RITA WILSON SOUND OF A WOMAN

With her sixth studio album, Sound of a Woman, Rita Wilson offers up a body of work unlike any other in the modern music canon: an impassioned suite of songs that follow the arc of a woman’s life, charting all the triumphs and missteps and unseen turning points leading to the radical awakening of full-fledged womanhood. The most visionary and revealing output yet in her ever-evolving catalog, the searingly honest LP finds Wilson working with nine-time Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb and elevating her soulful brand of singer/songwriter music into daring new terrain. Equal parts unfiltered memoir and nuanced observation of the world around her, Sound of a Woman moves beyond gender bounds and cuts to the raw truth of the human experience—all while providing countless moments of catharsis, reflection, and unabashed joy along the way.

An up-close meditation on stripping away the extraneous and reclaiming your true voice, Sound of a Woman arrives as a revelatory excavation of the self. Through her sessions with Cobb (the highly sought-after producer behind recent classics like Brandi Carlile’s By the Way, I Forgive You, Jason Isbell’s Southeastern, and Chris Stapleton’s Traveller), Wilson sculpted a timeless but boldly unpredictable sound that lets her spellbinding vocals land with their full, unfettered impact. “A while back Dave told me that if we ever worked together, he’d want to give me the experience of tracking live with the musicians in a very intimate, organic way and allowing my voice to be at the forefront of the songs,” she recalls. “I felt so vulnerable and exposed, but that’s exactly why I wanted to work with Dave—everything he does leads to that rare level of authenticity and connection.” Recorded at the historic RCA Studio A in Nashville, Sound of a Woman ultimately bears a sonic depth that fully matches the scope of Wilson’s deeply empathetic and soul-baring songwriting.

As the first song penned for Sound of a Woman, the album’s resplendent title track quickly crystallized Wilson’s vision for the LP’s unveiling of what typically goes unspoken. Like most of the project, “Sound of a Woman” emerged from her one-on-one collaboration with co-writer Amy Wadge—an industry heavyweight who won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for Ed Sheeran’s 18-times-platinum “Thinking Out Loud,” and who’s also worked with artists like Kacey Musgraves and Alicia Keys. “Amy and I were talking about how so many women long to reconnect with the parts of ourselves that we’ve lost touch with or left behind—including the ability to express what we really want and say what we really mean—and how a woman’s voice is complex, both literally and metaphorically,” Wilson explains. “It’s so easy to live within the boundaries set by societal or generational expectations, rather than leading with our own beliefs and lived experience. I feel like I’m now only just beginning to speak my truth, to use my voice about what it means to be a woman—with all the vulnerability and the strength and everything in between.”

A breathtaking entry point for the album, “Sound of a Woman” opens with a majestic swell of strings that soon recede to spotlight the quiet intensity of Wilson’s voice. As the song cycles through scenes of hidden pain and heartbreak, its piano-driven arrangement gathers a potent momentum—eventually building to a glorious crescendo graced with sublime gospel harmonies. “To me the choir on this song feels like an exaltation,” says Wilson. “Their voices represent all the people who’ve helped you get to a place of self-acceptance; they could be the artists who’ve inspired you, everything you’ve read, everything you’ve lived through. The idea is that all that power is available to you, somewhere deep within you, and it can no longer be contained.” 

An unparalleled showcase for Wilson’s lived-in storytelling, Sound of a Woman delves into the endless complexity of the parent-child bond on “Your Mother”: a heartfelt portrayal of the difficult but vital task of recognizing our mothers’ humanity in all its infinite layers. In a testament to the tender elegance of her songwriting, the profoundly illuminating track unfolds in a series of warmly detailed vignettes, beginning with an indelible snapshot of teenage misadventures (“She used to climb out of the window Friday nights / To meet a boy and drink a beer or two…She burnt some bridges and she crossed some lines / But that’s what young girls do”). “When we wrote ‘Your Mother,’ Amy and I were talking about our kids and asking whether they’re able to see us as people who had lives before they came along,” says Wilson. “It’s also a song about making the choice to share those parts of your life with your children, but at its core it’s about that yearning to know our own mothers.”

In her intricate contemplation of the relationships that shape our lives, Wilson brings her unguarded candor to songs like “Marriage” (an unvarnished yet lighthearted look at the peaks and valleys of long-term partnership) and “No Matter What” (an anthemic celebration of the friendships that keep us going when the world knocks us down). Elsewhere on the album, she delivers more introspective tracks like “Jury of One” (a gentle pushback against the female tendency to feel guilty or apologize despite an utter lack of wrongdoing) and “Whose Body Is This” (a bracingly confessional rumination on self-image, partly informed by her experience in overcoming breast cancer). Meanwhile, the choir-accompanied “Michelangelo” inhabits a poetic simplicity as Wilson muses on the internal process of unearthing your most authentic being. “Michelangelo was asked how he made such exquisite statues out of blocks of stone; his answer was: ‘I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free,’” says Wilson. “So much of becoming ourselves involves the lifelong work of chipping away at what’s nonessential, and getting closer to the truth of who we are as women. That process is not without pain and loss, but in the end there’s so much beauty to be gained from the constant practice of looking inward with real curiosity and courage.”

As Wilson’s most fearlessly open work to date, Sound of a Woman marks a major achievement for an artist who first ventured into music as a means of unlocking new dimensions of her artistic voice. Her first full-length effort since Now & Forever: Duets (a 2022 release featuring iconic artists like Jackson Browne, Vince Gill, Smokey Robinson, Willie Nelson, and more), the new LP is the latest entry in an expansive catalog that began with her acclaimed 2012 covers album AM/FM. “When I started songwriting, it was the first time I felt real creative control over what I expressed artistically,” says Wilson, who’s starred in a multitude of widely beloved feature films and hit TV shows while making her name as the powerhouse movie producer behind blockbuster franchises like Mamma Mia! and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. “It’s very different from acting, where you bring your own ideas to a performance but really have no say over the final product.” 

Since her 2016 self-titled LP, Wilson has honed her sophisticated songcraft by working with many of the music industry’s most illustrious songwriters, including the legendary Diane Warren, Liz Rose (a Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee whose credits include Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” and “All Too Well”), and Dan Wilson (the co-writer behind massive hits like Adele’s “Someone Like You”). Over the years, she has also brought her eclectic musicality to such diverse endeavors as singing on Mark D. Conklin’s The Gospel According to Mark (nominated for Best Roots Gospel Album at the 2025 Grammy Awards), collaborating with Latin Grammy winner Sebastián Yatra on her original song “Til You’re Home” (featured in the Wilson-produced 2022 film A Man Called Otto and shortlisted for an Academy Award), and lending her vocal talents to a cover of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” on Blues Traveler’s 2021 LP Traveler’s Blues (a Grammy nominee for Best Traditional Blues Album). A captivating live act who’s performed at venues across the globe, Wilson also took the stage at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium for CMA Fest 2025, headlined a show with the Nashville Symphony last March, and sang alongside the likes of Jon Batiste, Brandi Carlile, Elton John, and Marcus Mumford at Joni Mitchell’s career-spanning Hollywood Bowl concert in 2024.

In keeping with the high-concept nature of Sound of a Woman, Wilson worked with filmmaker/ photographer and longtime Patti Smith collaborator Steven Sebring to dream up the album’s elaborate visual component. And with the LP’s release, she hopes to create space for people of all generations and genders to join in the collective lifting of voices that often go unheard or unspoken. “Everyone has a story to tell—all of us, including men—and we all carry our own versions of struggle and brokenness,” says Wilson. “My hope is that this album gives people insight into all the many phases that women experience over the course of their lives, and empowers them to look more closely at the woman sitting next to them, realizing there may be a lot more going on with her internally than what we see outwardly. Hopefully, it will start conversations that help us come away with a deeper understanding of how valuable this inner journey is and how it truly connects us all.”