As a Teen, Andrews Is Deciding Who She Is

About the only way you’d know for sure that Jessica Andrews is still a teenager is her favoring the word “awesome.” The newly minted 17-year-old uses it to describe her feelings about “Who I Am” topping Billboard’s country music singles chart (which it did for four weeks) and her similarly titled album rising as far as No. 2 and rapidly approaching platinum status.

“I wanted this record to be first and foremost great,” Andrews says. “I wanted the songs to be awesome. I wanted to deliver them the best way I could, and I wanted the presentation to be great--I wanted it to be an awesome record.”

By the way, Andrews doesn’t hail from Awesome’s Creek but from Huntingdon, Tenn., and you can sense an enriching familial environment in her hit song.

“I am Rosemary’s granddaughter / the spitting image of my father,” Andrews sings. “And when the day is done / my mama’s still my biggest fan / Sometimes I’m clueless and I’m clumsy / but I’ve got friends who love me / and they know just where I stand / it’s all a part of me, and that’s who I am.”

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Actually, Andrews’ grandmother is named Patsy Jean, but everything else in the song is pretty much accurate, as though Andrews herself had written it. The album is most representative of this latest stage of her life.

“One thing that I do want to let people know on this record is that I’ve grown up a little bit,” says Andrews, whose age is belied by an unusually mature voice. “I wanted it to be just a little more mature. Everything is, I think, the next step up from the first album.”

Andrews debuted at 15 with “Heart Shaped World” (1999), which established her as a promising member of a new wave of youthful acts that included LeAnn Rimes, Lila McCann, Billy Gilman and Alecia Elliott. Last year, Andrews was voted top new female vocalist by the Academy of Country Music.

Signed to the DreamWorks label at 12, Andrews received her initial exposure on a soundtrack, “The Prince of Egypt.” Her contribution to the country-focused collection “I Will Be There for You” was the only one by an unknown act and got Andrews’ foot in the door at country radio, followed by “Unbreakable Heart” and “You Go First,” a charmingly innocent love song.

Thankfully, Andrews has decided not to grow up too fast. You’d never guess from the album that she hasn’t really even dated yet, but she hasn’t slipstreamed into adulthood for mere commercial purposes.

“I think it’s pretty much obvious when you don’t need to do a song,” Andrews says. “If you’re talking about cheating and drinking and being at the bar and all that sort of stuff, I don’t sing about that. But as far as love goes, and all the themes of love, I really don’t think there’s anything I can’t sing about. I don’t think people say this is too old or this is too young. Hopefully, they just respect it as growth in my career.”

That career began with a fourth-grade talent show victory (Andrews sang “I Will Always Love You”) and a sixth-grade audition in Nashville for producer Byron Gallimore (an a cappella version of Shania Twain’s “If You’re Not in It for Love”).

Gallimore, who has worked with Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, pretty much signed Andrews on the spot. The family moved to Nashville and Andrews began home schooling; the bulk of her education would come on Music Row and on the road.

“Don’t get me wrong--I was very much a part of the social activity in my school and I loved it,” Andrews says. “But I hated going there every day knowing that what I really wanted to do was sing and make music and travel.”

Andrews’ chaperons include not only her mother but also superstars like Hill and Trisha Yearwood, on whose tours she served as an opening act.

“Because I’m a young female, first of all, I feel like I have lots of aunts and uncles and moms and dads and brothers and sisters,” Andrews says. “And that’s a great thing. Nobody ever tries to be overprotective. They let me live, they know I’m a teenager, and it’s a lot of fun. But they also look out for me--they don’t want me going down any wrong roads.”

“When I went out on my first tour with Faith just a couple of years ago,” Andrews says, “the one thing she told me was that there are so many things that happen in the beginning of your career, with people pulling at you in different ways all the time, the most important thing is to have fun and enjoy it and not forget it. Take pictures, keep a journal to remember all of these things, because it won’t be easy five or six years down the road.”

As for Yearwood, Andrews points out that “Trisha is a very smart businesswoman and she also suggested, ‘Don’t let anyone make decisions for you. Take input from people, but make sure you don’t get walked on in this business. Because you’re a young female, that can easily happen.’ ” Points all taken, apparently.

Andrews was much more involved in the shaping of the new album than on her debut. “I’m learning all the time and absorbing everything around me as far as producing and songwriting,” she says. The new album features Andrews’ first writer’s credit, on the love song “Good Friend to Me,” co-written with Bekka Bramlett and Annie Roboff (who wrote Hill’s hit “This Kiss”).

This summer, Andrews and 13-year-old Gilman will hit the road together.

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Youngsters aren’t new to Nashville--remember Brenda Lee and Tanya Tucker?--but they’ve never existed in the numbers we’re now seeing. Chalk it up to corollary movements in teen pop and R&B;: Nashville is turning to younger acts to attract new listeners to country radio, whose popularity has declined in recent years.

“It’s very exciting to be a part of something that’s so huge, to have a bunch of young people that are being successful,” Andrews says. “But it’s also scary for me because young people are very fickle. They can like something one day and a different thing tomorrow.

“I do music that I love and that fits me well, and if people from all different kinds of music want to buy it and want to play it, that’s a beautiful thing,” she says. “I just want everybody in the world to be able to enjoy it. My goal is to be the best I can be, to make the best music I can. I want to be around 10 to 15 years from now. I just hope the fans are there with me every step of the way.”