By spring of 2000, I was nursing an infant son and chasing a precocious toddler girl around the Holler. I was seriously missing my boyfriend (aka my husband, Chuck Cannon). I got together with the beautiful Kimmie Rhodes and the multi-talented Kevin Savigar and played them the first tracks from a new artist named Macy Gray, and also the new album released by my old friend Shelby Lynne. Both reeked of soul, and I realized that as a country singer I’d been working with one hand tied behind my back - my soul hand, the one that dropped the needle on every Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Bonnie Raitt album I could get my hands on. We wrote “Nothing But Love” that day and it sparked a whole collection of songs that poured out of that neglected well to become Green Eyed Soul, my favorite studio album I’ve made thus far.
