Country music icon Randy Travis is opening a musical time capsule with Same Old Way, his first album of never-before-released material in more than 18 years.
“When life throws you a curveball, swing for the fences the ‘same old way’ and hope you knock it out of the park! Team Travis helped me run the bases on this one, and it feels like a home run! It’s a joy and a blessing to be able to bring new music to my listeners — thank you all for still showing up for me,” Travis said in the album announcement.
Warner Records Nashville will release the 12-track collection Nov. 13. The project gathers unheard recordings Travis made between 1986 and 2013, letting fans hear his original, pre-stroke voice on every track.
“It’s an album that is from the vault, so it is his voice, even though he’s lost his voice to aphasia from the stroke. It’s songs that he demoed and recorded in his late 20s, up until his late 40s and early 50s, right before the stroke,” Travis’ wife, Mary Travis, told Country Living.
That makes Same Old Way markedly different from “Where That Came From,” the 2024 single that used artificial intelligence to recreate Travis’ vocal sound. For that recording, producer Kyle Lehning used a guide vocal by singer James Dupré and an AI model trained on samples of Travis’ work, according to The Associated Press.
“There are some breakup songs, some Christian, some gospel songs. Some love songs,” Mary said of the new album. She promised touches of Louisiana flavor, too.
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Lehning, Travis’ longtime producer and friend, found the recordings in the vault and assembled, remixed and remastered them with the singer’s input. He also co-wrote the newly released title track with Travis — the only song the longtime collaborators have written together.
“He knew Randy’s style. He knew his choice of music,” Mary said. She added that Lehning’s selections display the range of Travis’ voice.
The collection arrives 13 years after a stroke upended Travis’ life and career. The 2013 stroke nearly killed him and left him unable to speak, sing or play guitar, but he underwent extensive therapy and sang “Amazing Grace” at his 2016 induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
“Then you start trying to figure out how do you create a career now, doing the same thing you love doing that you’ve done for so many years, but now you have to do it a different way,” Mary said after crediting God with helping them recover and return to Nashville.
His More Life Tour puts him back onstage with his longtime band and Dupré handling lead vocals. The singer’s official website now celebrates both the new album and the 40th anniversary of his breakthrough debut, Storms of Life. That album made Travis the first country artist to go platinum with a debut release.
“He wants to be on that bus, he wants to be in the music. He wants to be on that stage,” Mary said, explaining that Travis also wants to stay connected with the fans who have followed him for decades.
Travis has already released the title track, “Fish On” and “I Don’t Care.” The rest of the songs waited in the vault for years; on Nov. 13, his fans finally get to hear them.
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