Jessica Simpson, the pop singer turned fashion mogul, reality TV star and bestselling author, is returning to her musical roots. Simpson has released “Use My Heart Against Me,” a single off her upcoming EP, “Nashville Canyon, Part 1.” It marks her first single in almost 17 years — her last project was the 2008 album “Do You Know.”

In an interview for the Cut magazine with her sister, Ashlee Simpson Ross, the singer, 44, said she’s exploring a new chapter in her life through music. “Through the deepest heartbreak of my life, it was the most intense yet enlightening therapy I’ve ever been through.”

In January, Simpson and former NFL player Eric Johnson announced their separation after a decadelong marriage.

Simpson said she first came up with the idea for the rockabilly EP when she was in Nashville, Tennessee, celebrating her daughter Maxwell’s birthday. Instead of requesting the Happy Birthday song, the 11-year-old asked her mother to sing Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light.” Simpson said it led to “all these flashbacks of making (her) first record at 14.”

“I saw the light, I had to be in Nashville,” she said. “I started looking at real estate that day.”

To Simpson, the EP isn’t about making a hit record. “It was just about having a vibe. I don’t care if anything’s a hit. I’m not with a record label. I don’t expect it to even be on the radio.”

“Nashville Canyon, Part 1” will be released March 21.

King, Perry selected for space flight: Katy Perry and Gayle King are headed to space with Jeff Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, and three other women.

Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, announced the all- female celebrity crew Thursday. Sanchez, a helicopter pilot and former TV journalist, picked the crew who will join her on a 10- minute spaceflight from West Texas, the company said. They will blast off this spring aboard a New Shepard rocket.

Sanchez invited singer Perry and TV journalist King, as well as former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, research scientist Amanda Nguyen and movie producer Kerianne Flynn.

McCartney to publish book on Wings: Paul McCartney’s next book is a reminder that the Beatles were not his only band. “Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run” is an oral history about the group McCartney formed in the early 1970s, after the Beatles broke up.

With members that included guitarist Denny Laine and McCartney’s then-wife, keyboardist Linda McCartney, Wings rose from driving to shows in a van to selling millions of records with such hits as “Band on the Run,” “Jet,” “My Love” and “Silly Love Songs.” The band broke up in 1981.

Edited by historian Ted Widmer, the illustrated book due Nov. 4 draws in part on hours of interviews with McCartney.

March 3 birthdays: Director George Miller is 80. Actor Hattie Winston is 80. Singer Jennifer Warnes is 78. Actor Tim Kazurinsky is 75. Actor Miranda Richardson is 67. Actor Mary Page Keller is 64. Rapper Tone Loc is 59. Actor Julie Bowen is 55. Singer Ronan Keating is 48. Actor Jessica Biel is 43. Singer Camila Cabello is 28.