Lee Ann Womack Doubles Her Chances —
Grammy Noms for Country Solo Performance & Song for “Chances Are”
Nashville, TN: For Lee Ann Womack’s The Way I’m Livin’, an album seven years in the coming, it’s a work of love, courage and putting the music first. With a Country Album of the Year nomination in 2015, the little record that could has brought the progressive hard country chanteuse to a new place. When the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences announced the 2016 Grammy nominees, Womack’s very long year supporting Livin’ yielded two nominations: Best Country Solo Performance and Best Country Song for “Chances Are.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Womack, still asleep when the call came, said. “I tell myself music matters and people care about songs. Sometimes looking around, you wonder. But then you get a call like this, and you, well, you believe in the power of great music, great songwriters and great musicians to stand out…
“People thought Frank and I were crazy when we made this record. Maybe we are. But it sure felt good to cut songs we really believed in, that talked to people falling part and trying to hang on… ‘Chances Are’ is the most hopeful sad song, and I’m glad Luke Lewis pitched us Hayes Carll’s incredible song when he told Frank and I to make a record without thinking about formats or promotion or marketing, just cut the best songs we could find.”
The Way I’m Livin’ scored Womack a 215 Americana Music Association Album of the Year nomination as well helping her receive her first an Artist of the Year nod. She picked up what many considered a surprise 2015 Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year nomination and a pair of CMT Video Music Awards nods for Female Video for “The Way I’m Livin'” and Performance for “Crossroads” with John Legend.
Following her heart turned out to be a good thing. USA Today gave TWIL a rare ***** out of ***** review, while Rolling Stone offered Livin’ “feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back in the Seventies,” SPIN called it “the best of her career” and Garden & Gun proclaimed, “Nashville is filled with artists making ‘the record they were born to make.’ With Livin’, Womack is one of the few who actually deliver.”
“Seeing good friends like Patty Griffin, Chris Stapleton, John Legend, Little Big Town, the Fairfield Four, Brittany and all the Alabama Shakes, Rodney Crowell and Emmylou Harris, Dr. Ralph Stanley and so many more people I’m forgetting,” the diminutive Grammy winner gushed, “fires me up! So much great music, killer players… I can’t even take it all in, but it makes me so happy to see this much great music recognized. That’s why I believe doing great work matters: because it does.”
For the Grammy- and 6-time CMA-winner, it’s certainly been all about the music since releasing The Way I’m Livin’ in late 2014. In addition to her CMT “Crossroads” with John Legend, Womack co-hosted the International Bluegrass Music Association Awards with Jerry Douglas, joined Lucinda Williams, Amos Lee and Buddy Miller for the Fairfield Four with the McCrary Sisters’ PBS Special “Rock My Soul,” recorded with Dr. Ralph Stanley, dueted with Steve Earle at “Life & Songs of Emmylou Harris” at Washington DC’s DAR Hall and “Outlaw: Celebrating the Music of Waylon Jennings” at Austin’s ACL Live are all among the highlights… and it appears there’s still more to come.
