Book review: You can take the girl out of New York City but she will never stop loving it

She felt she was on her way to becoming a successful musician. But life is never that easy, or simple. That album might have been the darling of critics but it didn’t sell in the numbers her record label expected. Meanwhile her marriage to another musician had fallen apart. Rigby and their young daughter Hazel were trying to survive.

She never gave up on her dreams though, soldiering on with her musical career. In her second memoir, “Girl to Country,” we experience her next phase as she decided to move to Nashville, that musical mecca, to pursue a career as a songwriter with hopes of writing songs that might attract the attention of some big names in country music.

We observe Rigby hanging out with her musical idols in Nashville. She learns about the songwriting business while collaborating with other songwriters. She sees some are very successful, living comfortable lives. She wants that, too.

We share her moments of exultation and exhaustion. We tag along on her frequent concert tours. She was an opening act for a number of better known musicians like Warren Zevon. She toured with bands and performed solo, traveling all over. It could be a hard life.

Her motor vehicles were often failing. If the band needed to fly somewhere, she had to buy their plane tickets. It was a struggle. Her ex-husband was a drummer in Steve Earle’s band and somehow between all the separate touring they were doing they still managed to take good care of their daughter, Hazel.

Her desire to find another romantic partner powers this memoir. She gets into a relationship with a rich fan in Alabama. We know from the start that he is bad news but he keeps lavishing her with expensive gifts. After all those years of driving vehicles that were falling apart suddenly she has a new BMW, a gift from her creepy boyfriend.

Thank heaven she then found the right guy after all, a legendary English musician known as Wreckless Eric. As this memoir ends they seem to be living happily ever after. She has a new album, “Hang in There with Me,” she is working on her third memoir, and still doing what she loves with a concert tour next year in Portugal.

For an inside close up look at the music biz this is the book.