BUDDY THE ORIGINAL TEXAS MUSIC MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2014 VOLUME XXXXII, NUMBER 3 Livin’ – a family creation Lee Ann Womack’s new CD, The Way I’m Livin’, took her six years and a new contract with Sugar Hill Records to release. By Tom Geddie R EMOVE AN EXCELLENT COUNTRY Rsinger — one of our best — from the con- Rstraints of major record label demands and what do we get? Very probably her best album yet. The artist is Lee Ann million lovers couldn’t set me Womack, who might be consid- free, he haunts me” . . . “I am a far ered a sort of female George Strait cry, you are a whisper” . . . “go for the respect she gets in the tell my baby that I am happy and songs she chooses to cover, to that I’m never coming home, interpret in her own way. The make up some reason I had to album is The Way I’m Livin’, leave him, the only true love I’ve which took her six years and a ever known” . . . “Sunday morn- new contract with Sugar Hill ing singin’, chicken gettin’ fried, Records to release. I missed it all by sleepin’ in and First, always, is the East I feel no light inside” and more. Texas-raised Womack’s perfect Womack shares the words in voice. A close second is her choice slow, contemplative songs, in a of songs. On this fine, mostly sort of Southern gospel, and traditional album, the words we somehow hopeful, some blues- get come from Chris Knight, oriented country, and a lot of Mindy Smith, Buddy Miller, real country weepers. On the Mando Saenz, Hayes Carll, Neil often comic Roger Miller’s ob- Young, Bruce Robison, Adam scure, disturbing “Tomorrow Wright, Mindy Smith, and Roger Night in Baltimore” which be- Miller. gins, “Her head rolls back and The writers tell us: “I wish I forth / Against the billows of her could fly with you just like the long black shiny hair / As she angels do” . . . “I will one day contemplates the ecstasy / Of hold hands with my eternal fam- some other love that now she ily”. . . “chances are I took the wished was there” while a man wrong turn every time I had a basically stalks her, believing he’s turn to take, and I guess I broke about to take her. my own heart every time I had a heart to break” . . . the devil Family “smiled, reached into his coat, WOMACK’S DELIVERY AND he gave me a bottle full of some- the basically stripped down pro- thing sweet, said I’ll fill it up duction — by her husband, noted every time we meet” . . . “now a producer Frank Liddell who New CD includes “A Cup of Loneliness,” “Satisfied Mind, and a Lightnin’ Hopkins song and some Lefty Frizzell : Lee Ann Womack she’d never before done a full lowing us to do this. He let Frank ounce of emotion that person ers and pickers over for jam ses- album with — put the emphasis and I create the record I’d always feels, every minute of life they sions. Our two daughters (Anna on the stories. wanted. We got to do things have lived — they’re pulling on Lise, 15, and Aubrie, 23) are What may be the best album differently, to not think about all those life experiences to de- running back and forth to guitar “I live to sing great songs that the Grammy-winning Womack anything except what’s best for liver that lyric. It’s always paints lessons and piano lessons. Their has done took her six years to the songs and the feelings inside a little bit different of a picture friends who play music are over tear holes in life, just show complete and release, even with them.” when someone else sings a song.” here. songs including “I Hope You “So even if it seems I’ve been living for what it is. I would Dance,” “A Little Past Little Rock,” East Texas roots Living room tracks out of music for six years, really and “Does My Ring Burn Your WOMACK UNDERSTANDS IN AUGUST, WOMACK FIN- I’ve been more into it than I was say it’s real, that the subject Finger?” to her credit. the comparison to fellow Texan ished recording some bonus before. Part of the fabric around “I’ve gotten to do a lot of great George Strait, who she’s toured tracks in her living room that here is that we try to teach them matter is real life, and it does things over the course of my with, and feels a strong, tradi- take her further away from to focus on the music and not on career,” she said. tional connection to a third today’s version of country mu- the other stuff that goes on sort of mine the depths of the “One thing I didn’t get to Texan, George Jones, as she grew sic; these new recordings will be around the business.” spend much time on was just up in Jacksonville. available through different out- Womack is also free to in- soul. And knowing these songs really focusing on great music . . “That’s where I really leaned lets to be determined. dulge — if that’s the word for a . and cutting a whole album of to sing, on Jones’ records, trying They include Jones’ “A Cup passion — in books. Right now, were written to be performed, what I consider to be great songs to sing like him. East Texas has of Loneliness” from the 1950s, she’s re-reading The Hot Zone, a that we wanted to bring to the that soul that sorta fits with a “Satisfied Mind,” and a Lightnin’ book about the Ebola virus when not pitched, sets a bar. Every forefront. western type of country music Hopkins song and some Lefty it first hit about 20 years ago. “There’s always been this and also a lot of that soulful thing Frizzell, of course. Before that, she read J.K. songwriter wrote intending to cloud of commercialism, labels that goes on in Louisiana that These are all people who have Rowling’s mystery The Cuckoo saying here’s what we need, shov- kinda floated over into East had a great influence on me. Calling and she just started The sing them, to tell these stories, ing songs at me by people who Texas. I think George Strait and There’s something in the water House That Country Music Built were having a lot of success at I learned from a lot of the same or the dirt in East Texas that all of which tells the story of Star Day show these postcards, and you the time. Now I’m really having people: Jones, Merle Haggard, these artists — and I hope I’m Recordings in Houston, the stu- a good time thinking about noth- that sort of thing.” one of them — that helps create dio and record label in Houston can feel the way they built the ing but the music.” Womack writes, too, al- this thread of soulful country where George Jones recorded all She began working on the though, like Strait, she’s known music.” of his first records. characters. Bringing that to the album six years ago with record- for her interpretations. She likes How’s she been living while “I usually have several books ing company executive Luke to hear other people sing the The Way I’m Livin’, due out Sep- going at once,” she said. music was just so incredible for Lewis; it survived through label songs she’s written. tember 23, finds its way into Life is good, it seems, for a mergers and commercial temp- “As a writer myself, when I stores? traditional country music star everyone on the sessions.” tations and, finally, a contract hear someone else sing a song I “We have a lot of music that unconstrained by commercial –LEE ANN WOMACK with Sugar Hill. wrote, it is so interesting because goes on here in our house,” she demands.

“Luke was very generous, al- you get their emotion — every said. “We constantly have writ- So is The Way I’m Livin’. ■

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