Country star, Season 16 Dancing With The Stars champion, and Season 5 American Idol finalist Kellie Pickler revealed plenty of details about her upcoming in a new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, including its title and release date.
The new album, Kellie’s 4th and her 1st release with her label Black River Entertainment, is set to come out on November 12, 2013 will be called The Woman I Am, named after a song Kellie cowrote with her husband, Kyle Jacobs (an established Nashville songwriter with current cuts on albums from George Strait, Tim McGraw, Scotty McCreery, and more). Kellie tells Rolling Stone she was inspired to write the title track after a journalist asked her which song she would play to introduce her music to a new listener.
More from Rolling Stone on several other cuts set to appear on the album:
Included on Woman is an up-tempo rocker called “Bonnie and Clyde,” a tune Pickler co-wrote with Jacobs and Liz Rose — the songsmith behind a handful of Taylor Swift cuts, including Swift’s debut single “Tim McGraw.” She also finds herself in a lighthearted mood on “Ain’t No Cure for Crazy,” and exploring her roots on “Selma Drye,” a song she wrote with Phillip Lammonds and Billy Montana, that was inspired by its namesake: her tobacco-chewin’, pistol-packin’ “hillbilly” great-grandmother. “She was a spitfire,” Pickler recalls. “She lived in this little trailer in front of [my grandparents’ house] for over 40 years. She never drove a car, never had a driver’s license – that was the devil. She was just a strong woman and that song is really about her and her generation of women, and how they were raised.”
“Ain’t No Cure For Crazy” is cowritten by Kyle Jacobs, Joe Leathers, Billy Montana, and John Ozier. Also set to appear on the album is “I Forgive You,” cowritten by Michael Busbee, Hillary Lindsey, and Aimee Mayo, a song that Kellie has been wanting to record for five years and that will allow her to revisit her difficult history with her mother and father with the kind of maturity and perspective her current place in life gives her.
Also set for the album: lead single, “Someone Somewhere Tonight” (which peaked at #49 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart and #48 on the Country Aircheck/Mediabase chart), and current single “Little Bit Gypsy” (which just debuted at #59 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart), which Kellie describes to Rolling Stone as the new album’s poppiest song. Kellie has also recently been performing a song called “Ring For Sale” (video here, the song is cowritten by Jim Beavers and Chris Stapleton). Kellie also cut the Kalissa Ewing/Rivers Rutherford song “Where Did Your Love Go?” (demo here) for the album.
In describing the The Woman I Am‘s sound to Rolling Stone, Kellie says:
I love that classic, traditional sound. I love that tear in Tammy Wynette’s voice. There’s still a little bit of that sound that we did on the last record, but it’s not the same album.”
Like Kellie’s critically acclaimed 3rd album 100 Proof, The Woman I Am is produced by Frank Liddell and Luke Wooten.
Are you excited for Kellie’s album? Do you foresee country radio getting on board with “Little Bit Gypsy,” and how do you foresee Kellie finding an audience for her music outside of country radio?