Jonny Lang laughs through his literal response. He's just been asked where he is in his most interesting musical journey, one that began at 12 and brought him to the world's biggest stages in the company of legends, winning both critical and popular acclaim.

     "At the Chevron station," he says, which literally is where he finds himself this evening aboard his tour bus somewhere in the Milwaukee area.

     Then this extraordinary musician, about to release Turn Around, which he considers perhaps the best album of his career, turns serious. "Definitely, there have been surprises along the way. What I do for a living is what I love, so I always expected to do it. Ever since I can remember, I always loved to sing and I always loved music. I always knew in some capacity it would be part of my life."

     He took that love of his art from his home in Fargo, N.D., to international renown in his mid-teens. There were tours with the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith, trading licks with B.B. King and Buddy Guy, being invited by Eric Clapton to join him in concert, asked by Stevie Wonder to play at his induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, a Grammy nomination and Gold and Platinum records.

     The present is what most interests Lang, now 25. Artistic and personal growth are the priorities. "I think I have become a better songwriter over the years and I've written with some of the best songwriters there are and learned from them," he says. "I have so many ideas in my heart that I want to get across. Learning to do that in song is the biggest challenge. I look forward to getting better at that through the years."

     Lang continues to be amazed at the ways in which music, including his, touches people. "People will come to our concerts and say a certain song [of his] touched their life somehow, and they will go on to explain what the song means," he says. "A lot of times it's not how I visualized the meaning of it. It's not what I meant. To them, it was totally different. That's the most amazing thing to me. There are so many different people on so many different levels emotionally, wherever they are in their life. My goal is to meet everybody where they are."

     In so many ways, he is in a good place, he says. "I get to do what I love for a living. I have an awesome wife [they recently celebrated their fifth anniversary], great friends and a great band. I feel so blessed by God and hope to be able to share that with other people."

     All of which brings him to Turn Around, his which is to be released to the general and Christian retail market Sept. 19. With this CD, he explains, he wanted to focus, more than ever before, on what he considers his purpose in life.

     He concedes that the album may surprise some people, especially those who only know him from his last record, 2003's Long Time Coming, which, he says, "was a bit more pop and rock and trying to branch out a little bit."

     "This one probably has more appeal to soul and blues and roots-music type fans," he says.

     He believes it also can reach people who do not consider themselves particularly spiritual. He is well aware that not everyone believes as he does, and that's fine, he says. Lang just wants to sing about what is going on in his own life and let people make up their own minds about that.

     He does not seem concerned that it will be viewed as only a gospel album and that it won't be embraced by the mainstream audience. "I wouldn't predict that. It may happen and if it does that's fine," he says. "There are some [spiritually] direct songs, but the whole album is not direct enough [that it might make some shy away from it]. It's not a preachy approach. It's more like a gentle, sharing approach. It wouldn't turn the majority of people off."

     He feels he needed to step forward with this record and put his beliefs on the line. "Being a musician and songwriter is the main thing God has given me to be a steward over. I look at myself as having an obligation to God to be a good steward to that gift, giving the glory to God in my music directly and not hiding it," he explains. "When I do that, and am mindful of those precepts when I'm writing or performing, it always turns out better. The further I get away from that, the more I struggle. It's kind of a built-in compass."