With the release of her third album, One Of The Boys, Gretchen Wilson solidifies her position as one of contemporary country's most original and multi-faceted female artists, a woman in whom ambition and ability come together in every aspect of her career.

"When it comes to the music," she says, "I get involved on a personal level in everything that counts. I'm involved in the writing, recording, producing, mixing, and promoting of the music, down to which photos we pick and how the lyrics are laid out on the paper. I've been very lucky that way from the beginning in that the people at my label, when it came down to it, have trusted me with my gut on the music."

Building on that freedom, One Of The Boys is a tour de force, a musical extension of the complex woman sometimes underappreciated by those who only know her rowdy aspects. One Of the Boys cuts a wider swath through both the hell-raising and the softer sides of a woman who has been in the public eye just three short years. The record's first single, "Come To Bed," details the aftermath of a relationship's fireworks, looking for the healing power of physical contact. "To Tell The Truth" wears its pain on its sleeve, while "Pain Killer" looks at the end of a relationship. "Heaven Help Me" may be the most compelling, the most heartfelt, the most poignant slice of life Gretchen has laid down. Read more >>

Order your copy of One Of The Boys now!

Listen to Gretchen Wilson Answer Questions From Her Fans...

Gretchen Wilson recently took on the challenge of answering 30 questions from 30 fans as part of GACTV.com's ongoing series called ASK THE ARTIST. Click here to listen to all of Gretchen's revealing, humorous and heartfelt answers!

TRACK LISTING & GRETCHEN'S SONG NOTES FROM ONE OF THE BOYS

1. "The Girl I Am" Gretchen Wilson/Dean Hall
Dean and I wrote some really deep, emotional songs together; I think we were helping each other through some hard times. We wrote this while we were on the Kenny Chesney tour and finished it after a show around 1:00 in the morning. Kenny was having a little party backstage around the buses and we walked out with our guitars, straight to the little stage they had set up out there and played it for the crowd partying back there and I just got such a great response from the females that I knew I had something there. It's about having the right to say "I might be crazy from time to time but it's OK. It's just the girl I am, the girl I'm always going to be, and I'm not worried about it, so don't you worry about it either."

2. "Come To Bed" (Featuring John Rich) Vicky McGehee/John Rich
John Rich came to me at an awards show last year and said, "I've got this great idea; you've got to hear it." He told me the idea for this song and I thought it was great--sexy, and something I hadn't written yet, another side of me I wanted people to see but hadn't apparently grown comfortable enough to write yet." But we got extremely busy and didn't see each other for six or seven months and all of a sudden it was time to start writing songs for this record. He and Vicky came out to write with me one day and when we were done, he said, "I've got to play you this song me and Vicky wrote," and he played it and I just thought, "Man, I missed it." John said we could tweak it to fit me more and I could get in on rewriting it, but I just looked at him and said, "I would not touch that song. It's done. It's a finished song, and I want it if I can have it." That's just another example of John Rich's incredible knack for singing from the wounded female's perspective.

3. "One Of The Boys" Gretchen Wilson/Rivers Rutherford/George Teren
I think this is my way of reaching out and saying there's more here than just that heavy rockin', nightclub-swingin', crazy, beer-drinking redneck, and there always has been. I'm still that girl--I'm always gonna be that girl--but I'm also a girly girl from time to time and I want somebody to recognize me, I want somebody to tell me I'm pretty and I want somebody to open the door for me and treat me like a lady every once in a while. I think all of us want that, no matter how tough we are.

4. "You Don't Have To Go Home" Gretchen Wilson/Vicky McGehee/John Rich
That sounds like a Big Kenny idea but it was Vicky McGehee's. It's a rocking song. I think everybody who's been out to a nightclub or bar has experienced the end of the night when everybody's having a good time and nobody wants to leave, and the party's over just because they turned the lights on and they say it's time to go. This is a rockin' song. I grew up influenced by everything from Bocephus and the CDB to AC/DC, so that rockin' influence is always going to be found on my records.

5. "Heaven Help Me" Gretchen Wilson/Rivers Rutherford/George Teren
Rivers and George and I sat around on the bus that morning and I think we discussed every one of our most horrible experiences in life--our deepest regrets, the worst things we've ever done to people or to ourselves, and we ultimately decided that it's not in our hands. Everything happens for a reason and life is going to evolve the way it does and ultimately we become better people because of all the wrong turns we've made. It molds us into who we are. Ultimately it's all in God's hands, and we are not as strong and as powerful as we like to think, and sometimes we just have to let it go. We just have to say, "I can't do it all. I'm not perfect," and that's what that song is, is a confession and a hymn at the same time.

6. "There's A Place In The Whiskey" Del Gray/Shannon Lawson/Bobby L. Taylor
Shannon is one of the really talented vocalist/singer/songwriters in the Muzik Mafia. He's a really bluegrassy kind of guy, so it surprised me when I heard this song. He pitched me five songs and I thought, "He doesn't have any songs I'm gonna cut--he's a bluegrass guy," but I put in the CD and I'll be damned if the first song that came on didn't sound like it came right out of my mouth. Almost every lyric in there is something I've said and definitely something I feel.

7. "If You Want A Mother" Gretchen Wilson/Rivers Rutherford/George Teren
That song comes from years of being in several different relationships where--and I know a lot of women probably feel like this, like they're doing it all, working and taking care of the kids and doing the housework, and if a man can walk by a full trash can after you've been working all day and just plop down on the couch and pick up the remote, you start looking at the back of his head from the other room and you go, "I don't need another child in this house." You start feeling like "I'm the Mom. That's all I am around here, and apparently I'm his mother too." It's a corny song, tongue-in-cheek, but it's still me, it's still something I would say, and hopefully won't have to say again, but I think people will get a kick out of it.

8. "Pain Killer" Gretchen Wilson/Dean Hall
That song almost didn't make the record. It was between that and another one--same beat, same tempo, and I wrote them both with the same songwriter, and I was really torn until the very last minute. I had a dream in the middle of the night and I woke up and said, "Pain Killer's got to be on the record." I don't know why. It may just be the sheer fact that I think "Pain Killer' is a great title. If I was walking through a store and I saw a female artist with the title "Pain Killer" on there, I'd buy it just to see what that song was.

9. "There Goes The Neighborhood" Gretchen Wilson/Vicky McGehee/John Rich
That's one of the songs I wrote with John and Vicky at my place out in Wilson County the day he pitched me "Come To Bed." I've got about 350 acres out there now and a lot of my family have come down to live, and it's crazy around there, but I think John drives out there and just looks at the chaos that's going on with all the arguing and dogs barking and machines coming in and out and four-wheeling in the middle of the night and gunfire out in the woods, but it's like the hillbillies have moved to town. That song is kind of my way of going, "You know what? Your worst nightmare just happened--white trash with money. We're moving up and we're moving in and there's nothing you can do about it. There's always a certain amount of comedy on my records. I think you have to be able to be humble enough to make fun of yourselves.

10. "Good Old Boy" Gretchen Wilson/Vicky McGehee/John Rich
I remember saying, "I need my guy song." I keep writing all of these songs for all of these girls and I haven't said anything about the guys yet. I'd better start saying kudos to the guys pretty soon, and "Good Old Boy" is exactly that. It's my way of saying the redneck woman, she ain't really too much of nothing without her good old boy. I've always liked that kind of guy, a hard-working man with rough calluses on his hands, who even if he doesn't have something to do will go out and find something. That song is my way of saying I'll take a country boy over a city guy any time.

11. "To Tell You The Truth" Gretchen Wilson/Dean Hall
That is a really personal song, and I was just in the room for that. I definitely had a part in it, but that was an emotional outpouring of my co-writer and I was there to comfort him and help him sort of put it into song form. It's a really honest song.