Jessica Simpson is finding a home, literally and figuratively, in Nashville. The 44-year-old is making another country album, 17 years after her first, and so far only, country record, Do You Know, came out in 2008.
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By the time Do You Know came out, Simpson was already a music and TV star. Do You Know is Simpson's fifth studio album, not counting her 2004 ReJoyce: The Christmas Album. She had plenty of hits in pop radio, including "I Think I'm In Love With You," "With You," and more. She also appeared in the reality TV show, Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, a behind-the-scenes look at her marriage to her first husband, Nick Lachey. The couple split in 2006, two years before Do You Know was released.
The record failed to yield any hit singles, and Simpson retreated -- until now.
"I took a long break," the sober singer says on Fancy Hagood's Trailblazers Radio (via People). "I was mad at music a bit. After being dropped with a number one country album, I was dropped and I just never understood it. They just said I would never recoup if I didn't give them part of the brand, but my brand was already successful."
Jessica Simpson's Triumphant Return
Simpson might have stayed away from Nashville, and country music, for a while, but not anymore. The Texas native returned to Nashville to celebrate her oldest daughter Maxi's birthday, where Simpson had an epiphany.
"Instead of singing 'Happy Birthday,' she wanted us to sing 'I Saw the Light' and play Hank Williams that morning we were in Nashville because that's where she wanted to go," Simpson shares, revealing it was her daughter's first time in Music City. "And I woke her up with that song and it just hit me. The light. It was like the light's here."
"This is where I discover myself," she adds. "This is where I'm born free... I did a gospel record at 14 here. I got to write my first songs here. I wrote my whole country record here, and I was always so safe."
The trip inspired Simpson's latest album, Nashville Canyon, Part 1, which is out now. The record includes her latest single, "Leave."
