As a follow up to his 2005 debut solo project Hymned, MercyMe frontman Bart Millard will be releasing his second effort, Hymned Again, on August 19th.

Receiving critical acclaim, Hymned was named one of Billboard and ChristianMusicToday.com’s Top Ten albums of 2005. The first single from Hymned Again to be serviced to AC and Inspo radio formats will be “I Stand Amazed”, on July 4th, which features guest vocals by Christy Nockels.

Taking the production helm once again is Brown Bannister, who along with Millard’s passionate vocals and a famed line up of studio musicians, has created an impressive and diversified musical landscape on Hymned Again. Raised in East Texas, relatively close to where many musical styles originated, Millard wanted to create an authentic sound with these old hymns, most of which date back to the 1800s and talk about sharing one’s faith during this era when evangelism was on the rise. Therefore, Hymned Again runs the stylistic gamut from New Orleans style horn-driven jazz to Texas blues-rock guitar, and country/bluegrass to banjo-featuring Dixieland, ‘70s soul/gospel flavour, and one song centred on nothing more than a ukulele.

Bart Milllard, Chris Hooper (Engineer), Brown Bannister and Vince Gill [Click image to enlarge]
Photo: Brody Harper

To top it off, the sole original track on the CD, written by Millard and Thad Cockrell, “Jesus Cares for Me”, features a duet with country superstar Vince Gill. “The one thing I’ve been looking to do is sing with Bart and check that off my Bucket List.” laughed Gill, who had some fun with Millard in the recording studio with his ‘Bucket List’, video from which is featured on MercyMe’s blog page. All kidding aside, the duet is surely a dream come true for Millard, who states, “I never imagined I would sing a duet with Vince Gill, and especially that it would be on one of my records. It was truly an incredible ‘pinch myself’ moment.”

While Hymned was inspired by Millard’s grandmother, and the hymns she used to sing, Hymned Again was inspired more so by his three kids. “My three kids know every word of the first hymns record I did,” he says. “These are songs that were a huge part of my upbringing, and now they are a part of my kids’ as well, so I had to do another one! And, true to form, they already have the new album memorized too.”

Millard is currently touring a full summer schedule with MercyMe supporting their latest hit project, All That Is Within Me. The band will be touring this fall as well, dates for which are available on www.mercyme.org. Millard also just taped a special Hymned Again episode of the Gospel Music Channel’s Kitchen Sink program which is scheduled to air on September 27th.

Stay tuned to YMZ as we will bring you further updates on Hymned Again in the next few days. Find out more about Hymned at Millard’s YMZ artist page.