Melissa Carper Announces New Album “Borned In Ya”


We’re all searching for the closest thing to the real deal in country music, or what some like to call “authenticity.” When you hear someone sing country, you want to believe they lived it, that it comes straight from their heart. The way the legendary Dr. Ralph Stanley used to put it, it must be “Borned In Ya.”

Melissa Carper was born into a musical family in Nebraska, with the records of Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley populating the family’s record collection, and Carper playing upright bass in her family’s country band. It was the fusion of country and jazz that Carper discovered in the old records of Jimmie Rodgers that she found a special affinity with, and that influence has gone on to define her sound.

“He combined country and blues and jazz,” Carper says. “All of those elements, and the rawness of those recordings…I can’t quite put a finger on it, but I was obsessed.”

For years, Melissa Carper was mostly a member in bands and a bass player for hire. But ever since breaking out with her 2021 debut Daddy’s Country Gold, she’s been building up a bigger and bigger fan base with her infectious sound and style that draws comparisons with Billie Holiday and Sierra Ferrell. It’s a faraway sound that is dated, yet timeless.

Now Carper is readying the release of her latest album Borned In Ya on July 19th. It comes on the heels of her EP release with Kelly Willis and Brennen Leigh in the supergroup The Wonder Women of Country. The new album will once again be produced by Andrija Tokic and Dennis Crouch, just like her previous two albums. Carper wrote the majority of the song’s albums herself, but got an assist from Brennen Leigh on a few of the tracks.


Appearing on the album will be Dennis Crouch, fiddler Billy Contreras, pianist Jeff Taylor, multi-instrumentalist Rory Hoffman, as well as console steel player and consummate Melissa Carper champion, Chris Scruggs. “She’s as good as it gets. She has a quality that really transcends time and fashion,” says Scruggs. “She can sing Hank Williams and then handle these old pop tunes, and the great thing is how natural she is – she doesn’t even really change her delivery.”

Borned In Ya will also be the first Melissa Carper album to feature horns to give it that 1930s feel.

“People call me retro or throwback, and I’ve been OK with that,”
Carper says. “But, I feel like I’m still creating something new. I’m taking styles and blending things in a way that maybe hasn’t been done before. And, in the process, I’m evolving in my own way.”

New song “Lucky Five” is available now (listen below). Borned In Ya is now available for pre-order.

TRACK LIST:

1. Borned In Ya
2. I Don’t Love You Anymore
3. Your Furniture’s Too Nice
4. Evil Eva
5. There’ll Be Another One
6. Let’s Get Outta Here
7. Somewhere Between Texas and Tennessee
8. That’s My Desire
9. Let’s Stay Single Together
10. Lucky Five
11. Every Time We Say Goodbye
12. Waxing and Waning

© 2025 Saving Country Music