New Sweetheart of the Rodeo : Trisha Yearwood once worried she was ‘too normal’ for the music business. Now she’s positioned to be the next big star of a maverick country generation

“She’ll be the Linda Ronstadt of the ‘90s,” manager Ken Kragen says authoritatively when asked how he thinks his newest client, red-hot country star Trisha Yearwood, will be perceived five years from now.

“No, wait,” he adds abruptly. “I shouldn’t say that. It’s not fair to her. It builds unrealistic expectations.”

If Kragen doesn’t draw a parallel with Ronstadt, he’s one of the only pop-country insiders these days who seems to stop short of it.

At a time when Garth Brooks’ success has made much of the adult pop world curious about what’s happening in country music, Yearwood is ideally equipped to also build a broad country-pop constituency.

Like Brooks, Yearwood, 28, is part of a new generation of country singers who grew up listening to pop and rock as well as country and can reflect those influences without violating the integrity of the country tradition.

It’s the progress of these singers--including Yearwood, Vince Gill, Wynonna Judd, Travis Tritt and Mary-Chapin Carpenter--that may determine whether the pop-country connection continues to grow, or is just a momentary pop infatuation with Brooks.

Yearwood may be the one, after Brooks, who translates most easily to pop.

Where her 1991 debut album, “Trisha Yearwood,” established her as a bright new star by selling more than 1.3 million copies, it’s the combination of exquisite vocals and excellent instincts for material exhibited in the new “Hearts in Armor” album that has created a buzz among pop and country tastemakers.

Reviews of “Hearts” have been glowing. Rolling Stone, which rarely devotes space to country artists, declared that the new record’s “adventurousness serves notice that Yearwood has the potential for a long, significant career.”

Here are some of the descriptions being applied to Yearwood by pop and country movers and shakers:

* The new Linda Ronstadt. Yearwood, a native of Georgia, sings heartache ballads with much of the same evocative edges long associated with Ronstadt, who along with the Eagles helped define the Southern California country-rock sound in the ‘70s. The Ronstadt connection is underscored by former Eagle and Ronstadt pal Don Henley’s guest vocal on Yearwood’s new album and his appearance in her latest video, “Walkaway Joe.”

* The female Garth Brooks. Yearwood doesn’t try to duplicate Brooks’ flashy stage show. Indeed, she has only been performing full time for about a year and needs to develop a more commanding presence on stage. Like Brooks, however, she has enormous potential, thanks to an accessible yet soulful style. Brooks, a big booster, also appears on “Hearts in Armor.”

* The real Wynonna. This was supposed to be the year of Wynonna Judd in country music, but she showed a disturbing timidity this year in selecting material for her debut solo album, and now Yearwood may give her a race for the title. Though Yearwood lacks Judd’s bluesy grit, she is an immensely gifted vocal interpreter who exhibits far more daring in the selection of material. Judd doesn’t guest on the Yearwood album, but Emmylou Harris, perhaps the most admired and influential female country singer of recent times, does.

Those kinds of comparisons put a lot of pressure on a performer, but Yearwood seems to take them in stride. She’s flattered, she says, by the mentions of Ronstadt and Brooks, and she doesn’t even seem unnerved when the potential rivalry with Judd is mentioned. She simply talks about how much she admires Judd as a singer.

In fact, Yearwood says, perhaps a bit facetiously, she once worried that she was too normal for show business.

“It sounds funny now, but when I first started in this business I was worried that I was way too normal,” she says. “I haven’t had a drug problem. I grew up in a family that stayed married and that went to church on Sundays. I thought maybe I needed to get some problems. I do get nervous and I usually feel like things are going a little bit too fast, but somehow I adjust to it.”

But don’t take that unruffled manner as a sign she lacks competitive drive.

Yearwood appears to have enormous inner strength and determination--qualities that have helped her maintain her balance through a trying two years that included a divorce and widespread suspicion, when she left her first management company, that her success had gone to her head.

Bruce Hinton, a veteran of the Nashville scene, speaks about her determination.

“You’ve got to remember this is a young lady who pole-vaulted a year ago from having virtually no experience past being a demo singer to playing the Universal Amphitheatre in front of thousands of people (opening for Brooks),” says Hinton, president of MCA Records-Nashville, whose roster includes both Yearwood and Judd. “Some artists would have come apart under that kind of pressure, but Trisha blossomed. I think the sky’s the limit.”

Things are going so well for Yearwood these days that it seems only fitting that one of her singles comes on the radio as she slips into the passenger seat of manager Kragen’s shiny red Jaguar.

They are headed for KIK-FM, an Orange County country music station, for an interview to plug her new album and her appearance that night at the Crazy Horse nightclub in Santa Ana.

As part of a hectic four-day Southern California swirl, Yearwood would also headline a live national radio broadcast from the Roxy in West Hollywood, appear at the Riverside Cowboy nightclub in Riverside, make brief promo appearances at two other radio stations and appear on Arsenio Hall’s TV show. She would also agree to play a small role in an upcoming Peter Bogdanovich film.

The Hall booking was arranged after Yearwood’s scheduled appearance on the rival “Tonight Show” was canceled last month in an argument between Kragen and then-”Tonight Show” executive producer Helen Kushnick that made national headlines and led to Kushnick’s dismissal by NBC over her allegedly heavy-handed tactics in the talent booking war with Hall.

Self-consciously, Yearwood pushes one of the radio’s buttons to change the station, only to find the sound of Linda Ronstadt’s “The Tracks of My Tears” filling the car as it inches along the freeway in the afternoon traffic.

She and Kragen both smile.

“I’m trying to reach Linda to invite her to the show tomorrow night at the Roxy,” Kragen says.

“No, no,” Yearwood responds. “I’d be afraid to meet her. I’ve had this image of her for all these years, and I’d rather keep it that way. It’s a case of meeting one of your idols and finding they’re not at all what you had imagined.”

If Yearwood does meet Ronstadt, she would find someone quite a bit like herself. Both are smart, unfailingly gracious and unpretentious women who love music but are as quick in interviews to praise other artists as they are to dwell on their own accomplishments. They also both have quick wits.

Asked what is the first question she would ask of veteran Ronstadt, newcomer Yearwood replied without missing a beat: “Would you sing on my album?”

Kragen invited Ronstadt to one of Yearwood’s shows earlier this year, but the singer wasn’t able to attend. She did, however, send flowers and a note wishing Yearwood good luck.

At KIK-FM, Yearwood sits in an adjoining studio as program director Craig Powers asks her about the new album, her background and, invariably, her feelings about Ronstadt.

Outside the station, after the appearance, a small group of fans rushes up, asking for autographs. One woman hands Yearwood a tape that apparently contains some vocals by her daughter, who appears to be about 10.

As Yearwood signs an autograph, the youngster suddenly starts singing one of Yearwood’s hit singles, turning the gathering into an instant audition.

Yearwood smiles and pats the youngster on the head as she turns and walks back to the car for the drive to the Crazy Horse.

“I always wanted to be a singer just like that little girl,” she says later. “But I didn’t tell anybody about it because it seemed like something that was impossible, coming from Monticello, Ga.

“Everybody knew I was into music, but all that meant in our town was that you either taught music in school or led the church choir because that’s what people who were interested in music did there. Just the idea of moving to Nashville seemed impossible enough, much less becoming a singer there.

“Sometimes I still wonder how I ever did it.”

Monticello is a quiet town of slightly more than 2,000 people, about 60 miles south of Atlanta--the “everybody-knows-everybody kind of place,” Yearwood says. Her father is a banker there and her mother teaches third grade.

Country music was a favorite around the house, and Yearwood still recalls being enthralled by songs like Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and Kitty Wells’ “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.”

Like her older sister, Yearwood was a good student--straight A’s in junior high and high school. Despite her love for music, she figured she would be an accountant when she grew up because she was good at figures.

By junior high, her musical interests were broadening to include rock bands like the Allman Brothers and the Eagles as well as singer-songwriters like James Taylor and Gordon Lightfoot.

But Ronstadt was her favorite.

“She had a power and an emotion in her voice that made you believe every word she sang,” the fitness-conscious Yearwood says over a breakfast of raisin bran and skim milk the morning after the Crazy Horse show. “My favorite song was probably ‘Love Has No Pride,’ but I listened to everything over and over. I knew the albums so well I knew which song it was from the first note.”

After junior college, Yearwood went briefly to the University of Georgia, but she wasn’t happy there. The school, she felt, was too big and too impersonal. Mainly, she realizes now, she transferred to Belmont University in Nashville in 1986 to be close to the music business.

“It was hard to give up the business major because everyone said I was throwing away my future,” she says. “But I finally decided I didn’t want to end up being 30 or 40 and regretting that I didn’t even try it (singing) . . . as crazy a goal as it was.”

The natural thing for someone so influenced by Ronstadt would be to head to Los Angeles, where Ronstadt’s career was launched in the late ‘60s in such clubs as the Troubadour and Whisky. But the insecurity held Yearwood back.

“Nashville seemed safer and easier,” she says quickly when asked about the possibility of moving to L.A. “Even though I didn’t know anyone there, it was only six hours from home by car. Besides, people like Emmylou Harris and Rosanne Cash were in Nashville--and they were making the kind of music I wanted to make.”

However, it would be five years before anyone other than a small circle of friends and supporters would hear any of that music.

The normal thing for aspiring young singers to do is to play clubs or make audition tapes--anything to try to catch the ear of a record company scout. But Yearwood spent her first two years in Nashville in school; Belmont is one of the few universities in the nation offering a major in the music business .

“I didn’t even tell anybody at school that I was a singer,” she says, brushing her light brown hair out of her eyes. “I think a lot of my hesitancy was because I was so in love with the dream of being a singer that I didn’t want to take it any further because I was secretly afraid I might fail. It was a lot safer just holding onto the dream.”

Yearwood did, however, get married while at Belmont, a marriage that ended in divorce last year.

It wasn’t until she had graduated from Belmont and was working as a secretary at MTM Records that she began to actively pursue her dream.

“I just watched other people coming into the record company day after day . . . trying to get someone to listen to them . . . trying to get a record contract,” she says. “It showed me that if you don’t get out there and try, you are not going to ever make it.”

After a few months singing in a local club and making demo tapes for publishers, she was spotted at a club showcase in 1990 by Tony Brown, the hottest record producer in Nashville. Brown, who has also championed Lyle Lovett, Wynonna Judd and Vince Gill, signed her to MCA Nashville.

“I love great singers and I heard one that night,” Brown said in a separate interview. “In pop, the singer is sometimes the least important thing on the record because of all the production and other sounds, but in country music you’ve got to have a voice, and her voice just blew me away.”

The next break came from Garth Brooks, whom Yearwood had met while they were both working as demo singers. He invited her to be the opening act on one of his key tours last year. It was a big challenge since Yearwood had such limited experience onstage, but she leaped at the opportunity.

“I had done some singing with a few bands, but I never had to carry the show or talk to the audience,” she says. “So, I was terrified talking to an audience. I am still trying to find myself onstage.”

Brooks’ support, which included singing on two tracks, helped draw attention to Yearwood’s debut album--and her voice did the rest. Soon, the frisky “She’s in Love With the Boy” was No. 1 on the country charts--and Yearwood was the toast of Nashville.

Not all the talk was pretty.

There were tabloid rumors of an affair with Brooks--rumors that intensified when Yearwood’s marriage later ended in divorce.

During the breakfast interview at a Sherman Oaks hotel, she shakes her head at the mention of the rumors.

“We knew back when we decided we were going to do the tour that there would be talk,” she says, quite matter-of-factly. “But the first time I read about it in the tabloids, I got really upset. So did my mom. I thought, ‘I’ll have to call everybody and say it isn’t true.’

“Then I figured that if you believe what the tabloids said about me having an affair with Garth, then you’ll also believe what is on the next page, which is something preposterous.”

Yearwood pauses a moment when the marriage is mentioned.

“You are encouraged to get married when you are a small-town person, and that’s what I did even though I knew it wasn’t right,” she says softly. “I had met this guy and I thought, ‘I am never going to meet anybody who cares about me this much,’ which is probably true, so I married him.

“There was just no real spark, which I think there is supposed to be. It wasn’t show business that broke us up. We wouldn’t still be married if I was back answering telephones. But we are still best friends, and I feel like there are a lot of things I owe to him.

“I feel like I took that energy that I wasn’t getting out of my marriage and put it into my career. If I had been madly, passionately in love with somebody, I might have been really distracted. That probably doesn’t sound very nice, but the support was there, and I was able to put all my passion into my career.”

There were more whispers about Yearwood last fall when she announced she was leaving the management firm of Doyle/Lewis, which also represents Brooks. She felt the company didn’t have enough time to handle Brooks’ skyrocketing career and hers.

“Everybody thought I was crazy and disloyal,” she says now of the decision. “Then, when I signed with Kragen, some people went, ‘Oh, she is abandoning Nashville. She’s got L.A. management. She’s just forgetting everything about where she came from.’

“It was really hard making the change, but I felt there was an opportunity with Kragen. The plan wasn’t to change who I was or race after a pop audience. But country music has exploded. It goes so much further than Nashville now, and that’s good for Nashville. I wanted management that could capitalize on those opportunities that were given.

“Besides, the only allegiance I really felt (in leaving Doyle/Lewis) was to Garth. He’s the one who offered me the tour and sang on the record, and the great thing was he respected my decision. He always said, ‘It’s important to always follow your gut.’ ”

Kragen heard the backlash against Yearwood around Nashville after she left Doyle/Lewis.

“The word was she’s shooting herself in the foot,” he said in a separate interview. “One agent said to me she’s committed career-icide by leaving what was the hottest management team in the business. They assumed that she either wasn’t very smart or that she must be awfully taken with herself.”

A few weeks later she signed with Kragen, who also now manages fast-rising country-rocker Travis Tritt (see profile, Page 65).

“There is no campaign to swing her into pop,” Kragen says about his plans for Yearwood.

“Truthfully, I don’t think there is any need to rush after a pop audience,” he says. “I think the pop situation will happen naturally, if it happens at all. Garth has shown you can sell millions of records without the pop-radio exposure.”

Despite Kragen’s assurances, Nashville insiders were anxiously awaiting Yearwood’s second album to see if she and producer Garth Fundis were suddenly loading it down with pop trimmings. News that Yearwood will be part of a $7-million-to-$10-million Revlon perfume campaign next year (she’ll sing an original song) may have reinforced the fears of too much pop ambition.

But “Hearts in Armor” ended the suspense--at least for now. Not only had Yearwood stayed true to country, but she made an album that was far more engrossing than the debut--a work that by most measures stands as the best country album of the new Garth era.

The tracks range from “Woman Walk the Line,” a honky-tonk lament that could replace Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man” as the quintessential country female barroom song, to “Walkaway Joe,” a melancholy tale of youthful desire that features Henley’s backing vocal.

Entertainment Weekly gave the collection a rare A-plus, declaring that the album establishes Yearwood “as one of the finest interpretive singers ever to grace (country music).”

Lon Helton, the Nashville bureau chief of the trade publication Radio & Records, echoes the excitement surrounding Yearwood.

“She has a chance to be one of the great stars of the ‘90s in country,” he says. “Everybody looked at Wynonna’s album this year as a great album--and it is, but pound for pound, Trisha is also just as good.”

Despite all the enthusiasm, “Hearts in Armor” has started slowly. After seven weeks, it is only No. 61 on the national pop charts and, even more surprising, only No. 21 on the country charts.

But no one in Yearwood’s camp seems nervous. MCA is releasing “Walkaway Joe” as a single, and it is expected to generate a lot of radio exposure.

On the Arsenio Hall show, Yearwood again refused to play it safe.

Rather than doing one of the album’s catchy, upbeat tunes with her band, she tested herself on national television by singing the stark “Down on My Knees” with just a baby grand piano for accompaniment. Nervous at the start, she eventually displayed the vocal intensity that makes her such a promising artist.

Yearwood also seemed uneasy at first during the interview segment of the program, but she refused to adopt a persona. She came across as natural as when sitting in the Sherman Oaks coffee shop or patting the Orange County youngster on the head.

“Oh, I have bad days,” she says, away from the Hall set. “There are days when your life is not your own, days when you feel bombarded. You start moaning to yourself, ‘I don’t even have a life.’ But then you realize all the good things that are happening and how you are living out your greatest dream and how fast it all happened. It seems just yesterday I was back at MTM answering the phones and ordering Liquid Paper.”

THE NEW BREED: Profiles of Vince Gill, Mary-Chapin Carpenter and Travis Tritt. Page 65.