From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.
With me today at 21c Museum Hotel in Nashville ⌠Lee Ann Womack!
Yay!
What?! And Lex Price on guitar. Welcome, you guys! Lee Ann Womack in a penthouse suite is the stuff dreams are made of, just generally, but I’m going to melt into a puddle, at some point, when you start singing.
[Laughs] Well, I’m happy to be here.
You have a new record coming out October 27 — The Lonely, the Lonesome, & the Gone. It is 54 minutes of pure flawlessness, and itâs all I want to listen to right now. Iâm so glad that I have it ahead of everybody, and I wonât get sick of it. So, congratulations, itâs wonderful.
[Laughs] Thank you! I had fun making it. Iâm glad you like it.
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The first time I listened to this record, my immediate reaction was that it felt like you felt more confident and more comfortable than ever. Not that you sounded in any way bad before, it just felt like … I donât want to say âyou found your voiceâ because I think thatâs always been there. But youâre stepping into it when you want to, youâre hanging back when you need to. Is that because you wrote some of the songs or is it something else, do you think?
I think itâs probably age, I mean experience … not being so worried about what people think. And hopefully the more you do something, the better you get at it, so if youâre singing for years and years and years, hopefully you get better at it. But also, this is probably the first time I made a record where I just really wasnât worried about a staff of people at a label âgetting itâ or anything like that. I just did what I wanted to do.
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Someone called this record your Wrecking Ball.
Ooh, I didnât know that! I like that.
Iâll tell you who later. But I kind of took that to mean that you have hit your stride now, at this point. Youâve kind of found your sound, which was always in there, but youâve moved all the other stuff away.
Thatâs fair. Yeah, thatâs good. I mean I recorded all those records for a major label, you know, and they have things that they expect. Also, as the artist, when you sign a contract, you agree to make a certain kind of music, and so without having those constraints, I really have been able to just enjoy myself. Whereas before, I enjoyed little bits and pieces, now I enjoy the entire thing, and itâs nice.
Do you pick and write songs that you know youâre gonna enjoy singing live and will enjoy singing live for years to come, is that part of it?
Yes, definitely. And songs that move me for one reason or another. I donât worry so much about, âOkay is this gonna move six million people?â Or, âIs this gonna move the promotion staff?â Or, whatever. I just worry that it moves me. And if it moves me, Iâm a music lover, then itâs gonna move somebody else.
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Now, you are absolute royalty within the Americana community.
Aww.
But I also love that the Grammys and the actual country music — the CMAs and stuff like that — are also still recognizing you and still nodding in your direction. So do you feel like thatâs kind of the best of all possible scenarios, to be straddling it all and not just one or the other?
I mean itâs nice, very nice, but I have had my hand in each of these areas from the beginning, you know? My very first single was âNever Again, Againâ and it had Ricky Skaggs and Sharon White singing the harmony on it. And Iâve been working with Buddy Miller for however long — years and years — and Jim Lauderdale. And, as far as the bluegrass world goes, I love my bluegrass friends.
I know you do.
Yeah, and love the music, love the lifestyle and everything. So yeah, Iâve kind of had my hand in a lot of different places over the years, and thatâs kind of just who I am.
But itâs weird that you havenât always been perceived that way, right? People perceived you in a different way.
And that was frustrating for me because, I mean, you can tell by the way I talk and sing, you know that Iâm country. [Laughs]
[Laughs] No way around that!
My favorite singer is George Jones. To me, George Jones is a country singer, but heâs a soul singer, you know? And Ralph Stanleyâs a soul singer! If itâs born out of something thatâs real rootsy, then Iâm gonna love it. And thatâs who I am, thatâs how I was born I guess.
And thatâs the thread running through this record too, you burn down all the walls. Itâs hardly strictly country and hardly strictly anything … But that soulfulness and you just pouring yourself into it, thatâs the thread, and itâs amazing that, after all these records, that itâs clear that youâre a fan first. Thatâs coming [through], your love of music and your enjoyment singing. Is that something you have to work at or is that just naturally coming?
No, I donât have to work at it. If I didnât sing, I feel like Iâd die or something, like it keeps my heart beating or something. I donât know. But you know what? I donât have to sing on stage in front of thousands and thousands of people. I can sit down in my living room at home with my guitar and sing, and it still feeds whatever that is. I sing and hum to myself all the time and my daughters are like, âWould you stop doing that?â Iâll be grocery shopping or whatever.
While all the rest of us are like, âCan we come over?â
[Laughs] Itâs funny because itâs like I donât even know Iâm doing it.
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Photo credit: Ebru Yildiz