Last week Music Times ran a list of songs referencing Maya Angelou to celebrate the life of the acclaimed author and poet. Many of the tracks on the list were hip-hop and R&B, understandably enough, but it turns out that Angelou took special interest in the country genre, which is why Lee Ann Womack will be performing at the Pulitzer Prize winner's funeral.
Angelou listed Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Nettles and Montgomery Gentry among her favorite performers, but her favorite song from the genre was Womack's smash hit "I Hope You Dance." The country performer will sing the track, accompanied by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, at Angelou's funeral at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.
"When someone told me 'I Hope You Dance' was Miss Angelou's favorite song all those years ago, I thought they were being nice," Womack said. "Then when my publicist was trying to get me on Oprah, suddenly, all the momentum changed... and we found out it was because Maya Angelou told Oprah about me and the song."
The sudden scheduling will create some problems for the rest of Womack's plans for the week however. She was scheduled to be a host at CMT's Next Women of Country show at the the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, but will be forced to cancel to make Angelou's funeral. She said that CMT understood her choice to switch gigs.
"Maya Angelou is one of the true modern American voices in literature," she said. "Her books have touched so many, and the fact that my song touched her... Well, you can't say 'no.'"
