When Caylee Hammack‘s debut album, If It Wasn’t For You, is released on August 14, it will include a duet with country music icon Reba McEntire, on “Redhead.” Caylee, who wrote “Redhead” with Trent Dabbs and Natalie Hemby, never imagined that her own musical idol would join her on the feisty track.
“Reba was kind of a shot in the dark,” Hammack told PopCulture.com. “Our managers were friends. Her manager brought me up to my manager. My manager brought up one of my biggest, I guess, bucket list wishes is to sing a song with Reba. And when I kind of expressed this to my manager, she was like, ‘Well, what song?’ and I said, ‘Obviously ‘Redhead.” If it could be on this album, it would be ‘Redhead.'”
Perhaps surprisingly for Caylee, the Grand Ole Opry member agreed.
“[Her manager] played it for her and she was like ‘I’m willing to do it. Tell Caylee to tell me which lyrics and I’ll sing it,'” Caylee recounted. “I can’t even explain the excitement I felt. It was unreal to know that she was willing to do it. And when she came in the studio, she was so professional and cool, but so sweet, too, and kind and warm-hearted. That was just kind of a shot in the dark.”
“Redhead” is just one of 13 tracks on If It Wasn’t For You, all co-written by Caylee, which prove that isn’t afraid to speak her mind.
“I wanted every single song to have a direct story, a true story behind it, that happened to me,” Caylee explained. “I wanted a plethora of feelings and emotions to be evoked when people listen to this. I wanted to be able to give them like a safe place sonically that they can just dance or laugh or cry or scream about some boy that did them wrong, whatever it is that they needed to feel, I want people to feel it.”
“I think that’s so important in this day and age where so much bad is happening around us that we disassociate ourselves and we pull ourselves back and we kind of put this wall between us and the world,” she continued. “I want, in my music, to give them a space where there’s no walls. They just listen like they can listen by themselves in the kitchen and dance to it. I want that kind of sound. I wanted to give them enough songs so that they could do that.”
If It Wasn’t For You also includes a song, “Mean Something,” which features both Ashley McBryde and Tenille Townes. Pre-order the album via Amazon