Singer-songwriter Kim Richey has been a black sheep of the country music world for as long as she can remember. In fact, she can recall the exact moment of her excommunication.

“The country guys weren’t having me as soon as they found out I drank iced coffee,” she says with a laugh during a recent chat from her home in Nashville . “I met a woman at a coffee shop for an interview and I was drinking iced coffee, and that was the lead-off of the article: ‘She’s more like she’s from New York , drinking iced coffee.’ I just thought, ‘Oh, geez!’”

Some sins are just unforgivable. Of course, drinking iced coffee isn’t the only crime Richey’s committed against country music. There’s also her revolting habit of polluting her tunes with all kinds of offensive pop melodies and confessional lyrics. It’s enough to make a Nashville record executive puke right on his shiny new boots.

“If you’re a Nashville country person, there’s a tiny little box that you have to fit into. And I’m sure there’s boxes for all the other specific genres, pop or R&B or whatever. I never quite fit in anywhere,” Richey figures. “But if you never get pegged, then maybe it’s kind of lucky in a little way. I think the fact that I’ve never had any real success in any genre has enabled me to kind of do whatever I’m inspired by. I’m trying to see the glass half-full, actually.”

Richey can laugh about being a pariah in the country world – after all, she’s had 10 years of practice. But as for who gets to laugh last, well, that one’s still up in the air.

In early 2003, Richey was dropped from roots rock label Lost Highway (home to folks like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams, Hank Williams and Lyle Lovett) just three months after the release of her much-celebrated album, Rise. The move was a surprise to fans and a complete sucker-punch to Richey, who still can’t explain why it happened.

“You might want to talk to them about that,” she laughs bitterly. “I’m not going to try to theorize what happened there. It was really disappointing. That’s all I’ll say. Because I loved that record.”

Richey has battled uphill her entire career – earning multiple Grammy nominations and writing credits for two No. 1 country singles along the way – but even all those years of perseverance didn’t prepare her for such a crushing blow. She more or less disappeared from the scene, and has spent the majority of the past four years licking her wounds in England, poking her head out only intermittently for shows around the UK.

“I haven’t been playing much or anything because I couldn’t quite figure out what I wanted to do,” Richey explains. “When something like the Lost Highway thing happens to you, you get a dent in your self-confidence after that. It didn’t have a very good effect, really, as you can imagine. I think that was part of why I took a breather to try to regroup and see if that’s what I really want to do – keep trying to do it.”

The process may have taken a while, but Richey seems to finally be edging her way into the periphery of the country scene. She’s even returned to Nashville , although she’s quick to point out that she only plans to stay long enough to get her house in shape to sell.

“I have a list of tasks I have to complete today. I’m under house arrest!” she giggles. “You saved me from weeding for about 20 minutes!”

That being said, Richey’s been spotted playing quiet gigs at venues around Nashville , causing a murmur among fans. The recent announcement of an upcoming U.S. tour for this summer brought that murmur to a cheer.