Joey And Rory Final Album ‘Hymns That Are Important To Us’ Available For Pre-Sale
Joey and Rory’s final album Hymns That Are Important To Us is now available for pre-sale.
On Monday, January 11, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and the country music duo Joey+Rory announced that a deluxe package of their upcoming album will be available for pre-sale on Friday, January 15, exclusively at crackerbarrel.com. The album will be available at Cracker Barrel stores on Friday, February 12.
According to the news release, the deluxe package will not only include the CD, but will also feature “never-before-seen photos of Joey and Rory and their family, a magnet, lyrics, excerpts and stories from Rory’s blog This Life I Live.” Hymns That Are Important To Us marks the couple’s seventh studio album and, more than likely, their last as Joey is nearing the final days of her battle with end stage cervical cancer.
“Joey and I feel blessed to partner with Cracker Barrel for the deluxe package of our new hymns album,” Rory Feek said in the release. “These songs of faith and hope mean so much to us, and to have them wrapped within intimate stories and photos from our lives is a dream come true. We are both big fans of the restaurant, and our family has held hands and said blessings over many meals there throughout the years.”
“Joey and Rory have been a part of the Cracker Barrel family for many years, playing at our Home Office and releasing their sixth studio album in our stores in 2014,” Cracker Barrel’s Senior Marketing Manager Julie Ulmer said. “When they approached us about partnering on this album, we were honored to have the opportunity to support the project and share their music again, while also giving to a charity they care so deeply about.”
Hymns That Are Important To Us features 13 tracks that “capture the words and melodies that were the soundtrack to Joey’s childhood,” Rory said in blog post titled “manna from heaven.”
“[The album is] the one she’s always wanted to make – filled with the hymns she grew up with,” Rory continued. “We recorded it in a studio in Nashville early in the summer – just after recovering from her first big surgery in Chicago. And then she did her vocals where she could… in hotel rooms, our house, wherever and whenever she felt up to singing. In early October, we even did a tv taping of the songs in the concert hall at our farm in front of a live audience. Joey was weak and it was difficult for her, but she was determined. This record means so much to her. It is the songs that are the most important to her.”
Check out the full track listing below:
1. “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”
2. “I Surrender All”
3. “He Touched Me”
4. “Softly and Tenderly”
5. “Jesus Loves Me”
6. “It Is Well With My Soul”
7. “The Old Rugged Cross”
8. “I Need Thee Every Hour”
9. “How Great Thou Art”
10. “I’ll Fly Away”
11. “Jesus Paid It All”
12. “Suppertime”
13. “When I’m Gone”
Since then, Rory has been keeping their fans updated on his blog, usually providing posts that give a glimmer of hope that Joey may actually beat this disease. However, Rory shared a post on Saturday that revealed everyone’s worst fear… Joey is dying. Sadly, this will probably be the last album the duo releases together. As the Inquisitr previously reported, Joey Feek was diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer in 2014, three months after giving birth to her daughter Indiana (Indy). She later underwent a radical hysterectomy and several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. Although she appeared to be getting better, a mid-October scan revealed that her cancer had not only returned, but had spread to other parts of her body, including her colon. Because there was nothing left for the doctors to do, Joey made the heart-wrenching decision to stop treatment and return to her home in hospice care.
“I don’t say those words lightly. As a matter-of-fact, I haven’t said them at all. But my beautiful bride has said them to me in these couple of days. Her pain and discomfort has continued to increase daily and so has the morphine to help her be comfortable. The dosage she’s needed to keep the pain away has quadrupled in the last four days,” he continued. “I’d like to tell you that she’s doing great and is going to beat this thing. But I can’t. Yesterday with tears in her eyes and mine, Joey held my hand and told me that she has been having serious talks with Jesus. She said she told him that if He’s ready to take her… she’s ready to come home.”
