When you hear the name Susan Gibson, you may immediately think of the song “Wide Open Spaces.” She’s cool with that – The Dixie Chicks’ recording of that Gibson-penned tune is one of the best-selling country songs of all time. According to Susan, it’s paying her mortgage.

As the story goes, her old band, The Groobees, recorded “Wide Open Spaces” for the album Wayside. Lloyd Maines was the album’s producer, and he gave an early copy to his daughter, Natalie. Natalie’s band, The Dixie Chicks, made the song the title track on their next album. The song hit #1 on the Billboard country charts, and the album won the 1998 Grammy for Best Country Album on its way to becoming one of the top fifty bestselling albums of all time.

But Susan is much more than just, as she puts it, “the girl who wrote that Dixie Chicks song.”

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Susan perform twice in the past few months. Both were intimate listening room environments, once at The Red Room in San Antonio, and once at a house concert. It is pretty easy to see that she’s a happy person. She really seems to get a kick out of her time on stage, telling stories, singing songs, and answering the sometimes inane questions from the audience (I wish I could keep my mouth shut, but…). Always cheerful, even when lightly cursing her guitar for falling out of tune, Susan clearly enjoys her chosen profession.

She also provides support for younger musicians. In fact, Susan even invited young Rachel Laven, the 14-year-old singer/songwriter from San Antonio, onto the stage to perform a couple of songs during the Red Room show (by the way, San Antonio’s Red Room has moved to a more accessible location near Broadway and Loop 410, so I expect to see you all there sometime soon!).

Intensely creative, Susan released her second, and most recent, solo album, Outerspace, in 2005. Outerspace includes compelling tracks like “Together Strong,” “Sister Hood,” and “Stop the Bleeding.” But the true standout is the song that is most off the beaten path. It’s a jazzy unlisted track called “But A Dream.” According to Susan, the song is a jam that resulted from Susan’s saying, “Hey, I have these lyrics but don’t know what to do with them.” So they rolled tape and drummer Rick Richards, bassplayer Jack Saunders, guitar whiz Michael O’Connor, and Susan took it from there. The last thing Susan says on the song is, “That’s all the words,” to let the players know the song is over. Too cool.

With the early monster success of “Wide Open Spaces,” perhaps life, so far, has been “But A Dream” for Susan Gibson. In fact, I was discussing just that with Susan after the house concert I attended, and she told me that ... what? … I need to wrap it up? … Well, we’ll continue this in a later issue. In the meantime, be sure to catch up on all the great Susan Gibson tunes the Dixie Chicks did not record.

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