When Randy Travis recorded his first gospel album, Inspirational Journey, in 2000, he had no idea that the project would be little more than a diversion from his well-established mainstream country path. "I never plan that far ahead," he laughs.

Five years later, his diversion has become a second career. Two subsequent gospel albums, Rise And Shine and Worship & Faith, have brought him Grammy awards, and now Travis finds yet another way to explore his spiritual side with Glory Train. Recorded in Santa Fe, the all-acoustic project mines a mixture of traditional hymns, new reverent works and a spiritual gospel vein that opened up a wealth of unexplored territory.

"There are standards here that everybody would recognize, and then there are old songs that people are gonna say, 'What? Where did that come from?'" Travis grins. "It's an unusual record, that's for sure."

But it's also a sincere one. "Precious Memories" is imbued with an authentic serenity, "Coming Back To The Heart" conveys a humble fragility, and "Here I Am To Worship" applies a touching sensitivity to praise.

In the process, Travis sounds as warm and grainy as he's ever sounded on record. Particularly illustrative of the point is "Were You There?," as Travis' halting low notes resemble the reedy pull of a bow across the string of an upright fiddle. It exemplifies the artistic depth that has guided his performances for 20 years of recorded music.

"He's such a naturally gifted guy," Kyle Lehning, his longtime producer, notes. "He has this internal compass that knows, whatever it is we're doing, which direction he should be pointed in. I don't usually have to say a whole heck of a lot when it comes to his approach."

Not that Travis can explain it. His assimilation of the instruments around him is as innate as it is genuine.

"I have been on a stage doing a live show and heard something really weird, as far as my mix goes, and it will make me form words different in my mouth," he says. "I don't know how else to say it. I've listened back to playbacks when I recorded things live, and something sounded so weird, it made me even pronounce the word in a different way."

Different was the point of Glory Train. Having approached his first two gospel albums more like country albums with gospel messages, he took a more traditional Christian stance with Worship & Faith. He was interested in taking a new direction with the same praise sensibility, but it took some time before Travis and Lehning were able to establish the musical core of Glory Train.

"I literally was in the shower and I was thinking about the Fisk Jubilee Singers and about looking into a whole different culture when it came to gospel music," Lehning remembers. "I got right out of the shower and went to Tower and started digging through the collection of records over there and ran into a four-CD box set of Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

"I knew about her music and the kind of raw quality of it. Her stuff is real simple, but very soulful, and Randy's such a pure, soulful country singer that a connection seemed to make some sense to me. I bought the box set and sent it to Randy and said, 'Dig around in here.'"

That led to such songs as "This Train," "Up Above My Head," "Precious Memories" and "Down By The Riverside." Combining Travis' expressive bass-baritone with a small cadre of acoustic players and those spiritual nuggets, the sessions brought a new dimension to the songs, casting some of them in country, Southern gospel and even western swing textures. The result is a powerful mix of distinct sounds that represent the American heartland.

Travis himself has definitely felt the power in the material.

"There are some gospel songs," he reflects, "that emotionally hit you in a way that most country songs don't."

Not that Travis had much background in gospel music going into this new section of his career. He'd been raised in North Carolina on a steady diet of country music by the likes of Hank Williams, George Jones and Merle Haggard. But Bill Gaither, Mahalia Jackson, The Stamps Quartet-he knew little or nothing about them.

"I came out of a childhood that had no religion," he says. "I didn't know anything about the Word of God, and I didn't listen to gospel music. I went to church just a little bit as a kid, but as they would say in the South, it didn't take.

"I can remember some gospel music that I sang along with in church in those days. Then when my grandmother was alive-my dad's mom-every time she was around, she'd always ask me and my brother, Ricky, to do 'Peace in the Valley.' There were a couple others, but mainly that one, so my knowledge of gospel music was extremely small."

Travis' own history would prove the perfect story for a gospel song of salvation and rebirth. His litany of jail time, drug use, fights and car accidents is legendary. At one point in his teens, all that stood between Travis and a long stay in prison was the belief of local entrepreneur Lib Hatcher in his talent as a singer. She took custody and not only encouraged his development as a performer, but also encouraged study of the Bible. She would eventually become his wife.

Travis and Hatcher moved to Nashville in the 1980s, and 20 years ago, he netted his first country hits, "1982" and "On The Other Hand," setting the stage for an explosive spurt in which he led a charge by Nashville's country divisions back to a more traditional sound. He won the first of an eventual five Grammy awards in 1988 and set new standards in the business by proving that a country singer could sell multi-millions of albums without chasing faddish pop sonics.

Travis earned deserved praise for his efforts at that time, but he could not have effectively recorded the kind of heart-felt pieces of worship that populate Glory Train.

"I still had some spiritual growing to do," he admits. "In my case, change came very, very slow. By my mid-20s, I'd started making a lot of drastic changes, but I still had a lot of growing to do, a lot of other things to learn-you never stop learning. I don't think I could've done this album at that point in time."

Glory Train finds Travis backed not only by frequent session vocalist Wes Hightower, but by some well-respected gospel acts, including the Crabb Family, the Hagees and the Blind Boys of Alabama. And Travis, still learning and absorbing the genre, is drawn to gospel for the same reasons that likely attracted those artists: the impact he sees his music making.

Not to disparage his country past: "Forever And Ever, Amen" is still sung at weddings and has been inscribed on tombstones, "He Walked On Water" has inspired countless letters of appreciation, and "The Box"-in which a son finds a collection of memories in a closet that changes his perception of his late father-chillingly mimicked the real-life experience of one of his fans.

"We've had wonderful responses from country songs," Travis explains, "but they're different."

Rather than simply reflecting events that happened in others' lives, gospel music has the power to change. Travis sees it in the people who say his performances have helped heal broken relationships or inspired people to battle their addictions. And he remembers one father who approached him after a concert, to tell Travis about a family drama in which his son was about to marry a woman who was pregnant with a child conceived during a rape by someone else. The man had told his son that he would not accept the child as a member of his family, but after hearing Randy's song, "Raise Him Up," he relented, telling Travis, "I'll treat that child as my grandchild, and all because of hearing that song."

Gospel music was supposed to be a short-term side venture for Randy Travis, but Glory Train exists because the message has some value-to listeners, and to Randy. "Having the music ministry adds to the workload," he submits, "but it's something well worth doing. It's like having two careers, and I want to continue doing it."