Dierks Bentley dedicates new album to his wife

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Country star Dierks Bentley has dedicated his new album to his wife Cassidy because she inspired him to write songs about everything he is grateful for in life.

The singer created the tunes for The Mountain while on a remote retreat and reveals the first track, Woman, Amen, was all about his childhood sweetheart, who became his wife in 2005.

"I wrote this up in the mountains and you feel really alive up there... so there's a lot of gratitude, and it just feels inspiring and I think it all starts at home with her," Dierks tells Access Live. "That's the reason why I'm able to feel it at all, because she grounds me and at the same time she also allows me to grow personally and she's there for all the crazy stuff... and I feel I'm a much better man... than I was 10 years ago.

"I still get to go onstage and be wild and crazy and reconnect with those younger years but I would never want to go back to the way I was even five years ago."

The retreat also brought back happy memories of his first crush, who turned out to be his wife and Bentley reveals he still has shoe boxes full of all the love notes he wrote to Cassidy when she was off limits.

"She was dating a friend of mine and I was dating one of hers but it all worked out in the end," he shares, before recalling the first time he realised he wanted to take their friendship to the next level.

"I was opening for George Strait in Las Vegas and she was coming out there but strictly as a friend... and I was on the back of the bus with my bass player watching (movie) Old School, and she came on the bus... and I knew right away," Dierks says. "That was February 5th, and then we went to Mexico that same year, 2005, and we got married three days later."