Matraca Berg, American country music singer and songwriter is widely known as the wife of musician, Jeff Hanna.
The talented singer Matraca was born Matraca Maria Berg on February 3, 1964, in Nashville, Tennessee to Icie Calloway Berg.
Raised in a musical household, Berg’s mother Icie Calloway Berg was a songwriter/session singer and her stepfather was songwriter Dave Kirby.
At age 18, she had her first no.1 hit as a writer with Karen Brooks and T. G. Sheppard’s 1983 duet “Faking Love,” co-written with Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame member Bobby Braddock.
Berg has since released five albums: three for RCA Records, one for Rising Tide Records and one for Dualtone Records, and has charted in the top 40 of the U.S. Billboard country charts with “Baby, Walk On” and “The Things You Left Undone,” both at No. 36.
Aside from her material, Berg has written hits for T.G. Sheppard, Karen Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Deana Carter, Patty Loveless, Kenny Chesney and others.
In 2008 Berg was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and in 2018 she received the Poet’s Award from the Academy of Country Music Awards.
Berg was featured in the 1987 motion picture Made in Heaven and on the soundtrack of the movie The Thing Called Love in 1993. As a backup vocalist, she has been in the studio with Kris Kristofferson, Dolly Parton and Neil Young. As a producer, she has guided recordings for Christian singer-songwriter Christy Sutherland.
Matraca Berg,59, has been married to 76-year-old singer-songwriter Jeff Hanna of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band since 1993.