"With this album I want to focus, more than ever before, on my purpose in life," he explains. "I've been so incredibly blessed. My wife and I just had our fifth anniversary. I get to do what I love for a living. But it wasn't so long ago that I was spiraling downward in a lot of ways, until God touched my life and set me on the right track. I feel a huge debt to give glory back to Him for everything He has done for me. It's the least I can do."

That said, Turn Around is not slotted only to listeners who have - or have not - undergone this kind of transformation. It inspires, excites, and gets people on their feet - but it doesn't preach. "I understand that not everybody believes as I do," Lang says, "which is fine. I just want to sing about what's going on in my life and let people make up their own minds about that."

For all the conviction that Lang brings to Turn Around, the album began almost as an afterthought. Lang was in the studio one day with his producer, Ron Fair, who is also president of A&M/Interscope Records. There wasn't anything pressing on the agenda; they were doing routine work on the final stages of Lang's previous record, Long Time Coming. Then, out of the blue, Fair said something completely unexpected.

"He looks at me and goes, `Dude, you need to make a gospel record,'" Lang says, laughing at the recollection. "Now, I hadn't really mentioned much to Ron about that side of my life, but for some reason he knew where I was at. So I thought about it for just a second and said, `Yes, I do.'"

Additional performers

The Jonny Lang Thankful Choir

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