Music: Beyond Hope

Lee Ann Womack is no one-hit country wonder

Every now and then a singer, deep into a nice little career, gets the ton-of-bricks gift of a hit song. It jets up the charts, seeps out of every pickup truck, is hummed in the check-out line at Wal-Mart. And suddenly the singer is struck by a glum vision of the inevitable future: 30 years from now, she'll be singing the same damn song in a lounge in Vegas or Branson.

Lee Ann Womack has such a hit in I Hope You Dance, which has spent most of the summer as the No. 1 country single. A sort of 12-step program...

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