After signing with the publishing company, Irene & her husband moved to Nashville in 1983, promptly scoring cuts by Carl Jackson ('You are a rock & I am a rolling stone', and the hit Ricky Skaggs/Sharon White duet 'Love can't ever get better than this'.
Not long after moving to Nashville, Irene recorded an album for MCA Records. It yielded two singles: 'Love is a hard road' and her own charting version of 'You are a rock (and I am a rolling stone)'. The full version of the album was never released.
Undaunted, Irene discovered that, in Nashville, song-writing could be a career. Her songs soon found homes on recordings by Loretta Lynn, Trisha Yearwood, Brother Phelps, Rhonda Vincent, Claire Lynch, The Osborne Brothers, The Whites, Ricky Skaggs & Carl Jackson.
In 1999 Irene wrote, recorded &
co-produced (with Scott Neubert)
her own album titled 'Simple
Path' which was initially
released on her own label & was
later made available on
Relentless Records. Her
collaborators on the album
included
Darrell Scott, Kim
Richey, Claire Lynch, Kim
Patton-Johnson, Mark Irwin &
Michael Joyce.
It was while Irene was
performing 'I'm a little bluer
than that' from the 'Simple
Path' album on the venerable
Grand Ol' Opry that fellow
country star Alan Jackson caught
the performance on WSM while he
was driving home.
Alan
called their mutual publisher &
asked for a copy of the song.
He duly recorded the track &
included it on 'Drive', his
quintuple-platinum CMA album of
the year. Alan also asked
Irene to add her lilting
harmonies to his version of the
song.
Irene Kelley's compositions have
been recorded by a number of her
country music peers, including
Trisha Yearwood ('Second chance'
& 'O, Mexico'), Little Big Town
('Don't waste my time'), Brother
Phelps ('Not so different after
all'),
Carl Jackson ('You
are a rock (and I'm a rolling stone'),
The Whites ('Jesus rock my
baby'), Claire Lynch ('Silver
and gold'), Loretta Lynn ('Hold
her'), Ricky Skaggs & Sharon
White ('Love can't ever get
better than this') and Pat
Green ('Somewhere between Texas
and Mexico').
