Singer Jake Owen focuses on positivity after a tough year

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — On a recent hot summer morning in Nashville, Tennessee, country singer Jake Owen steered his boat down a quiet stretch of the Cumberland River and kicked up a wave curl just perfect for one of his favorite sports: wake boarding.

If Owen seems to be living a dream right now, it has a lot to do with his determination to stay positive despite a tough year. Last year he and his wife, Lacey, announced their divorce after three years of marriage and she and his daughter moved out of their home in Nashville.

"Everything was new," Owen, 34, said of the last year. "I was single. I had gone through the divorce. My child had moved back home to Florida. I just had a lot going on."

Instead of writing a "divorce record" full of sad ballads and breakup songs like some would have expected, on his fifth record, "American Love," Owen returned to the hopeful, light-hearted songs that make fans happy, and him, too.

"I owe it to them and I owe it to myself to be happy," he said.