Friday, May 18th 2001
 MAGAZINE
p.7/MUSIC
By DON GERARD

  Robynn Ragland may be enjoying a life of relative anonymity in her rented farmhouse in rural Monticello, but across the Mississippi River, in the shadow of the great arch, she is a genuine rock star.  It is only a matter of time before the rest of the world finds out.
  "There are some labels interested, but nopthing I can talk about just yet," she demurred with an apologetic smile.
  Ragland will open for Oasis and the Black Crowes at the Tweeter Center in Tinley Park on Sunday night and then again at the Verizon Wireless Music Center in Indianapolis on June 1.  Her debut album, "Modern American Female Gut" (released on her own Saifer Records label), is available at Borders, most independent record outlets and at Amazon.com.
  Ragland seems as if she were born to be a pop star.  A remarkable musician, she writes songs with both the gutsy edge and melodic beauty of such artists as Chrissie Hynde, Aimee Mann and Sheryl Crowe.  She possesses a beautiful, soaring voice and a casual yet confident stage demeanor.  Not just pretty, she is movie-star gorgeous.  and rivaling all these attributes are her inimitable spirit and almost fanatical work ethic.
  "After I had spent all my own money hiring lawyers to get the rights to release my own album, I had to teach myself how to be a record label," she said.  "Production, promotion, everything.l  It was really hard, but it worked."
Genuine Rock Star
Finds Serenity
in Monticello

One of Robynn Ragland's posters, taken from her Web site at www.robynnragland.com

  In 1999, she was putting the finishing touches on her album, which she co-produced with Urbana resident and former Warner Brothers recording artist Adam Schmitt, when the record label she was working with suddenly went under.
  "I was signed to Red Ant, which was a really big independent with distribution through BMG, but the investors pulled out," Ragland noted.  "I was lucky to have anothyer smaller label buy out my contract, but it ended up folding before the album could be released."  Fortunately the label managed to release a singel to radio.  "People You Know," which eventually was used in the Fox Network program "Fame L.A." and appears on the soundtrack to the feature film "Wish You Were Dead," immediately went into heavy rotation on WVRV The River in St. Louis.
  "It was really frustrating because I would go visit the station and say 'the album will be released on such and such a date,' but then it looked like the album wasn't going to come out at all," she lamented.  "But they kept on playing it, so I decided I had to somehow get it released."
 When a second cut from the album, "Peace in the Water," wound up in an episode of "Dawson's Creek," Ragland found it increasingly difficult to acquire the rights to her album.

   "When things get bad, everybody gets weird," she said.  :What started out as a two-paragraph agreement, alloowing me to put out the album, turnied into a 12-page legal document.  I got to the point where I felt like I had my heart in my hands.  they knew they had (the rights to the album), and I was desperate for it to come out." 
  Ragland's perseverance paid off as Hits Magazine reported she had the No. 1 breakout album in St. Louis in March and April of last year.  Her disc has been Amazon.com's top seller in St. Louis, St. Charles and Belleville over the past year.  She has opened for such acts as Bare Naked Ladies, Pat Benetar, Edwin McCain and Juliana Hatfield.
  Ragland has also performed on the Lilith Fair Tour with Sarah McLachlan, Bonnie Raitt and Natalie Merchant.  She recently graced the cover of St. Louis Magazine, alongside a photo of chuck Berry, in a recent feature lauding the city's most-acclaimed artists of all time.
  "I kind of consider St. Louis my hometown, but I like the idea of being someplace on a whim," Ragland says of her current address.
  Living close to Champaign-Urbana, she has culled some of the twin cities' finest journeyman musicians to back her on stage. Along with Schmitt on guitar, drummer Brendan Gamble, bassist Peter Roubal and backing vocalist Gloria Roubal are current members of Ragland's live band.
  The serene rural setting in which Ragland has chosen to live gives the opportunity to play guitar, write songs and unwind from her countless hours of managing her career.  She admits, however, she is not exactly a farmhand at heart.
  "Sometimes I'll see one of the cows wandering around lost," she said with her omnipresent smile.  "I'll pick up the phone a call somebody and let somebody know."
 www.robynnragland.com