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Beyonce performs "Single Ladies"  at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards in New York, September 13, 2009.     REUTERS/Gary Hershorn

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    Jessica Simpson going country on new album

    Mon Dec 31, 2007 6:01pm EST
    Singer Jessica Simpson is shown on stage introducing a performer at the taping of Country Music Television's special ''CMT Giants'' honoring Hank Williams, Jr. in Los Angeles October 25, 2007. Simpson is in the early stages of recording a country album in Nashville, a project slated for a 2008 release via Columbia Records. REUTERS/Fred Prouser

    NEW YORK (Billboard) - Jessica Simpson is in the early stages of recording a country album in Nashville, a project slated for a 2008 release via Columbia Records.

    Entertainment  |  Music

    Simpson said she had always wanted to make a country album, but was waiting until the right time.

    "I think there is a strength in female country artists," Simpson said, citing Martina McBride, Shania Twain, Faith Hill and Reba McEntire as some of her inspirations.

    She said she would be involved in the creative process.

    "Writing is a release for me," she said. "It's a way for me to tell my story. That's not to say I wouldn't record a song that I didn't write."

    Her last album, "A Public Affair," spent just nine weeks on the Billboard 200 in 2006. Her most recent movie, "Blonde Ambition," was recently released in a handful of theaters in her native Texas en route to DVD stores.

    Reuters/Billboard



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