*After being a fan of Toni’s music and loving the criminally-underrated CD Libra, I was excited to learn that Ms. Braxton was coming to Dallas and wanted to chat with her before reviewing her concert, so I suggested the idea to my editors and got the green-light. Imagine how disheartening it was to encounter one of the most cagey and barely cordial interview subjects EVER. I guess it was too early in the day for her or she was disappointed that I wasn’t a man she could flirt with, but she acted like she couldn’t care less and couldn’t get me off the phone fast enough. I guess Toni…. Anyway, think I did a pretty good job of making her seem accessible even when she wasn’t, do you Ms. Braxton….. 😛 *

It’s been 15 years of joy and pain for Toni Braxton, both personally and professionally, but the sultry songstress finally believes that she understands the keys to success: balance (she’s a Libra, after all) and baby steps.

The infamous label disputes, bankruptcy and health scares almost transformed her fairy-tale singing career into a tragedy, but back with the million-selling Libra and on her first major concert tour in nearly a decade, Ms. Braxton, now in her late 30s, takes all the drama in stride.

“For me it was just about coming back to work,” she says by phone from Miami. “Libra’s doing pretty good, not as well as the other albums, but I just see it as having ups and downs in a career.” She moved to Universal after her fifth album, More Than a Woman, in 2003. “LA and Babyface weren’t there,” she says. “It was different for me; even if we fought, we could still get it together creatively. We’ve been talking about a reunion, but you never know.”

Antonio “LA” Reid and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds discovered the Maryland native in 1990, noticing her dusky alto on demos of songs written for Anita Baker for the Boomerang soundtrack. “Give U My Heart” and “Love Shoulda Brought You Home” were given to Ms. Braxton, became smash hits and paved the way for two consecutive million-selling albums: her self-titled debut, featuring her signature ballad “Breathe Again,” and its follow-up, Secrets, containing the Grammy-winning “Un-Break My Heart.”

When such high sales did not bring in the royalties that she felt an artist of her stature would normally receive, Ms. Braxton asked for release from her contract, filing for bankruptcy when the request was refused. She starred as Belle in the Broadway play Beauty and the Beast during her recording hiatus, and she and the label renegotiated to release The Heat, a 2 million seller that won a Grammy for “He Wasn’t Man Enough.”

Her last couple of years with Arista, however, were marred by health issues, including a high-risk pregnancy with her second son with husband Keri Lewis, and the diagnosis of pericarditis, an inflammation of the heart’s membranous sac caused by a viral infection.

“It’s under control,” says Ms. Braxton, now a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association. “I still have to get monitored by the cardiologist just to make sure, but I’m doing really, really well. Sometimes when I’m onstage, my heart does a weird flutter thing, because of the excess scar tissue, so I’ll take a pause for a moment and play it off, make it part of the act. But I’m good, though.”

It has, unfortunately, closed the door on having a baby sister for Denim Cole, 4, and Diezel Ky, 3. “I’d love to have some pink in my life,” she admits. “Everything’s green and blue and brown. But we may adopt.”

What’s next for Ms. Braxton, after this weekend’s Nokia Theatre appearance and performing at the Essence Music Festival in Houston on July 3, is an extended engagement as headliner at Flamingo Las Vegas in August.

Ms. Braxton playfully mimics Celine Dion’s accent when the Canadian pop star urged her to pursue the gig. “We were talking backstage and she says, ‘Toni, it’s the best thing ever, especially when you have kids! It puts you in one spot.’ Even Mommy Gladys [Knight] said, ‘Oh, baby, you gotta do it, you should come in after I leave!’ And that’s how it happened. Being in one spot helps me do what I love, being an involved mother and performing. I feel very confident that it’s gonna work out for me and my family.”

And with that same confidence, Ms. Braxton also thinks that her fans will enjoy the show Saturday night.

“The fans are gonna hear my songs and remember my journey. I always thank my fans, because if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have had the career that I do. Performing’s the best part for me, because I get that audience participation. In fact, I get a little more out of it then what they get. It sounds crazy, but I do.”