Watch Lee Ann Womack’s ‘Ashes By Now’ Video

The official music video for Lee Ann Womack’s “Ashes By Now” has arrived on YouTube at long last. Womack covered the country classic in 2000 and appeared on her third studio album, I Hope You Dance, from the same year. The video, directed by Gregg Horne, features Womack performing the track in front of elaborate sets and effects.

Womack’s version of “Ashes By Now” peaked at number 4 on the US Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart and hit number 45 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Session performer Bekka Bramlett provides background vocals on the song. Womack’s rendition blends a highly polished Nashville sound and the grit of the neo-traditional stars of the period into a fiery country rock hit. The video was nominated for Country Music Association Award for Video of the Year in 2001.

“Ashes By Now” was originally written by Rodney Crowell. He recorded the song in 1978 with Rickey Skaggs on fiddle, and a version was released as a single in 1980.

I Hope You Dance was a blockbuster hit and contained the ballad “I Hope You Dance” along with “Does My Ring Burn Your Finger,” a number by the future Americana luminaries Buddy and Julie Miller. “I Hope You Dance” became Womack’s biggest single, a country chart topper that also crossed over to the pop Top 20. Womack’s most recent album is 2017’s The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone. The record and its single “All the Trouble” received Grammy Award nominations for Best Americana Album and Best American Roots Song, respectively.

“Country music to me was always music that spoke to the common man, and in earlier times, people who were going through hard times and troubles,” she told the New York Times of the album. “What is called country music today to me has gotten quite a bit far away from that, especially on the emotional end. So I wanted to do that.”