Randy Travis is returning with an album of original songs for the first time since 2008, and patients at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, were the first to hear it.
Travis visited St. Jude on Tuesday, July 7, bringing select tracks from the forthcoming project to share with patients and their families. Singer Alexandra Kay also performed several Travis classics during the visit. The album’s full title and release date have not yet been announced, but the team behind Travis confirms it will feature previously unheard songs that were remixed or remastered by his longtime producer, Kyle Lehning. The first song from the project, “Fish On,” is set for release on Friday, July 10.
A Long Road Back to Original Music
Travis’s last album of original country material, Around the Bend, came out in 2008. A stroke in 2013 fundamentally altered the course of his career, though he has continued to tour in recent years with singer James Dupré often taking on vocal duties.
The new album does not mark his first new music since the stroke. Travis has released several songs in the intervening years, many drawn from his archives. “There’s a New Kid In Town” and the 2025 holiday track “Where My Heart Is” were both released as vault recordings. In 2020, “Fool’s Love Affair” — a demo Travis recorded before his rise to fame, recovered by Charlie Monk and brought to Lehning — arrived to strong streaming reception and is approaching 10 million plays on Spotify.
AI Vocals and an Ongoing Conversation
In 2024, Travis made headlines for a different reason when he released two songs — “Where That Came From” and “Horses In Heaven” — that used artificial intelligence to reconstruct his vocals. The releases sparked broader discussion about AI’s role in music, particularly since Travis granted his full approval for both tracks, distinguishing the project from cases where artists’ voices have been recreated without their consent.
With the new album on the horizon and “Fish On” arriving this week, Travis remains active on the road — his More Life Tour is scheduled to run through November 8 in Missouri.
