Ann Granger The Truth Seeker's Wife

The latest release from Heart’s lead singer Ann Wilson under the banner of The Ann Wilson Thing, Focus #2, might strike many new listeners as unsettlingly abrupt. Instead, however, it represents a sharpening of focus all great artists experience from time to time…

Lee Ann Womack began recording a sequel for MCA Nashville after 2008's Call Me Crazy, but none of its advance singles stuck, leading the singer to shift direction for her seventh studio album. This album didn't appear until 2014, not on Universal but on Sugar Hill/Welk, who picked up The Way I'm Livin', an album that effectively reboots her career. Produced by Frank Liddell – Womack's husband but more notably the producer behind recent hit records by Miranda Lambert, Pistol Annies, David Nail, and the Eli Young Band – The Way I'm Livin' finds the veteran singer intentionally abandoning the chart race for deeply felt intimacy. Womack didn't write any of the songs on The Way I'm Livin' – a collection of writers ranging from Bruce Robison, Kenny Price, Julie Miller, and Mindy Smith to Hayes Carll and Neil Young bear credits – but the material is so carefully selected, the album plays personally.

Following the release of their latest studio album Versions Of The Truth in September 2020, the band were preparing to start the album’s live campaign, when like so many other artists their plans were put on hold by the continuing global pandemic.