Lee Ann Womack: Call Me Country

Grumble all you want about today's mainstream country music – and I do my share – but one thing I always find refreshing is how down-to-earth so many of the performers are. You'll rarely brush up against bitterness, bad attitudes or star trips when you meet these people. They're regularly some of the most gracious, friendly, normal entertainers you'll ever encounter. Larger-than-life may work, to an extent, with other pop stars, but not country singers. They're just folks. I like that. I like hearing Lee Ann Womack stop herself mid-sentence to tell her two Yorkies, Honey and Coco, to "Hush!" when they're yapping at her feet, as she did during a recent phone conversation. It reminds me that she's no different than anyone else. Which, when you break it down, is the appeal of most country music anyway.

Lee Ann Womack is one of the good ones. And she is different from many of her peers, in that her music manages to keep one foot in contemporary, pop-oriented country music and another in more traditional, '60s and '70s influenced waters. She's had crossover hits (2000's "I Hope You Dance" being the most successful) and also earned tremendous acclaim from critics and country purists, most recently for her magnificent 2005 album There's More Where That Came From, which recalled the style of classics by Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn, musically, lyrically and even visually.

Since album covers offer a hint, it was obvious before even listening to that album's follow-up, 2008's Call Me Crazy, that it would be a tad sleeker affair. White with lavender polka-dot letters, showing only Womack's legs and high heels emerging from a cheesy space-age bachelor pad sphere chair, the image suggested modern furnishings that were decidedly retro all the same. In a way, that's a good way to describe the album. Produced by veteran Music City musician and knob-turner Tony Brown, it's not a pop album, although some songs lean that way, and it's not another throwback to vintage sounds, although there are elements of that as well. It kinda has a little of both. Frankly, it wouldn't matter to me what it sounded like as long as it included "Last Call." Written by Erin Enderline and Shane McAnally, it's a fantastic song wherein Womack conveys loneliness, desire, temptation, disappointment and resolve in just over three minutes. Oh yeah, there's also some Johnny Walker whiskey, a honky-tonk bar and an undeserving man involved. It might be the best thing she's ever recorded.

Womack, 43, has been in the midst of making her next album with Brown, which she envisions as a similar mix of styles. The first single, "There Is a God," is already out, a simple appreciation of the many wonders of life, asking how it could all be just random without the design of a higher power. Written by Trent Willmon, it could easily be heavy-handed but it's not. She's also in the midst of sporadic concert dates opening for George Strait and Reba McEntire, a package tour that comes to Philips Arena on Feb. 25. It's a big deal for her, because she hasn't done much touring for the past several albums, choosing instead to stay home and raise her two daughters, Aubrie and Anna, with her husband, Nashville music publisher and producer Frank Liddell. I like that, too...