Rosie Flores was on a major label and thinks that but for a trick of fate, she might have been - at least for a while - a country star.

In 1987, she released an album on Reprise. Three singles made the country charts, but the most successful, "Crying Over You" only reached 51. Flores thought the hit song on that album was Harlan Howard's "God May Forgive You (But I Won't)."

But her label would never release it as a single because Lyle Lovett had just had a hit with "God Will," a song very similar both musically and lyrically. "That was my first disappointment with Reprise because they didn't stand up for me on that," she said.

Lovett actually was going to take Howard to court until it turned out that Howard's song had been written five years earlier and never recorded because, as Flores put it, "No one had the guts." These long out-of-print Reprise recordings will finally appear on CD early next year.

The package will come out on the Rounder label and will include non-LP tracks. Flores is currently writing the notes for this reissue, tentatively scheduled for February.