It was a cross-country road trip that made singer-songwriter Cristina Vane fall in love with country music. Born in Italy, Vane grew up between England, France and Italy and moved to the U.S. at 18. It wasn't until the ventured into the American South that she began familiarizing herself more with country music and its rambling troubadours with whom she shared a spirit of wanderlust.
Vane, who'll release Make Myself Me Again on May 20, says during a solitary tour in 2018, Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" spoke directly to her soul.
"My stepping stone into country music was a song that also still cuts right to my core when I hear it — Hank Williams' 'I'm so Lonesome I Could Cry.' It was the summer of 2018, when I was touring out of my car for five months, discovering the U.S., Hank Williams, and myself," Vane tells Wide Open Country. "Feeling alone is something I am familiar with, having moved around growing up and continuing my rambling trend since, and this song immediately captured my heart. There is such a genius stroke of relatability in all of Hank's songs, where he takes on universal questions or human emotions in an immediately familiar way. He injects the perfect amount of imagery and description to root us in his story, while allowing us to feel lonesome right alongside him — and that's what I felt sometimes, on the road and always far from home. The vocal delivery and classic country instrumentation was just the cherry on top. It was one of the first country songs I filtered into my slide guitar and open tuning repertoire, riffing on a version I heard by Seasick Steve, and everywhere I go people are right there with me when they hear it. Hank had this astounding ability to get to the heart of things, and package it in a way everyone can understand."
Vane recently released the title track to her forthcoming album along with a music video, filmed at the House of Adora in East Nashville.
Make Myself Me Again, co-produced by Brook Sutton (Blackberry Smoke) and Jano Rix (The Wood Brothers), is the follow-up to Vane's 2021 album Nowhere Sounds Lovely.
Check out our Rooted in Country playlist, featuring our featured Rooted in Country artists and the songs that inspired them, below.
