New music is coming from Randy Travis. The Grand Ole Opry member announces on social media that he has a new song coming out, “Where That Came From,” his first new recording since 2013, the year Travis had a debilitating stroke.

“It’s been a while since my last new recording, but I’m excited to share that this Friday, May 3, I will be releasing my first brand new studio recording in more than a decade, ‘Where That Came From,'” Travis writes on social media.

“You’ll hear much more about the special team of folks who came together to help make this magical moment in my career possible in the coming week,” he continues. “In the meantime, just know that when it comes to me singing songs for you, there’s always more where that came from. Thank you for singing along all these years.”

 

Everything changed for Travis 11 years ago, when his award-winning career came to a sudden halt due to life-threatening health challenges. The North Carolina native became ill with viral cardiomyopathy. While hospitalized in critical condition, Travis suffered a devastating stroke, which impacted both his mobility and speech.

Through it all, his wife, Mary, whom he wed in 2015, has remained by his side as his biggest champion and believer.

“When we left the hospital in November 2013, they said, ‘Well, you know, he’s going to be bedridden the rest of his life. And you will be in and out of hospitals the rest of his life. So this is a huge task that you’re taking on,’” Mary told  Rolling Stone. “I said, ‘I don’t mind that… and I don’t believe it.’ He got to the point where he pretty much shut down as far as going through the rehab because it does get tedious.

“When there’s that much damage done, you take tiny baby steps,” she continued. “There are plateaus — you’ll see a spurt of improvement, then it’ll flatline for a while and you’re just kind of at a plateau, and then you’ll see another improvement and every little thing is such a huge thing.”

Travis shocked everyone when he sang “Amazing Grace” at his Country Music Hall of Fame induction in 2016.

“Randy and I were on the road, and we just practiced ‘Amazing Grace’ over and over and over,” Mary recalled. “We were still having a hard time with long sentences or anything else because of the aphasia. But that was just one of those songs that he grasped. When I handed the microphone over to him, I wasn’t sure how’d it go, but we agreed that’s what we wanted to do. And we hadn’t told anybody, not even the Hall of Fame people. So nobody knew it was going to happen.

“We had a group of people there from Texas and one of them said, ‘Mary has lost her mind. What is she doing? I can’t believe she’s doing this, she’s really putting him on the spot,’” she recounted. “Then the next thing I did is I looked over at Charlie Daniels and he had a handkerchief the size of a tablecloth, crying and blowing his nose. Everybody in the place was crying. It was a beautiful thing.”

Pre-save/pre-order “Where That Came From,” and find all of Travis’ music at RandyTravis.com.