Country Music Blog: LeAnn Rimes

I got a puppy about a month ago. So naturally, I became instantly obsessed with dogs as if I was the first person to actually own one. I have all the books, I watch Animal Planet non-stop and spend about $150 a week at PetSmart on toys this little guy has no interest in. I've done everything short of getting a my-dog-is-smarter-than-your-dog bumper sticker. But what I keep wondering is, why there are no good country songs about dogs?

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In the hours after Eddy Arnold's death early Thursday morning, country music stars and everyday working class people from Nashville have been sharing their stories of the Country Music Hall of Fame member. And if there's one underlying theme, it's the kindness and decency he showed to everyone he had contact with long after he had anything to prove or anyone to impress.

He was a superstar long before anyone ever coined the expression, but he didn't act like a superstar and you certainly wouldn't pick him out of a crowd as being a multi-millionaire. Up until a few months ago, he could be seen most weekdays having lunch at a modest meat-and-three restaurant south of downtown Nashville. Read more...

Last week's Billboard magazine had a story about concert security. Yes, those pesky windbreaker-wearing guys who stand between you and say, Brad Paisley. And while they do get in the way of potential autographs and hand shakes, they really are there to make concerts safer. Yet this article paints a picture of budget tightening and staff cutting. That scares me.

Have you been to a country concert, or worse, an all-day festival lately? The crowds come rowdy and ready to party. By the time the headliner takes the stage, there is a lot of pent up energy, often fueled by long neck beers and $15 margaritas. And that buzz apparently gives those fans permission to stand up on flimsy folding chairs, dance with the unwilling, and shout along to the lyrics at the top of their lungs.

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I've seen my fair share of dancing on award shows. I use the word "dancing" loosely because most of the time it seems quite awkward and bizarre. Beyonce, for instance. I've tried to understand her strange convulsion-like hip movements and arm spasms. Maybe I'm missing something in the dance world, but it usually looks forced and unnatural. Most of the time I watch artists dance because of the entertainment value, not because of their actual talent. But during the CMT Music Awards, I watched one artist in awe: LeAnn Rimes completely blew me away. Not only did she flawlessly sing "Nothin' Better to Do," which she co-wrote, but she moved like a professional throughout the entire song, not missing a single beat. Check out the performance.

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Hey everyone,

Monday night was AMAZING. I am still smiling. My sister and I sat next to my tourmates Jewel and Chuck Wicks, and behind us was James Otto, who tapped me on the shoulder and gave me the "biggest fan" award. I've grown up idolizing these artists, and I actually got to meet most of them, one in particular, Faith Hill, who has inspired me so much. It was an honor meeting her.

It was so much fun being up on that stage. I got to introduce my tourmate, Brad Paisley, with Sara Evans and Josh Turner, who kept making me laugh during rehearsals that day. Not to mention I was pretty nervous. You would think after performing on TV with 30 million people watching each week the nerves would leave. Well, well think again! :)

The performances blew me away, they were all so amazing. I really enjoyed LeAnn Rimes, Sugarland and Keith Urban. I can only hope to perform up there one day. What an unforgettable night!

Photo: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

Here's my weirdest moment from the 2008 CMT Music Awards last night. I was sitting among all the reporters in the press room, when Jewel and Tom Arnold came back for photos. Somebody asked them about the election, and since I don't care who celebrities endorse for president, my eyes wandered off to the television, and Paula Abdul's on there, rattling on about something. All this is going on at Belmont University? This sort of thing never happened when I was an undergrad there in the 1990s. My big dream back then was to be a reporter on the country music beat, and now I am doing just that - with Jewel, Tom Arnold and Paula Abdul.

Anyway, the reporters are always grateful to anyone who comes back to visit with us. (Thanks, Taylor Swift! TTYL!) In case you missed the show, here are the big winners.

"Our Song," Taylor Swift 
(Video of the Year, Female Video of the Year)

"Stay," Sugarland 
(Duo Video of the Year)

"I Got My Game On," Trace Adkins 
(Male Video of the Year, Supporting Character of the Year, Director of the Year)

"Gone Gone Gone," Robert Plant and Alison Krauss 
(Wide Open Country Video of the Year)

"Til We Ain't Strangers Anymore," Bon Jovi and LeAnn Rimes 
(Collaborative Video of the Year)

"I Wonder," Kellie Pickler 
(Performance of the Year, Tearjerker Video of the Year, USA Weekend Breakthrough Video of the Year)

"Online," Brad Paisley 
(Comedy Video of the Year)

"Take Me There," Rascal Flatts 
(Group Video of the Year)

I've been reading Three Dog Nightmare: The Continuing Chuck Negron Story, a book about the tragic fall and personal resurrection of one of the lead voices from the pop band Three Dog Night. In it, Negron makes a claim that the band was one of the first to pack stadiums with a rock show.

The Beatles had done it before, at New York's Shea Stadium, and there were other bands that played stadiums, though many of them fell far short of filling them out. But I'll bet no one in the Fab Four's mid-‘60s era -- or in Three Dog Night's early-‘70s prime -- ever thought country music would be capable of that.

So this week's anniversary of the first George Strait stadium tour is one worth celebrating. Strait brought in 56,000 fans on March 14, 1998, to Sun Devil Stadium in Arizona for a lineup that featured Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, John Michael Montgomery, Lee Ann Womack and others. And Strait continued doing stadium tours with massive talent rosters for several more years before pulling back to his traditional in-the-round arena format.

What's now amazing is that while the stadium date is still a country rarity, it happens much more frequently than anyone could have predicted in the past. Kenny Chesney is playing 14 of those dates this summer, supported by a rotating list of acts that includes Keith Urban, LeAnn Rimes, Big & Rich, Gary Allan and Luke Bryan, among others. Toby Keith has offered a handful of stadium shows as well.

Strait could likely pick up and fill out stadiums again, if he chose, and you can imagine Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Brooks & Dunn and Shania Twain (remember her?) doing the same thing. In fact, when the Gridiron Bash -- a strange, college-football-related fan competition -- lined up stadiums across the U.S. for April, a surprising number of country lineups were employed: Alan Jackson in Alabama, Dwight Yoakam in West Virginia, Dierks Bentley and Wynonna in Kentucky, Montgomery Gentry and Taylor Swift in Tennessee.

At last week's Country Radio Seminar, one booking agent noted that outside of such longstanding classic-rock icons as the Rolling Stones and U2, there's no stronger genre for live shows these days than country music.

Considering that a lot of country artists were happy to play high-school gymnasiums and small county fairs at the time Three Dog Night was playing those stadium dates, it's tough to find stronger support for the upward transformation that's taken place in country music.

Sure, some people will look at just-announced nominations for the 2008 CMT Music Awards and insist that the future of country music -- and maybe Western civilization -- is coming to an end because the list includes Robert Plant, Bon Jovi, Huey Lewis and The Eagles.

Those first three may be relative newcomers to the wide world of country music, but the Eagles have exhibited a strong country influence throughout their career. Think back to their first charted single -- 1972's "Take It Easy." It never made it to the country chart, but it sure contained more banjo that most of the No. 1 country singles that year, including Jerry Lee Lewis' "Chantilly Lace," Ray Price's "She's Got to Be a Saint" and Donna Fargo's "Funny Face" and "The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A."

The Eagles made the CMT nominations list for "How Long," a song that reached No. 23 on Billboard's country singles chart. Another nominee -- Bon Jovi's "(You Want To) Make a Memory" -- didn't do quite as well at radio, but it also received substantial airplay. Bon Jovi also picked up another nomination for "Till We Ain't Strangers Anymore," a song and video with LeAnn Rimes.

And then there's Huey Lewis, who's nominated simply because Garth Brooks recorded one of his songs, "Workin' for a Livin'," and later invited him to appear in the video. And what about Robert Plant? The Led Zeppelin vocalist is nominated for his video with Alison Krauss, "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)."

Substantial promotional effort was involved in marketing the Eagles and Bon Jovi to the country audience, but that's simply part of the music industry machinery. I can't imagine that either group sat down and said, "Let's see what we can do to pander to the country audience." I'm not a huge fan of either band, but both acts have too much artistic integrity -- and money -- to resort to that. While it's impossible to predict what Robert Plant will do in the future, he still seems to be guided by a true artistic muse. He may do another acoustic-oriented album, such as the one he recorded with Krauss, or maybe he'll do something else. Rest assured, he's not trying to take over country music.

I might suggest that these occasional rock elements help widen the scope of country music without posing any serious danger to the genre's future. The real danger, I think, has more to do with record labels signing too many generic-sounding mainstream artists who are devoid of any genuine artistic vision. That's a trend that should scare the hell out of any true country fan.

Does Kenny Chesney plus Keith Urban equal a good time? Or, put another way, is bigger better? I'm going to go with no.

Now that tickets for their stadium shows are going on sale, I can't help but long for the days when the big guys toured separately. I know, I know. It'll be a day packed with the best country music. It'll have a very Jimmy Buffett-like vibe. People will have the time of their lives -- in theory, anyway.

But what about the girl who could only afford a seat in section 427 at Chicago's Soldier Field? Will she have the time of her life? Or will she be bummed that she spent about $70 to see Chesney or Urban live and now they're about 400 feet away? For that Chicago show, there will be about 50,000 seats. Five levels of seating. Some great, some mediocre and some just plain awful. It's definitely not a there's-no-such-thing-as-a-bad-seat venue.

Add the competitive nature of ticket gathering, and it gets even worse. Ticketmaster will basically be pitting thousands of diehard Chesney fans against thousands of diehard Urban fans. That's a lot of passionate fans. Not to mention all the Gary Allan, LeAnn Rimes and Luke Bryan lovers who will be vying for seats in this rivalry as well. It will only add fuel to the ticket broker fire, but that's another blog altogether.

I've blogged before about having a bad case of Frontrowitis, so maybe those of us with an aversion to rows 2-198 will be the only ones who think this double bill is a bad idea. The other 49,000 people there will love every minute, because from the artist's perspective, bigger may very well be better. If I put myself in their cowboy boots, maybe Chesney and Urban thrive on these over-the-top crowds. Maybe there's some kind of magic that happens when they look out and see how many people came to watch them. That ego boost might make them play harder, sing better and make the set list longer, making that girl in section 427 think it was worth every penny.

Trisha Yearwood’s “How Do I Live” played on the radio in Nashville over the holidays, spurring recollections of the grand duel that ensued over the song. As it turns out, this week -- Jan. 6 to be precise -- marks one decade since it set a precedent in the Grammy Awards. When the nominations were announced, Yearwood’s version of “How Do I Live” rivaled LeAnn Rimes’ version for Best Country Performance by a Female, marking the first time two singers squared off in the same category with the same song.

Songwriter Diane Warren originally helped Rimes learn “How Do I Live” for the Con Air soundtrack. However, producers nixed that version and turned instead to Yearwood, whose experience allowed her to interpret some of the lines with more depth than Rimes, who before the release of the movie, was just 14. The two versions got sent to country radio on the same day and programmers chose Yearwood over Rimes. Frustrated by that turn of events, Rimes’ label, Curb Records, released her rendition to pop radio and it eventually set longevity records on the adult-contemporary charts.

Yearwood won the Grammy but Rimes went on to become a contemporary adult. Tanya Tucker, who had her own history as a successful teen, predicted Rimes would end up in a rebellious phase that could be tragic. Indeed, LeAnn publicly battled her father and Curb; weeks after the Grammy nomination, a Florida reporter who overheard her conversation at a restaurant referred to her as a “spoiled brat.” Still, she never became Lindsey Lohan or Britney Spears. Asked at an awards show in Las Vegas how much she had gambled since reaching legal age, she indicated that her money could be better spent. She’s been married for nearly six years, taken up songwriting, and instead of making gossip-column headlines, is now investigating older forms of music. Her Janis Joplin imitations were spotty at first and her phrasing in “How Do I Live” (when she sings it live, she’s been known to sing “Ow do high”) has been occasionally weird. But “Nothin’ Better to Do” and “Probably Wouldn’t Be This Way” demonstrate that she has grown into the same strata of interpretive maturity that Yearwood exemplified 10 years ago.

The concept of New Year’s celebrations is grounded in change, and Rimes’ gradual transition from a raw talent to a skilled pro is the kind of change that deserves emulation.