Country singer LeAnn Rimes turns to chants to relieve pandemic blues

[November 18, 2020]  By Alicia Powell

NEW YORK (Reuters) - After a nearly 25-year country music career, singer LeAnn Rimes is finding new ways to share her voice - through a podcast and her first chant record.

The Grammy Award winner, 38, meditates regularly and says she wanted to make chanting more accessible to her fans to relieve the pandemic blues. The stress caused Rimes' psoriasis to flare up, which she revealed through a picture of her skin outbreak in October to encourage people to shed their hang-ups.

"Chanting really is, for me, about using my own vibration and my own voice for my own healing," she said. The idea for the soundtrack, which will be released on Nov. 20, came to her during meditation and on stage.

"I lead singalongs all the time and I thought I would really love to mix the chanting with my music and be able to teach it," she said.

With time on her hands, the singer has also turned her passion for candles into a business, with the launch of La Fréquence candles, and is extending her wellness blog, Soul of EverLe, into a "Wholly Human" podcast. The show will debut on iHeartRadio on Nov. 30.

Rimes, whose debut album "Blue" in 1996 reached No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart, will celebrate her 25th anniversary in the industry in 2021.

"It's pretty amazing to have that kind of longevity in a business that is incredibly fickle," she said. "So, I'm very grateful."

(Reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Richard Chang; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

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