When Nashville's favorite genre-defying producer, Dave Cobb, got a call from Washington state's favorite genre-busting singer-songwriter, Brandi Carlile, in 2016, he was a little freaked out. "I'd first heard her sing about ten years ago, and just stopped in my tracks," he said in a recent chat at his home base, Music Row's RCA Studio A, where the two recently completed her sixth album By The Way, I Forgive You. "Very few people can sing like that — in that powerful and individualistic way. I'd been a huge fan for a long time."

Carlile first turned to Cobb to create an arrangement for Dolly Parton's cover of her signature ballad "The Story," which appears on the 2017 charity release Cover Stories. That collaboration established a musical kinship that's now fully expressed on By the Way, I Forgive You, a project she identifies as "a massive change."

Co-produced by Cobb and country-rock pioneer Shooter Jennings, By The Way, I Forgive You takes Carlile and her longtime bandmates, Phil and Tim Hanseroth, into a new space of risk-taking — as well as the emotional stratosphere.

"The Joke," the first track to be released from By The Way, exemplifies the album's massive ambition. A country-rock aria dedicated to the delicate boys and striving girls born into — and, Carlile insists, destined to triumph over — this divisive time, "The Joke" offers a stunning vocal performance from Carlile, swathed in warm piano, big drums and a perfect string arrangement by the late Paul Buckmaster.

Cobb hopes that Carlile's courage and finesse gains her the commercial audience she richly deserves — the same one Adele and Sam Smith enjoy. "This album deserves to be mainstream," he said. "It's one of those records that people who love classic records will appreciate — and people who love really great songwriting, and people who love great singers. It's art, and this feels like this is a moment when art can break through to the mainstream."

Vinyl LP features "The Joke"