…..some people take voice lessons to learn how to sing, but I just sat and listened to country records, like George Jones, Dolly Parton and stuff like that. What’s so familiar to me can be so foreign to other people, and I don’t realize that sometimes. But that’s how I learned how to sing.”
Somewhere between the blush of a new love and the bruises of a broken heart lies real life and real country music. Lee Ann Womack is a lifelong student of this reality, majoring in Jones and Wynette and graduating with honors, with the tender, yet tough spirit of teachers including Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn.
There’s More Where That Came From – the follow-up to her 2004 Greatest Hits collection -- is for everyone who’s ever loved, lost, and learned hard-earned lessons and lived to tell about it, including the singer herself.
“These are songs that aren’t afraid to tell the truth,” says Womack. “It is definitely honest music as far as the lyrics go. They’re a slice of life – the good, bad and the ugly.”
It’s not an accident that the album’s first single, “I May Hate Myself In The Morning,” sounds simultaneously like a classic country cheatin’ song and a contemporary breath of fresh air. “This is the kind of stuff I grew up listening to,” says the daughter of an east Texas country deejay, who practically wore out her father’s vinyl records, soaking up every vocal lick and turn of a phrase like a sponge. “How true is this song?” exclaims Womack. “Even if you haven’t been in that situation, we all know somebody who has. It’s just honest.”
“You know, the sad thing is, I always felt like I was born too late,” Womack admits. “Even when I was younger, I had an old soul. I chose these kinds of songs early on in my career, but if anything, I’m more able to relate to these kind of lyrics more now than before,” says the woman whose 2000 single, “I Hope You Dance,” made her worldly known.
“You can’t be married twice, have two kids and go through all I’ve gone through in the last few years without learning a few things, you know? I think I even sound a little wiser sometimes.”
And that she certainly does on “Twenty Years And Two Husbands Ago,” a song Womack wrote with veteran country writers Dean Dillon and Dale Dodson. The song’s opening line – Looking in the bathroom mirror, putting my makeup on/Maybelline can’t hide the lines of time that’s gone – is the kind of humble honesty that any woman can relate to. “I feel like that was kind of my ‘Tammy’ song,” says Womack. “I wanted a song or two that was classic and classy female country. Tammy and Dolly would sing in those sequined dresses, almost an evening gown kind of thing. And they’d sing songs of heartbreak. You don’t see females doing that anymore, but I knew I’d have fun doing it, and that was what I wanted to do with this record – just have fun and make music that I love.”
This time around Womack worked with hit-making producer Byron Gallimore, who’s best known for working with pop-flavored artists Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. “I can’t tell you how many people have stopped me and said, ‘You’re making a record with Byron Gallimore?’” laughs Womack. “Now people are calling me saying, ‘I can’t believe Byron did this record! It’s outstanding!’”
