Blue? Not This Girl

It’s one of those Southern California days after a heavy rain, when the sky is so blue and the air so fresh at the beach that it is almost too beautiful to be true--and teenage country music star LeAnn Rimes is caught up in it.

“I think I could learn to love this,” she says cheerfully, standing on a narrow Venice side street while crew members check the lighting for the shooting of her new video. “I never really understood what people liked about Los Angeles, but this is awesome. It’s cool.”

The terms “awesome” and “cool” may tip off Rimes’ teen status, but there is little else about her to remind you that she doesn’t yet qualify for a driver’s license.

Certainly not her success; the 15-year-old Mississippi native with the big, booming voice has enjoyed the most spectacular rise of any teen country or pop artist in history.

With her fourth album, appropriately titled “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” due in stores May 5, Rimes has already sold an estimated $150 million worth of albums worldwide--far outstripping any two-year performance by such youthful sensations as the Jackson 5 in the ‘60s or New Kids on the Block in the ‘80s.

Since arriving on the pop scene in 1996 with “Blue,” a single on which she sings with a power and character reminiscent of the late Patsy Cline, Rimes has performed more than 200 concerts, seeing her grosses escalate to an average of $200,000 a night.

While her old classmates back in Dallas were still working their way through freshman English, she won Grammys in 1996 for best new artist and best female country vocal, co-wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, “Holiday in Your Heart,” and starred in a version of the book that ran as an ABC-TV “Movie of the Week.”

And her co-manager, Lyle Walker, says Rimes is just warming up. Besides scheduling some 100 more concert dates this year, she has recorded a song, “Looking Through Your Eyes,” for the Warner Bros. animated movie “Quest for Camelot.” There’s also talk about her acting in a movie next year, and possibly a Broadway play beyond that.

Somewhere in between, Rimes hopes to write a full autobiography. “Some other books have come out about her and they’re not always factual,” Walker says, referring to some quickie paperbacks. “So she’d like to tell her story the right way.”

Understandably, all this activity invites concern about too fast a pace.

Stardom is difficult at any age, but especially for someone 15. Nashville remembers all too well Tanya Tucker, the last teen queen of country, whose fast-lane excesses were documented in a 1997 autobiography titled “Nickel Dreams.”

Maintaining emotional balance is even harder now because the career opportunities, including books and movies, have increased greatly for country artists over the last two decades as the music has gained in mainstream popularity.

While none of Tucker’s first three albums reached the Top 40 on the pop chart, each of Rimes’ has gone high into the pop Top 10, and her “How Do I Live” single has been on the pop charts for nearly a year.

“We worry and we try to be very protective,” says Walker, a former tax lawyer who peppers his conversation with football terms. “If we see things moving too fast, we’ll call time out and shut down things for a while so she can smell the roses.

“To me, the touchdown in all this won’t just be seeing how much success she can have, but having her able to look back in 25 or 30 years and think of it as a happy time and to know that she made the right decisions.”

Jimmy Bowen, one of Nashville’s most powerful executives for years, thinks those around Rimes may be deceiving themselves. He feels that being thrust into show business at an early age is so dangerous that he refused to sign Rimes four years ago, despite marveling at her voice during an audition.

“I just wouldn’t sign a child,” says Bowen, who is now retired and living in Hawaii. “I would be too concerned with what this business would do to her personal life. It looks like [Rimes’ advisors] are doing an incredible job with LeAnn, but we don’t know now what price is being paid for all she’s going through, . . . and I guarantee you she’ll pay one.”

For Rimes, all the talk about her age is frustrating.

“One of the hardest things for me is having people look at you and say, ‘Oh, she’s such a cute little kid,’ ” Rimes says on the set of the video. “I understand why people say that. . . . You only expect so much from someone 15, much less 13 when ‘Blue’ came out. But I don’t call myself a teenager. I call myself a businesswoman.

“There are so many things that come up that I’d love to do, but I know I have to turn most of them down because there is only so much time and I have to have at least an hour of peace. . . . And some days I only get that when I go to sleep.”

When the director of a country music video tells you during a break that the star is off somewhere playing, you usually expect to find the singer strumming a guitar in a quiet spot.

chris rogers, who has directed all of Rimes’ videos, has a different meaning of “playing” in mind when he refers to Rimes during a lull in the shooting of the video for her new single, “Commitment.”

On this morning, she’s acting like any other playful 15-year-old--riding a friend piggyback along a Venice sidewalk.

When Rimes closes her eyes, however, and starts singing one of her hit ballads, such as Bill Mack’s “Blue” or Diane Warren’s “How Do I Live,” she goes through a remarkable transformation.

Rimes may look like a teen as she sits in a director’s chair on the set, but when the music begins playing, she sounds like someone much older. It’s no surprise, then, that her audience doesn’t consist chiefly of teens. In fact, her concerts are filled primarily with adults.

“In a lot of ways, she’s still a 15-year-old girl. . . . Her favorite hobby is shopping and she still has mad crushes on boys,” says Rod Essig, her agent at the Creative Artists Agency. “On another level, she’s 15 going on 23 or even 30. The voice is a gift, but she also has an instinct for what to do and where she wants to be with her career.”

Others who work closely with Rimes and those in the industry who have watched her from a distance agree that she is an ambitious and driven performer, one who is deeply involved in all career decisions. Her success isn’t, they suggest, the story of some secret mastermind, like Elvis’ Col. Tom Parker, pulling all the career strings. “LeAnn is pushing us all,” says Essig. “She’s tremendously goal-oriented.”

Her parents, Wilbur and Belinda, were divorced last year, but they still oversee LeAnn Rimes Entertainment, Inc., a company that has fewer than a dozen employees, including Rimes’ seven band members and fan club personnel.

Though Walker won’t reveal how much money Rimes is worth, she’s probably nearing contention for Forbes magazine’s annual list of the 40 wealthiest entertainers. While she sold more albums in 1997 than Brooks, who came in at No. 21 on the Forbes list with an estimated $26 million in earnings, her royalty rate isn’t believed to be as high and she didn’t generate anywhere near as much money touring.

Rimes’ father is her co-manager, and he shows no signs of discomfort when he’s asked if he worries that he and his ex-wife were stage parents who forced a career upon their daughter.

“Well,” he says in separate interview. “When she was a little girl, 6 and 7, I pushed her along a little bit. But there was a point . . . around 8 years old . . . when it really became her dream. All we had to do was just help her get there.”

Rimes, who studies with a tutor under a home study program set up through Texas Tech University, is quick to answer the same question.

“People think that my parents have pushed and pushed, but they have never pushed me whatsoever,” she says. “Lyle is out here with me now. My dad is on the road when we do shows. My mom comes out every once in a while, but mostly she stays home and takes care of that.

“If they were really pushy parents, they would be here every five minutes telling me what to do. They’d have a leash on me. Instead, they are very understanding, very much supportive. . . . When it comes to pushing, I’m pushing myself.”

And sure as the men in country music are going to wear hats and jeans, the female stars are going to have movies made about them--from “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (with Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn) to “Sweet Dreams” (Jessica Lange as Patsy Cline). You can bet there’ll someday be one about LeAnn Rimes.

This film will begin in the small, central Mississippi town of Flowood, probably the day in the late ‘80s when 5-year-old LeAnn talked her parents into entering her in a local talent show.

Wilbur, who sold seismic equipment to oil companies, lost all hope of her winning when he learned that she’d be competing with 6- to 10-year-olds. Rather than wait for the contest results, he skipped out to go raccoon hunting soon after LeAnn sang “Getting to Know You.”

But LeAnn, who had grown up listening to Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand as well as country records, won the contest--and her dad recalls telling the excited youngster that night, “If this is what you want to do, I’ll never miss another contest. We’ll go for it.”

Within months, largely in search of better opportunities for their daughter, Rimes transferred to a job with his company in Dallas.

The family had such high hopes for LeAnn that they took her to New York when she was 6 to compete against girls twice her age for the lead role in the Broadway sequel to “Annie.” Though she made it to the finals, she was judged to be too young, she says.

One of those who was impressed by the young singer was Lyle Walker, who was looking for talent for the recording facility he co-owned--the old Norman Petty studio in Clovis, N.M., where Buddy Holly recorded all his hits.

He talked Rimes and her father into coming to Clovis to record an album, which they eventually sold at shows and at stores in the Dallas area. Titled “All That,” the 1994 collection sold an estimated 15,000 copies, and word filtered back to Nashville.

Soon, Rimes was auditioning in Nashville for country music titan Bowen.

In a phone conversation, Bowen recalls that he saw enormous potential in Rimes, but he told the preteen to go home and come back to see him when she was 18.

“I was concerned with her personal life,” Bowen says. “If you don’t let a kid grow up, there’s a huge hole in your life. I worked with Sammy Davis Jr. and Tanya Tucker and I saw what early stardom did to them. . . . [I told her] she’d have plenty of time once she’s 18 to have a whole career.”

When Bowen passed on Rimes, there were others who quickly got in line to sign her, including Mike Curb, chairman of Curb Records.

“I thought I had the wrong tape in the machine,” Curb says of the first time he heard Rimes’ voice. “I was stunned. It was like the first time I heard Wynonna. I took it out and checked the name again. . . . This just didn’t sound like a little girl’s voice.”

Curb, a former lieutenant governor of California and now a power in the country music world, has worked with lots of teen acts, including the Osmonds and Shaun Cassidy, in a career as a record executive that stretches back to MGM Records in the ‘60s. He sensed something in this girl’s voice that made him race to sign her. He soon headed to Dallas with label executive vice president Dennis Hannon to hear her sing live.

“I think the first thing we heard was ‘Amazing Grace’ and it was truly amazing,” Hannon recalls. “I think she had just turned 12 and her voice was even better than it was on the tape because I think the tape was about a year old.

“But the thing that really impressed us was her presence, . . . on stage and in meeting her after the show. She had incredible poise. It wasn’t like this nervous little kid being auditioned by the head of a record label. She never looked down at her feet or shied away in this crowd of adults. She just talked to us like she was one of us, . . . and it’s been that way ever since.”

“Blue,” which songwriter Bill Mack sent to Rimes after hearing her sing the national anthem at a Dallas Cowboys game, was released in June of 1996 and spent 20 weeks at No. 1 on the country chart. Rimes’ debut album, also titled “Blue,” entered the country chart at No. 1.

When articles began appearing on Rimes, fans were shocked to learn that “Blue” had been recorded by a 13-year-old. Some even expressed disbelief. Adding to the skepticism was Rimes’ physical maturity--she’s a big-boned girl who could easily pass for her early 20s.

In one scene certain to be in the eventual Rimes movie, she and her parents went on “Entertainment Tonight” to prove that she was not lying about her age. With the cameras rolling, young LeAnn showed her birth certificate.

Rimes believes in hard work. To capitalize on “Blue,” she began a marathon touring schedule, usually spending her off hours in each town visiting radio stations or doing interviews. Curb Records worked just as hard at keeping the momentum rolling. The demand was so great, in fact, that Curb released another album in early 1997. Titled “Unchained Melody/The Early Years,” it consists chiefly of the older “All That” material. It, too, became a smash.

For much of 1997, Rimes had two albums in both the country and pop Top 10. When Rimes herself began pushing for the release of an album of inspirational music--one of her career goals--even some of the Curb staff began worrying about overexposure. “As a marketing guy, I started to get very concerned,” Hannon says.

But the more Curb Records and Rimes’ managers examined the numbers--the concert sell-outs, the strong album sales, the requests for interviews--the more they came to the conclusion that Rimes hadn’t reached a danger point in terms of exposure.

So Curb released “You Light Up My Life--Inspirational Songs” last fall, and it too entered the pop and country Top 10, helping make Rimes the biggest-selling recording artist in the U.S. last year.

Not everything has resulted in blockbuster numbers for Rimes, however. The book--a story about a young singer getting a chance to perform on the Grand Ole Opry, but saddened by the fact that her ailing grandmother can’t see her moment of triumph--didn’t make the bestseller list. And the TV version of the book finished third in its time slot last December.

Rimes also saw her version of “How Do I Live” get rejected for the film “Con Air”--because, Rimes says, she refused to change the arrangement and drop her father as producer. A rival Trisha Yearwood interpretation was used in the movie, and Yearwood subsequently picked up a Grammy for best female country vocal.

The standard practice in interviews is to talk to the subject alone. But it wouldn’t seem out of line for a manager or publicist to sit in with a 15-year-old while she is being questioned.

Rimes, however, walks alone to a quiet area of the video staging area when she has time to talk. She’s not one of those performers who loves to talk about herself, usually just saying enough to answer the question.

But there is a maturity and confidence that makes you understand why her advisors think she can handle herself. In fact, it’s hard to listen to her talk about her career and her life without asking yourself a couple of times, “This is a 15-year-old?”

One of the favorite twists to virtually every article about Rimes after the success of “Blue” was how the little girl who sang the heartbreak tale had never even been out on a date.

Well, Rimes says, she has now dated and, like any teenager, she enjoys flirting. But she is worried about relationships--not just the familiar issue of a star worrying whether someone is just attracted by her fame and wealth. She’s thinking ahead--to what a relationship might do to her image.

“It’s a hard situation for me to date because I could never date someone my own age,” she says. “If a 15-year-old guy came up to me and said, ‘Hi, I want to go out with you,’ I wouldn’t know what to say. I have nothing in common with those guys.

“The people I do go out with are 19 and up because they are the ones I can relate to . . . and I think that’s going to cause problems because I’m in the public eye and people are going to see that as odd. They’ll go, ‘What’s that little girl doing going out with that man?’ ”

Chrissy Bullard, 19, who has known Rimes since childhood, works for Rimes as a personal assistant, but watching them pal around on the set makes you feel her real job is simply being Rimes’ friend.

Traveling with Rimes, Bullard sees the demands on her.

“There’s a lot of pressure, but we try to find ways to have fun,” Bullard says. “We’re starting golfing. We’re also into bowling, roller skating, little things that we can do on the road. Plus, we shop every single day. LeAnn loves to look for clothes or go to a CD store because there’s always another CD she needs.”

When the issue of the price of teenage success is mentioned, she nods.

“LeAnn is aware of the dangers, . . . “ Bullard begins. “Like what happened to Tanya Tucker, . . . the drinking and stuff. But I don’t think LeAnn will ever do that because she has seen what has happened to other people and stars, not just teenagers.

“She knows one day she’ll be offered drugs and whatever, but she’s very strong on that point. I think she wants to show that she’ll be like one of the only ones who’ll be big and not be drinking and doing drugs.”

From the scores of interviews she’s done, Rimes is ready with her list of favorite singers (Cline, Wynonna, Streisand, Garland and Reba McEntire), her favorite rock acts (Prince, Aerosmith) and her favorite TV shows (“Party of Five,” “Friends”).

Despite her parents’ divorce, she says, she remains close to both. She lives with her mom--they’ve just built a new house in Nashville--and she is usually joined on the road by her dad.

“It was very traumatic,” Rimes says of her parents’ split. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through. But things have gotten better. . . . I am very close to both of my parents. It’s not one of those cases where families totally split up and never speak to each other again.”

It’s now time for a quick bite of lunch, then she’s due back on the set. Rimes seems to thrive on the pace. She is doing a guest acting spot on “Days of Our Lives” Wednesday through Friday because she thinks it’s fun, not because of publicity value.

Sometimes, she admits, even she is overwhelmed by everything going on around her.

“People are pulling at you every minute. . . . Interviews, TV shows,” she says. “When you have an album coming out, you have to figure out what you want the cover to look like.

“I know some artists aren’t like this, but I want to be involved in everything I do. . . . All the money part, the business part. I’ve got albums, movies, TV stuff that people want me to do. There is so much that sometimes I go, ‘Oh, my God.’ . . . I’m going on vacation Wednesday for the first time in two and a half years.”

Rimes pauses, perhaps concerned that it sounds as if she’s complaining.

“I don’t think of my life as just this series of problems,” she says. “I know I’m lucky. . . . I get to do exactly what I want to do in life. . . . How bad is that?”