Lee Ann Womack is an American country music singer and songwriter. Her 2000
single, "I Hope You Dance" was a major crossover music hit, reaching No. 1 on
the Billboard Country Chart and the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100, becoming
her signature song. When Womack emerged as a contemporary
country artist in 1997, her material resembled that of Dolly Parton and Tammy
Wynette, except for the way Womack's music mixed an old fashioned style with
contemporary elements. Her 2000 album I Hope You Dance had an entirely different
sound, using pop music elements instead of traditional country. It wasn't until
the release of There's More Where That Came From in 2005 that Womack returned
to recording traditional country music. Presently, Womack has released a total
of six studio albums and two compilations. Four of her studio albums
have received a Gold certification or higher by the RIAA. Additionally, she
has received five Academy of Country Music Awards, five Country Music
Association Awards, and a Grammy Award. She has sold over 6 million albums
worldwide. Early life
Womack was born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas, United States. At
an early age, she was interested in country music. Her father, a disc
jockey, often took his daughter to work with him to help choose records to play
on the air. Womack was the second of two daughters. Her mother was a
schoolteacher and her father was also a high school principal. As a child,
Womack studied the piano and later graduated from Jacksonville High School
in 1984. After graduating, Womack attended South Plains Junior College in
Levelland, Texas. The college was one of the first in the nation to offer country
music degrees, and soon she became a member of the college band, Country
Caravan. A year later, she left the college and after an agreement with her
parents, Womack enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee,
where she studied the commercial ways of the music business. In Nashville, she
interned at the A&R department of MCA Records. She studied at the college
until 1990, leaving the school a year before graduation.
Womack spent a few years raising her children before reentering the music
business in the mid 90s. In 1995 she began performing her music in
songwriting demos and at showcase concerts. At one of these showcase
concerts, she was spotted by Tree Publishings, who signed her after
listening to one of her original demo recordings. Womack wrote songs with some
popular Nashville songwriters, including Bill Anderson and Ricky Skaggs, who
recorded her composition, "I Don't Remember Forgetting" for one of his
albums. After divorcing her first husband around that time, Womack decided
to pursue a career as a country music artist. She auditioned for MCA chairman,
Bruce Hinton, who praised her talents. Shortly afterward, she accepted a
contract from MCA's sister record company, Decca Nashville in 1996.
Music career = Country music stardom: 1997–1999 =
Womack released her self-titled debut album in May 1997, produced by Mark
Wright. The album consisted of self-penned material as well as songs
written by other artists, including Mark Chesnutt, Ricky Skaggs, and Sharon
White. With the original release of the album, there was worry that the album
wouldn't sell because some people wouldn't be able to differentiate
between her and LeAnn Rimes, who was also a successful artist at that time.
However, Womack decided to keep her given name. The first single, "Never
Again, Again" made the country charts and playlists by March 1997, which led
to the release of the album's second single, "The Fool" shortly afterward.
More successful than her first single, "The Fool" reached the Top 5 on the
Billboard Country chart that year. That year she won major awards from the
country music community; Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country
Music Awards, Top Artist of the Year from Billboard Magazine, and was
nominated for the Horizon award by the Country Music Association. Decca
Nashville decided to close its doors in 1998, moving Womack to MCA Nashville
Records that year. In 1998, Womack released her second
studio album, Some Things I Know, which was also produced by Mark Wright. The
album's first two singles, "A Little Past Little Rock" and "I'll Think of a
Reason Later" both went to No. 2 on the Billboard Country Chart. Two additional
singles, "(Now You See Me) Now You Don't" and "Don't Tell Me" were released
in 1999, and the album was certified Gold by the RIAA soon after.
That year, she also won Favorite Country New Artist from the American Music
Awards. Womack also contributed her vocals to the songs "If You're Ever Down
in Dallas" and "The Man Who Made Mama Cry" in collaboration with her
ex-husband and musician, Jason Sellers. The material was promoted through shows
through October to November before the birth of Womack's second child in
January 1999. = Pop crossover success & career
decline: 2000–2004 = She released her third studio album in
2000 entitled, I Hope You Dance, which was met with major success. The title
track, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Country chart for five weeks and crossed
over to the Billboard Hot 100, becoming a major crossover Pop hit, reaching No.
14. It also peaked at the top spot on the adult contemporary chart and even
reached the UK Singles Charts, peaking at No. 40. Both of Womack's daughters
appeared in the song's video that year. Towards the end of 2000, "I Hope You
Dance" won the Country Music Association's "Song of the Year" and
"Single of the Year" awards. With the Pop success of "I Hope You Dance,"
Womack drew the attention of the magazines People and Time, both of which
praised the single, calling it "one of her best." The song later won awards in
2001 from the Grammy and Academy of Country music awards. The album of the
same name has sold 3 million copies in the United States to date. The album's
follow-up single, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now" peaked at No. 4
on the Billboard Country Chart. The third single, "Why They Call it Falling"
was also successful, reaching the country Top 15.
On December 11, 2000, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the annual Nobel
Peace Prize concert. This song was also featured in the 2008 Tyler Perry film
entitled "The Family that Preys." In 2002 Womack's fourth studio album,
Something Worth Leaving Behind was released. The album made a stronger
attempt at a pop-flavored style, however it did not react well, leading to poor
record sales and only one major hit. Following its release, Womack's career
stalled. Later that year, she released a Christmas album, The Season for Romance
and also collaborated with Willie Nelson on his single, "Mendocino County Line,"
which won a Grammy and Country Music award in 2002. In early 2003, she got a
small recurring role on the popular CBS drama, The District.
In 2004, Womack performed "I Hope You Dance" at the Republican National
Convention, in which George W. Bush was nominated for his second term as
President of the United States. The other performers that night included
Sara Evans and Larry Gatlin. She also collaborated with Red Dirt Music band,
Cross Canadian Ragweed on their hit, "Sick and Tired" in 2004. Also that
year, she also released her first Greatest Hits album, which included two
new songs; "The Wrong Girl" and "Time for Me to Go."
= There's More Where That Came From & hiatus: 2005–2007 =
In 2005, she released her fifth studio album aimed at traditional country music
entitled, There's More Where That Came From. Many people in the music industry
called the album, "a return to tradition," featuring songs about
drinking and cheating with a distinctive older country twang, mixing strings and
steel guitar. The album won the Country Music Association's "Album of the Year"
award in 2005. Womack took inspiration from the records of the 60s and 70s, and
according to Allmusic, the album sounded like albums by Loretta Lynn, Barbara
Mandrell, and Dolly Parton from the 70s. They also called it one of her best
records. The lead single, "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" was a Top 10 hit
in 2005, and also won "Single of the Year" by the CMA awards later that year.
Two additional singles were released from the album in 2005 that became minor
hits, "He Oughta Know That by Now" and "Twenty Years and Two Husbands Ago." The
album was released on vinyl LP as well as CD.
Womack can be heard on the track "If I Could Only Fly" from Joe Nichols' album
Real Things. Womack has also appeared on specials on the CMT network, including
their, "100 Greatest Duets", which featured Womack singing the duet with
Kenny Rogers, "Every Time Two Fools Collide". The song had been originally
recorded by Rogers and Dottie West in 1978 and was a No. 1 Country hit that
year. Womack took the place of West during that show since West had died in
a serious car accident in September 1991. Womack's other honors includes
being listed at No. 17 on CMT's 2002 special of their countdown of the 40
Greatest Women of Country Music. In 2006, Womack announced plans of a
sixth studio album off of Mercury Nashville Records. The lead single,
"Finding My Way Back Home" was released in the late summer of that year and
debuted at No. 46 on the Billboard Country Chart. The single later peaked
at No. 37 and was re-scheduled into 2007, because Womack found more songs
that she wanted to record, however it was never released and Womack left
Mercury. = Return to music: 2008–present =
In 2008, Womack announced plans for a new single for the first time in three
years, once again on MCA Nashville. "Last Call" was released on June 30,
2008. It served as the lead-off single to Womack's seventh studio album, Call
Me Crazy, which was released on October 21, 2008. The album, released on vinyl
and CD, was produced by Tony Brown, has been described as a dark album with
plenty of songs about drinking and losing love. It featured a duet with
George Strait titled "Everything But Quits," a re-recording of the Strait
song "The King of Broken Hearts," which first appeared on the Pure Country
soundtrack. One track, "The Bees," features vocals from Keith Urban.
In October 2009, Womack released "There Is a God", as the lead-off single to her
upcoming seventh studio album which never surfaced. The song debuted at No.
60 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of November 14, 2009,
eventually peaking at No. 32 in early 2010. Womack has revealed a few of the
tracks that she has recorded for the album, including: "Talking Behind Your
Back", as well as "You Do Until You Don't".
In October 2010, Womack contributed the new track "Liars Lie" to the soundtrack
for the film Country Strong. Womack also contributed guest vocals to Alan
Jackson's cover of the song "Ring of Fire", which was released in December
2010 as a single from his compilation album, 34 Number Ones. His version of
the song was a minor hit, charting to number 45 on the Hot Country Songs
charts. Though Womack is featured on the song, she was not given credit on the
charts. In August 2012, Womack parted ways with
MCA Nashville. In April 2014, Womack signed with Sugar Hill Records. Her
first album for the label, The Way I'm Livin', was released September 23, 2014.
Critics cheered the progressive traditionalist’s return. In addition to
a four out of four star review in USA Today, Rolling Stone proclaimed Livin’
“feels like something Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings would have crafted back
in the Seventies,” Spin deemed it “the best of her career” and Garden & Gun
offered, “Nashville is filled with artists making ‘the record they were
born to make.’ With Livin’, Womack is one of the few who actually deliver.”
"Livin'" was the only country album to make Esquire magazine's Top Albums of
2014 list. It was nominated for two 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Country Album and
for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Womack also received two
Americana Music Awards nominations for Album of the Year and Artist of the
Year. On September 26, 2014, Womack
collaborated with American R&B singer John Legend for an episode of CMT
Crossroads. She is currently on tour through November 2015 in support of her
most recent album "The Way I'm Livin'." Personal life
At Belmont University, Womack met and married singer-songwriter Jason Sellers
in 1990; they divorced in 1996. Together they had a daughter named Aubrie Lee
Sellers. Womack gave birth to her second daughter, Annalise Liddell, in January
1999 after marrying record producer Frank Liddell.
Discography Lee Ann Womack
Some Things I Know I Hope You Dance
Something Worth Leaving Behind The Season for Romance
Greatest Hits There's More Where That Came From
Call Me Crazy Icon
The Way I'm Livin' Awards
References External links
Official website Lee Ann Womack at the Internet Movie
Database