben Isaacs, Sonya Isaacs and Rebecca Lynn Howard, songwriters Larry Cordle and Jerry Salley and family members Jimmy and Roy Nugent – frames Alecia’s voice with exquisite sensitivity and unerring creativity. From the rollicking Flatt & Scruggs staple that opens the set, to the closing drive of “Blame it On The Train,” this is an album that will appeal to bluegrass stalwarts and country music fans alike – indeed, to anyone with an appreciation for the simple yet profound strength of a great country song and for a singer with the heart and skill to express it.