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Russ Harrington
Photos taken at Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk.
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Russ Harrington
Photographs taken at Friends In Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk.
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Russ Harrington
Photos taken at Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk.
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Russ Harrington
Photos taken at Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk.
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Russ Harrington
Photographs taken at Friends In Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk.
With several Grammy, CMA, and ACM awards; countless multiplatinum certifications; four New York Times-bestselling cookbooks; an Emmy for her Food Network show Trisha’s Southern Kitchen; and co-ownership of Lower Broadway’s largest bar and honky-tonk, Friends In Low Places (which she personally curated the menu for), Trisha Yearwood has accomplished a lot. But if you think that after more than three decades in the spotlight there’s nothing Yearwood hasn’t done, think again.
Never one for complacency, Yearwood is still finding ways to do things she has never done before with the release of her highly anticipated upcoming album, The Mirror (available July 18). Entirely co-written and co-produced by the star herself, it’s a career first for Yearwood that she couldn’t be more excited about. And as the best things in life often are, it’s a new chapter she never expected to embark on.
“Most of the best things that have happened to me in my life were never planned,” Yearwood says with a laugh. “The biggest hits in my career, I didn’t say, ‘Oh, this is going to be the one.’ When I follow the natural path of what seems right for me, it’s kind of worked out. This album, in particular, I never intended to make. I kind of had an ah-ha moment a couple years ago: I had somebody in college tell me I wasn’t a songwriter, and I kind of let that stick. Something flipped in me a couple years ago and I thought, just because somebody said that, who probably doesn’t even remember it, that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the truth about me. I have a songwriter friend named Leslie Satcher who kept being persistent about writing and telling me, ‘You’re a writer. Stop saying you’re not a writer.’ It got the ball rolling with writing, and I just started writing for myself. I know I’m a creative person, I’ve enjoyed writing the cookbooks, so I know I come from a creative place, and it just opened up a whole new world for me that I had been in my own way about.”
A testament to Yearwood’s natural talent and creativity, the decision to release those songs happened just as organically as the way they were written. “I never intended to record [the songs], it was just kind of therapy for me and as time passed co-writers and my husband [Garth Brooks] said, ‘These songs are good, and you need to make a record.’ And all my friends were encouraging me,” Yearwood explains. “Now, I’m sitting here about to release it and I’m just really happy. I’m not trying to say that what I’ve done is better than anything I’ve done before, because I’m really proud of the body of work of the great songwriters whose work I’ve covered over the last 34 years, but this is just what I’ve been doing, and I’m really excited about it.”
The album’s title track is perhaps the best reflection of just how personal the 15-song project is to Yearwood. Introspective and heartfelt, “The Mirror” paints a picture of how Yearwood views herself exactly where she is today, and it beautifully captures the way we grow to see ourselves as the person we were always meant to become.
“This whole project is really a reflection of what I’ve been doing for the past couple years. Not to sound cheesy, but it’s really introspective in a way I’ve never done before. The Mirror felt like the perfect title because it felt like this is me looking at myself and here’s what I have to say,” she says. “This is me. We’re complicated beings and we have all the feelings and all the emotions, and we’re so much more alike than we are different.”
While on tour this spring, Yearwood had the opportunity to play some of her new songs from the album. She felt as if she wrote a lot of the songs to her younger self, and as she discovered during her shows, fans felt that same emotional connection.
“We’ve been doing some live shows and it’s been so cool to see it resonate with women, especially, in the audience,” says Yearwood. “The thing I think I’m most proud of on this record is the early response from the women in my life. Just to hear them saying, ‘Man, I love what that song says.’ Yesterday, I saw somebody post a picture of me from years ago that said, ‘I want to be as confident as Trisha Yearwood,’ and what I want to say is, ‘You are!’ And also, ‘I’m not!’ You’re more confident than you think, and I’m not as confident as you think I am. We’re all in this together. So, I’m hoping this album makes the people that have been with me, following my career all along, feel like they know me better and that I have the same ups and downs as they do.”
Of course, The Mirror features several incredible ballads showcasing the powerful voice that has earned Yearwood a reputation as one of the best in the business. And although fans and the music industry at large are well acquainted with her beautiful vocals, they’ll be equally as impressed by her honest songwriting.
One of the most vulnerable tracks on the album, and a personal favorite of Yearwood’s, is “Fearless These Days.” And fans who have been lucky enough to hear it live are already resonating with it.
“I think it’s one of the most honest songs on the record. I say this when I sing it live, but I’m a good little Southern girl and I spent a lot of my youth, young 20s, and early 30s, if I made a mistake in my life, I just kind of pretended none of those things ever happened. Something that switches when you get older, if you’re lucky, you get to a place where you’re comfortable with all the things that make up who you are, and I think “Fearless These Days” is about that. It’s about going, ‘Hey, I was young, I was growing up, I made mistakes, that’s OK, everybody does that.’ There’s a comfort in that to me. And that’s a song where I definitely see it in other people’s faces when I sing it. It feels the most personal and maybe the most gratifying. I could go through why I love every song so much, I’m too close to them, but that’s the one that really feels the most raw and honest,” she says.
But Yearwood doesn’t just limit herself to the touching, tear-jerker ballads; the album also features some boot-stomping anthems and feel-good songs that are just as relatable. Whether it’s an ode to the unbreakable bond of girlhood on “Girls Night In,” or a playfully feisty reminder that a woman’s worth is far more than a ring on her finger with “Little Lady,” there’s a song to match every mood.
“When I started writing, I wasn’t thinking how these songs would fit on an album, I was just writing songs. But when Chad [Carlson] and I started to figure out which songs to put on the record, I was a lot more reticent to put the lighter songs on there because I feel like people are like, ‘She’s written this album, we’re really going to scrutinize these songs, and everything has to be really serious.’ It was Garth Fundis who told me years ago, ‘Everything doesn’t have to be six feet deep, you can have some fun,’” says Yearwood. “I’m glad we did. I’ve probably written 60 songs, when you’re trying to narrow it down to 15 you want that mix of a little bit of everything.”
And when it came to selecting songs and bringing this album to life, Yearwood enjoyed the creative process of co-producing this album (another career first) just as much as the songwriting.
“When I got started in 1991, there weren’t very many people producing or coproducing their own projects, especially not women. My producer, Garth Fundis, was fantastic, and I learned so much from him. It was so much collaboration, and he was a great mentor. I love him and he and I have made so many great records together, but I wanted to flex my own wings because I learned a lot from him. So, I went to Chad Carlson, who engineered five or six of my last albums. He and I both learned under Garth Fundis, so it felt like it was venturing out with a safety net,” Yearwood says. “Choosing songs, writing songs, I know what I like and I know what I want, and the thing I learned in this process was kind of like the same songwriting lesson: if I have an idea about what’s not sounding right — maybe the drums are too heavy or maybe the solo should be a fiddle instead of a steel — to speak up and to trust my gut. It’s a collaboration, but it’s a process where you feel free to express yourself, and I enjoyed every single bit of it.”
This album marks a new chapter in Yearwood’s ever-growing list of milestones, and it’s only the beginning. Her passion is apparent not only in this project, but in every facet of her expansive career. Because the heart of it all will always be the music. “I love music so much. I do so many different things, and I’m surprised at 60 years old, I’m busier than ever. I love all the things I do, but music is the thing that feeds my soul,” says Yearwood. “Now that this album has gotten put together, I’m already ready to start making a second one because there’s so many songs. And I don’t want to just stop recording other people’s music because I listen to songs every day and there are so many songs I want to record that I have nothing to do with, but this has been such a passion project that I feel like their might have to be a volume two before there’s another record.”
In all of Yearwood’s many ventures, she leads with heart and soul. It’s what got her where she is today, and to be here doing what she loves is what Yearwood considers her ultimate achievement.
“I feel like my greatest accomplishment is probably not a career thing. I think it’s the fact that I’m still here, still finding ways to get to be creative and do what I love. I feel like my greatest accomplishment is as a little girl growing up in Georgia, having absolutely no idea how to do this and how to make it a career, but knowing it was all I ever wanted to do. The fact that I’m able to sustain a career for my entire adult life and make a living doing what I would do for free and that I love so much, I feel so lucky,” Yearwood says. “In all the different iterations and all the different things I’m a part of, to still be getting to do it. Garth and I talk every day about how grateful we are that we get to do what we love and do it for a living, and I don’t take that for granted. There’s a small group of people who get to say that, and if you really love your job, you’re really lucky.”
Photographs taken at Friends In Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk.