"I love to sing. The way music brings people together.
I¹ll play for honky-tonks or benefits, for one person or a ton of people and have fun with all of it!"

One Mississippi

Jillbilly - Cut By Cut

98.6 Degrees

(Matraca Berg/ Harlan Howard)

Two of my favorite writers of all time wrote this song. The late, great Harlan Howard and Matraca Berg. This song is “Your Cheatin’ Heart” meets “Let’s Chase Each Other ‘Round the Room Tonight’” and I absolutely LOVE it! I’m a country girl that sings bona-fide country songs, so what better way to start off my album than with this absolutely classic country shuffle?

It’s Me Again

(Jerry Salley/ Sheila Stephens)

I really like the tempo of this song and the way the words and music work together to create a complex feeling to an age-old feeling. Every feisty woman (and man) wishes the object of her/his broken heart would realize just what they lost and what could have been. In the words of a song Darlene Austin and I wrote, “I’ll Look Better When You Look Back.”

One Mississippi

(Jess Leary/ Craig Wiseman)

This is a great song to drive down the road to! Craig and Jess wrote this song, but it really happened to ME! I dated a Southern Baptist preacher back when I lived in the buckle of the Bible belt. He was funny, cute, sweet, and looking for a wife to raise a family with, but that was not my plan. I had my sights set on singing and a life on the road. I missed the boat! Today, he is happily married with children, and I am happily moving down the road singing and promoting my first album, “Jillbilly!”

On another note, my daddy used to make me count by Mississippi’s at bedtime. He’d always say I could stay up if I made it to 100... I never did!

Not Knowing Anymore

(Randy Albright/ Tim Nichols/ Teri Williams)

What a thrill to have the opportunity to cut this song. Teri Williams wrote and pitched this song to me, and it is one of my favorites on the album. I can really relate to this song, and I bet a lot of you will too. Almost everyone has gone through the uncertainty of not knowing how the other person feels and trying to guess and finally just wanting to know either way, good or bad. This is a hard-core country wailer!

Down ‘n’ Out

(Jill King)

I spent all of 2002 playing and singing at Tootsies Orchid Lounge on lower Broadway in Nashville. I love that little honky-tonk. It has been the haunt of so many Opry stars and Country music royalty. I was mopin’ around the house one evening -- bringing myself to tears -- over a lost relationship when I decided to snap out of it and head down to Tootsies, where I had a BLAST! That’s the whole idea behind this song. I realized, things could always be worse, right? Sometimes you’ve just gotta get on with life!

Three Months, Two Weeks, One Day

(Jill King)

I guess this is the memories side of “Down ‘n’ Out”. That relationship ended -- for the best I might add -- but provided a very difficult transition for me. We had spent a lot of time together, and I just simply missed the day to day things we shared and the man I’d come to love, but I didn’t necessarily want to rekindle the romance. By the way, Three Months, Two Weeks, One Day took me thirty minutes to write.

After All

(Gary Nicholson/ Leslie Satcher)

Can you believe the nerve of someone calling to say they love you and want you back after hurting you time after time? That’s what this song is all about, it’s right up my alley. “Lord I can’t believe you called...just to tell me that you love me after all,” Leslie Satcher and Gary Nicholson can really turn a phrase at a blistering tempo! It’s one of my favorites to perform live!

Hand Me Down Heartache

(Melissa Pierce/ Matt Rossi)

Melissa and I have co-written together on a number of occasions. She asked me to sing the first demo on this song. I could NOT get the song out of my head! It’s one of the very first songs that I knew I wanted on this album. It’s as country as cornbread, but with driving rock undercurrents.

The Part I Don’t Understand

(Tony Martin/ Mark Nessler)

This is a beautiful, poignant ballad. It almost moves me to tears to perform it. So many people have felt this way, myself included, of giving everything including your heart and not having the feelings or the effort reciprocated to the same degree and then not understanding why you let it continue. The complexity of this particular emotion could not have been more beautifully portrayed.

Makes Perfect Sense To Me

(Jeremy Spielman/ Chris Stapleton)

Relationships. We’ve all been through ‘em. This song describes the age-old battle of the sexes. The communication breakdown between what is said and what is thought. With the bluesy touch in the music, this one is light-hearted and tongue-n-cheek. It’s fun!

Down the Fields To Hay

(Jill King)

My grandpa Hitch and my nanny Wynelle settled and farmed Solley’s Crossroads in my hometown Arab, Alabama. Hitch helped build New Friendship Baptist Church, where I sang my first song, “I’ll Fly Away” at three years old. Although he passed on before I was born, he had a tremendous impact on the community, and his roots deep were planted into that land. I love hearing stories about him. He was a hard-working farmer with a strong moral character and easygoing ways. This song is dedicated to Hitch and Wynelle King.

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