Laura Harris: I understand that doing a Greatest Hits album wasn't at all your idea. How did it come about?

Cindy Morgan: They wanted me to do a best-of record and I didn't want to, because I had already written all the songs for a new album. I said, "Let's just save the 'best-of' for when I get pregnant," thinking it would be another two years. Less than a month before I was coming to Nashville to start recording, [pauses to laugh] I started feeling strange. Lo and behold, I was pregnant. So we used part of the studio time we had slotted to record two new songs and added them to the best-of collection. It was funny how it turned out.

LH: For those unaware of your start, could you brief us on your history?

CM: I started writing songs and playing the piano by ear when I was nine. It was just kind of instinctive. My mom and dad were both songwriters, musicians, and singers. They were always in bands, always doing concerts. So it was definitely in my family, but they never pushed me to do anything at all. I did the usual stints in church choirs, sang at weddings, and performed concerts for local churches. Then without my knowledge, a friend of mine entered me in a contest at Dollywood when I was 19, and I won. That led to a job singing background vocals and demos at a recording studio in Knoxville, and then somewhere along the way I made a demo tape for Star Search.

LH: Star Search? Really?

CM: Yeah [sounding reluctant, laughing]. I recorded a couple of original songs and then a couple of show tunes--like "I'm Changing" from Dream Girl. It was schmaltz all the way. The tape never got to Star Search, but another friend sent it to John Mays who was then the A&R director at Word [Records]. He offered to help me make a professional demo, and then said that if it worked they would like for me to do a record.

LH: And that resulted in your first album, Real Life, which was dubbed "dance pop." Do you think that's a fair assessment?

CM: Well, that's definitely what it was intended to be--kind of fashioned after Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston, who were huge at the time.

LH: Was the whole dance-music thing the direction you were headed, or was that more from your record company?

CM: It wasn't really my idea, but I was certainly in agreement with it. I was so young, and I loved that kind of music--loved to dance. It was fun to do the choreography. John Mays knew a guy named Mark Hammond, who was a new producer and was great at programming dance music. He had had Mark's demos forever and had been looking for a match. He really felt like I was the right fit.

LH: Your second record, A Reason to Live still had a big dance pop element, didn't it?

CM: It did. I had toured my first record trying to make something substantial out of performing to a track and dancing. It was good teaching ground, but it was so uninspiring. It was the same canned music every night, and there was no blood in it. Nothing was at risk except for me not falling down [laughing]. It really took a toll on me. When people heard my fourth album, Listen, they were, like, "Finally, this is the real you." But the thing is, I was trying to make the transition on the second record because I knew that something wasn't going to work out [down the line] between me and dance music.

LH: So A Reason to Live was a sort-of morphing into the direction you were naturally headed?

CM: Yes, it was a first step. Then the third album, Under the Waterfall, is when I begged Mark Hammond, "Please, please, please…can we please have live musicians on this record?" I loved Tommy Sims' piano- and bass-playing, so Dann Huff and Tommy came in and spent a day playing on several tunes. Consequently, Under the Waterfall was an even bigger step into something different.

LH: How did the stylistic changes on Listen come about?

CM: I had been a huge fan of Brent Bourgeois' solo record, and I had heard other records that he had produced. I called him and asked, "Can I come over and play you some songs?" I'm sitting there in his living room with about 30 songs, and a lot of them had been rejected in the selection process from my past records. Every time I played him a song that I thought [was really "me"], he would say, "Oh, that's definitely a contender." We were just so like-minded. As it turned out, every song on Listen was one that I played for him that day. He ended up producing the record, and we had a lot of creative freedom. Listen is probably the record that I will always be most proud of because it was such a breakthrough for me.

LH: Your next record was The Loving Kind. Your husband Sigmund Brouwer wrote a novel about the last eight days of Christ's life on earth, The Weeping Chamber and The Loving Kind paralleled the themes of the book. How did that all happen?

CM: We did it separately; we didn't consult each other while working on it. For some reason I had wanted to do a musical about the life of Christ. It was a challenging and growing time for me musically. We ended up touring together, and a lot of times it was just the two of us. So I had to do the entire record on a piano. We were also newly married, and it was interesting to travel together because he was neat and I was...well...a slob.

LH: In addition to all of your solo records, you've worked on a lot of compilation projects--Streams, My Utmost for His Highest, Exodus, Sweet Dreams, The Millennium Project, and A Night in Rocketown. Did I forget any?

CM: That's about it except I did a lullaby once for a compilation called Our Family. Loren Balman--who was behind My Utmost and Streams--and I had always connected on a songwriting level. I'd be up at Word [Records] and he'd say, "Come in my office" and [he] would share the vision for those records. I ended up getting involved at a creative level in the birthing of those projects. I've felt a real personal connection--especially with Streams.

LH: Speaking of Streams, the song "Job" was pretty autobiographical for you--but in a strange sort of way. Can you explain?

CM: I actually wrote that song before my father died. I had never really lost anything, and in the process of writing that song [I tried to] step into the shoes of somebody who lost everything. I remember singing "Job" at [the] GMA [conference] that year--which was after his death--and it was so hard. I was unaware of anyone, because I felt like this was my kind of "cry" to God. I was still angry at that point. It was my way of saying, I don't understand this, but I have to accept it because you're my God. I think it helped me to deal with my grief.

LH: Does Streams stand out for you among all the compilations you've worked on?

CM: Head and shoulders above. I'm not saying that the other records weren't great pieces of music, but from a personal standpoint there'll never be another Streams for me.

LH: I've heard that you'll be releasing another record in 2001. Could you give us a preview of that project's direction?

CM: The direction I was going with the album that I intended to record this year had a '40s overtone, which I love. But, I feel like I've always wanted to do a record that has touches of Brazilian music. So Brent Bourgeois has given me the names of a lot of great Brazilian musicians, and I've been listening to them. I always want to feel like every record is different and people aren't going out and buying the same record over and over again. So I think I'll probably keep about four or five of these songs and then write some new ones. We're supposed to go into the studio in July or August of this year, so we'll see what happens.