Lee Ann Womack (born August 19, 1966) is an American Country Music singer who rose to fame at the end of The '90s with a twangy neotraditionalist sound, despite being best known for her lush pop ballad "I Hope You Dance".
A native of Jacksonville, Texas, Womack worked as an intern at MCA Records, and then got her break when Ricky Skaggs cut a song of hers. She signed to Decca in 1996 and had modest success with her first two albums, Lee Ann Womack and Some Things I Know. These discs, both produced by Mark Wright, displayed a traditional country influence with ballads such as "The Fool" and "A Little Past Little Rock".
Following the closure of Decca in 1999, she moved to MCA in 2000. It was there that she had her biggest hit with "I Hope You Dance", a beloved pop Parental Love Song from mother to child, with a guest vocal from country group Sons of the Desert. The song was her only #1 hit on the country charts, and a Top 20 pop hit. The corresponding album included another minor hit in a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Ashes by Now", but after that, her momentum tapered off some: neither single from Something Worth Leaving Behind made much noise, nor did "The Wrong Girl" from a Greatest Hits Album. There's More Where That Came From saw a minor return to commercial success, as well as a return to her older twangier sound, driven by the ballad "I May Hate Myself in the Morning". One last MCA album, Call Me Crazy, was issued in 2008, and all of her material since has been on smaller independent labels.
Womack is married to record producer Frank Liddell, best known for being Miranda Lambert's producer. She was previously married to singer-songwriter Jason Sellers, and their daughter Aubrie Sellers is also a country music singer.
Discography:
- Lee Ann Womack (1997)
- Some Things I Know (1998)
- I Hope You Dance (2000)
- Something Worth Leaving Behind (2002)
- The Season for Romance (2002)
- Greatest Hits (2004)
- There's More Where That Came From (2005)
- Call Me Crazy (2008)
- The Way I'm Livin'' (2014)
- Trouble in Mind (EP) (2015)
- The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone (2017)
Tropes present:
- Break-Up Song: "A Little Past Little Rock" is about a woman driving away from her failed relationship ("I'm a little past Little Rock / But a long way from over you").
- Christmas Songs: The Season for Romance
- Double-Meaning Title: "Last Call," about a woman getting a call from a cheating ex late at night when he's drunk, saying he still loves her and needs a ride home. The bar is closing down (it's "last call") and he only ever calls her when he's drunk ("I'm always your last call").
- Green-Eyed Monster: "I'll Think of a Reason Later" has her voicing jealousy toward her ex's new lover.
- Irony: The above-mentioned "A Little Past Little Rock" (which is a breakup song) and "I May Hate Myself in the Morning" (about having a one-night stand with an ex) both feature her ex-husband, Jason Sellers, on backing vocals.
- Love Triangle: "The Fool" has a variant. The narrator confronts a woman, stating awareness that her man is still carrying a flame for his ex ("I'm the fool in love with the fool / Who's still in love with you").
- Lyric Swap: "Why They Call It Falling" questions the metaphor of "falling in love", by expressing the highs and joys of love with the question "Why they call it falling, I don't know." Then come the line "Sooner or later, you have to come down", she expresses the downfall when her lover finds someone new, and then states "Why they call it falling, now I know."
- Mustache Vandalism: In "I'll Think of a Reason Later", she vandalizes a picture of the woman that her ex is now with by drawing horns and blacking out a tooth with a marker.
- New Sound Album: I Hope You Dance and Something Worth Leaving Behind were far more slick and poppy than her other albums.
- Ocean Awe: "I Hope You Dance" has the line "I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean".
- One-Steve Limit: Lee Ann Womack is not related to Drew Womack, lead singer of "I Hope You Dance" featured artists Sons of the Desert.
- Parental Love Song: "I Hope You Dance" (parent to child).
- Retraux: The There's More Where That Came From album art was intended to evoke this, going with the album's neotraditional sound.
- There Is a God!: Her single of that name uses this as a recognition of the work of God in such things as the beauty of nature, or the inexplicable cure of diseases.
- Title-Only Chorus: "I Hope You Dance", not counting the counterpoint sung by Sons of the Desert (which was scrubbed from the pop edit).
- Working with the Ex: Even though she divorced Jason Sellers in 1997, she has recorded several of his songs and even had him sing backing vocals a few times.
