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"The seeds for the title track on Kellie Pickler&amp;apos;s fourth album, The Woman I&amp;#xA0;Am (due out November 12th) were sown soon after the country singer and former&amp;#xA0;American Idol contestant&amp;apos;s recent Dancing With the Stars victory. A journalist asked her which one of her songs she&amp;apos;d play for a new listener&amp;#xA0;who had never heard her music and she said: &amp;quot;You know, honestly I don&amp;apos;t know&amp;#xA0;if I&amp;apos;ve written it yet, but I&amp;apos;m going to.&amp;quot;&amp;#xA0;\r\nRead Rolling Stone&amp;apos;s Best Country Albums of 2012\r\nInspired by that declaration, Pickler and her husband, songwriter Kyle&amp;#xA0;Jacobs, wrote the title track later that night.&amp;#xA0;\r\nIn recent years, Pickler has branched out from the sheen-pop sound of her first two records, starting with her acclaimed 2012 album&amp;#xA0;100 Proof,&amp;#xA0;which favored&amp;#xA0;a&amp;#xA0;rough-and-tumble honky-tonk sound that conjured her heroes Dolly Parton and&amp;#xA0;Tammy Wynette. On Woman, she capitalizes on that&amp;#xA0;confidence, and aims to evolve and expand on Telecaster twang and natural, raw, romping feel of 100 Proof. &amp;quot;I love that classic,&amp;#xA0;traditional sound. I love that tear in Tammy Wynette&amp;apos;s voice,&amp;quot; Pickler tells Rolling Stone.&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;There&amp;apos;s still a little bit of that sound that we did on the last record,&amp;#xA0;but it&amp;apos;s not the same album.&amp;quot;\r\nPickler stuck with&amp;#xA0;100 Proof&amp;apos;s winning formula, again drafting&amp;#xA0;producers Frank Liddell and Luke Wooten to helm the record. &amp;quot;They have a way&amp;#xA0;of bringing out the best in me and I think they really helped me discover&amp;#xA0;the artist in myself,&amp;quot; she explains. &amp;quot;They&amp;apos;ve helped me find my own sound.&amp;quot;\r\nFall&amp;apos;s 19 Hottest Tours\r\nOn a dozen new tracks tracks, that sound spans the sonic&amp;#xA0;country landscape between the lead-off single, the pining ballad &amp;quot;Someone&amp;#xA0;Somewhere Tonight,&amp;quot; and its breezy, country-rock follow-up, &amp;quot;Little Bit Gypsy.&amp;quot;&amp;#xA0;The guitar-heavy, shuffling song, which Pickler says is the record&amp;apos;s&amp;#xA0;poppiest moment, sounds like her take on Tom Petty covering Elvis Costello&amp;apos;s&amp;#xA0;&amp;quot;You Belong To Me.&amp;quot;\r\nIncluded on Woman is an up-tempo rocker called &amp;quot;Bonnie and Clyde,&amp;quot; a tune Pickler co-wrote with Jacobs and Liz Rose &amp;#x2014; the&amp;#xA0;songsmith behind a handful of Taylor Swift cuts, including Swift&amp;apos;s debut&amp;#xA0;single &amp;quot;Tim McGraw.&amp;quot; She also finds herself in a lighthearted mood on &amp;quot;Ain&amp;apos;t No Cure for Crazy,&amp;quot; and exploring her roots on &amp;quot;Selma Drye,&amp;quot;&amp;#xA0;a song she wrote with Phillip&amp;#xA0;Lammonds and Billy Montana, that was inspired by its namesake: her&amp;#xA0;tobacco-chewin&amp;apos;, pistol-packin&amp;apos; &amp;quot;hillbilly&amp;quot; great-grandmother. &amp;quot;She was a&amp;#xA0;spitfire,&amp;quot; Pickler recalls. &amp;quot;She lived in this little trailer in front of&amp;#xA0;[my grandparents&amp;apos; house] for over 40 years. She never drove a car, never&amp;#xA0;had a driver&amp;apos;s license &amp;#x2013;&amp;#xA0;that was the devil.&amp;#xA0;She was just a strong woman and that song&amp;#xA0;is really about her and her generation of women, and how they were raised.&amp;quot;\r\nMany of Pickler&amp;apos;s family memories offer little in the way of fond nostalgia for the singer, who was raised by her paternal grandparents after&amp;#xA0;her mother abandoned her at a young age and her father drifted in and&amp;#xA0;out of prison. Pickler sang about that difficult background on 100 Proof&amp;apos;s&amp;#xA0;heartbreakingly personal centerpiece &amp;quot;Mother&amp;apos;s Day,&amp;quot; and touches on it again&amp;#xA0;on Woman&amp;apos;s equally personal &amp;quot;I Forgive You,&amp;quot; a song she&amp;apos;d kept in her back&amp;#xA0;pocket ever since the Small Town Girl sessions.\r\n\r\nWhere Does Dolly Parton Rank on Our Greatest Singers List?&amp;#xA0;\r\n&amp;quot;It just wasn&amp;apos;t meant to be at that time,&amp;quot; she says, explaining why the song&amp;#xA0;is only just now seeing the light of day, admitting that it she wasn&amp;apos;t&amp;#xA0;ready, both in her family relationships and emotionally, to do it justice.&amp;quot;I love this song because there&amp;apos;s so much closure and healing [in it],&amp;quot; she&amp;#xA0;says. &amp;quot;I think there&amp;apos;s so much grace in the words &amp;apos;I forgive you.&amp;apos; I think&amp;#xA0;people are really going to identify with that and I hope that song helps a&amp;#xA0;lot of people.&amp;quot;\r\nComfortably continuing to find herself in her unapologetic country roots and&amp;#xA0;effortless candor, Pickler says she plans to keep heading down that&amp;#xA0;path. &amp;quot;I think it would be fun to maybe make a bluegrass-type record one&amp;#xA0;day,&amp;quot; she says with excitement, perhaps already pondering what&amp;apos;s next."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/kellie-pickler-branches-out-on-new-album-the-woman-i-am-20130913>