"In a lot of ways, I've had more success here recently than I did when I was starting out," says the soft-spoken Loveless, who released her first album 11 years ago. "The funny thing is, I've had a harder time enjoying my success. I've gone through a lot of rough emotions in the last few years."

Loveless is competing in three Grammy categories: best female country vocal performance for The Trouble With Truth; best country album for Long Stretch of Lonesome; and best country collaboration with vocals for You Don't Seem to Miss Me, a song that pairs her with country music legend George Jones.

She's the reigning Academy of Country Music female vocalist of the year, joining Reba McEntire and Barbara Mandrell as the only three to win the award for two consecutive years. She was the Country Music Association's female vocalist of the year in 1996, too; the previous year, she became the first woman in 12 years to win the CMA's album of the year honor, given for her acclaimed When Fallen Angels Fly. <

But it was during these years that Loveless faced devastating events in her personal life. Her sister Dottie died at age 49 after struggling with emphysema for more than a year. Her husband, record producer Emory Gordy Jr., faced emergency surgery for pancreatitis, an ailment that proved life-threatening. (He's back at work but still recovering.) At the same time, her brother and former manager, Roger Ramey, suffered from a serious form of liver disease. And beaten down by stress and a grueling schedule, Loveless herself ended up in the hospital, suffering from pneumonia in the winter of 1996-97.

"There were moments there that I felt so terrible that I had trouble going on," she says. "I was waking up a lot in the middle of the night and dealing with all these feelings. I think I went through a little bit of depression."

She got through it, she says, by listening to her songs, finding inspiration in the messages of strength and perseverance.

"A good song is like a friend," she says. "I really started hearing the words to some of my songs really deeply. I found myself repeating the words to them, and I started talking to myself constantly. That sounds weird, but I was telling myself I had to get up off my butt and get on with life."

That kind of conviction about the power of music is part of what makes Loveless such a powerful performer.

"Patty is real, and that's the greatest thing you can be as a country music singer," says Vince Gill, who's performed on many of Loveless' songs, including her first No. 1 hit, 1989's Timber, I'm Falling in Love. "There's just nothing affected about Patty, not as a singer or as a person. She's as pure as it gets."

Gill first heard Loveless sing in 1986, when he accepted an invitation to perform background vocals on her first album.

"When Patty opened her mouth, what came out completely floored me," recalls Gill, who had released his first country album a few months earlier. "Her voice had power, and it had the sound of the mountains in it. No tricks, no mirrors. It was just this magical sound."

Gill's comments underscore several important aspects of Loveless' career: She has enjoyed unusual endurance, she stays grounded in traditional country music sounds, and she has engendered a rare degree of respect among her peers.

"I'm not the most perfect singer out there, and I'm certainly not the most popular one," Loveless says. "But I'm a real emotional singer - that's the special thing I have. I also try and find songs that mean something to me. I think people can hear that I connect with the lyrics. I feel that I express a lot of who I am in my songs."

Part of who she is comes from spending her youth in Kentucky's coal-mining country. "I grew up around Kentucky bluegrass and mountain music," she says. "I feel that I'm one of the people who continue to keep a little bit of that music in what I do."

It's that sense of commitment to the deeper powers of music that lifts Loveless in the eyes of her peers.

"She consistently puts out great songs, real country music," says country veteran George Jones. "I just love her. I enjoy listening to her."

By Michael McCall, Special for USA TODAY