Ginny Owens Connects Brokenness and Beauty on Captivating 14-Track 'I Know A Secret'

Ginny Owens - an artist who made her name as a deeply spiritual singer-songwriter with alternative pop smarts that captivated Lilith Fair Tour, Sundance Film Festival, club and church audiences alike - released her eighth studio album I Know A Secret, yesterday on her own label Chick Power Music, in partnership with Word/Warner.

Owens recorded her breakthrough debut Without Condition and the two albums after it with producer Monroe Jones (Third Day, Holly Williams), and I Know A Secret seemed like the perfect time to revisit that fruitful partnership.

The result is an elegant eclecticism, reflecting the singer-songwriter scene that shaped Owens early on, her lifelong love of weighty Protestant hymnody, the admiration for R&B she’d acquired at her predominately African-American high school in Jackson, Mississippi and her openness to freshly ear-catching textures.

Tapping into her own experience for inspiration, Owens reflects on the past seven years during which she completed her label contract with Rocketown Records, an indie label owned by Michael W. Smith, and began releasing albums independently; spent nine months in New York City studying writing at Columbia and teaching songwriting at a middle school; returned home to Jackson to nurse her mother through breast cancer; lost both her grandmother and a beloved cousin to brain cancer; and expanded her understanding of music’s power to unite people and lift their spirits as one in a new role as church worship leader.

The secret that Owens shares through these songs is how she can continue to cling to hope with a white-knuckled grip even when doing so defies reason and when faith is under siege.

“The singer-songwriter in me knows life is intense. I find that as I talk to people at shows, their lives parallel that. They want to tell me their stories of tragedy. And a lot of times those stories end with, 'This song of yours really helped me get through that.' I want to speak into the midst of people's pain, or whatever they're going through, as best I can.”

Longtime fans know that Owens’ journey has been profoundly affected by the fact that she lost her sight at a very young age. “I spent most of my early career and all of my twenties trying to minimize the fact that I can’t see,” she shares, “because it tends to be something people feel so sorry for. I finally figured out that some of us just have inabilities and weaknesses that are easier to hide than others. And if it encourages others to think, ‘Well she can get up every day and do this, so I can too,’ then I’m glad to be that person.”

Plans for a Spring tour in support of I Know A Secret are forthcoming and the complete track listing for the album is below.

I Know A Secret Track listing:
1. I Know A Secret (Ginny Owens / Monroe Jones)
2. What My Life Is For (Ginny Owens / Jeff Pardo / Molly Reed) 
3. I Will Praise You (Ginny Owens / Cindy Morgan)
4. Deeper (Ginny Owens / Ian Eskelin / Tony Wood)
5. Made For More (Ginny Owens)
6. All Things (Ginny Owens / Monroe Jones)
7. No Borders (Ginny Owens / Josh Bronleewe / Benji Cowart)
8. In This Darkness (Ginny Owens / Michael Puryear / Dwight Liles)
9. O The Deep (Words & Music by Samuel Francis / Arranged Ginny Owens)
10. Stumblin' (Ginny Owens / Monroe Jones / Michael Puryear / Dwight Liles)
11. I Am Yours (Ginny Owens / Jamie Harvill)
12. What You Believe (Ginny Owens / Monroe Jones)
13. Without You (Ginny Owens)
14. Don't Waste Your Life (Ginny Owens / James Isaac Elliot / Andrew Ramsey)