DAVE'S DIARY - 25 OCTOBER 2003
LEANN RIMES CHIMES
When Texan
temptress LeAnn Rimes first broke here at 13 with Blue she was aided by
a little Hollyweird hype.
Now, with the singer making her second Australian tour at the age of 21,
she has re-invented herself for both the international and local markets.
 |
And
it's déjà vu or blue with the huge success of Coyote
Ugly movie. |
When he met
Rimes, who was just 11, he reportedly decided she had the voice he'd been
waiting for since 1963.
The tale was a masterful snow job delivered to the record company by Mack.
It was a much better yarn than the harsh cold reality - the song had five
gallops before it was turned from blue to gold for Rimes.
THREE ROAD TESTS
Mack wrote
Blue in 1958 and released it in 1964 on Starday Records - the same label
that unleashed "Yodelling" Kenny Roberts version of the song
in 1966.
Fort Worth lounge singer Polly Stevens and Roy Drusky released Blue before
1994 when Mildura yodeller Kathryn Pitt released it as a single here in
the unlucky radio country.
Rimes, born in Jackson, Mississippi and raised in the Dallas suburb Garland,
achieved greater success on the pop charts than Cline.
Her mainstream debut album Blue sold more than 123,000 units in its first
week and has since sold four million.
It was the largest first week of sales for a new artist since Sound Scan
started tracking across-the-counter sales figures by computer in May of
1991.
Rimes' sales were 30,000 units beyond first-week figures for Billy Ray
Cyrus' Some Gave All, which came out just as Achy Breaky Heart was peaking
in popularity.
And, now eight years down the lost highway, she has total sales exceeding
15 million and a swag of movies.
MOVIES BREAK MOAT
Hollywood
hype is again helping sell Rimes overseas and here in the unlucky radio
country.
She was just 15 when she starred in the ABC-TV movie 'Holidays In Your
Heart' in 1997.
The same year she released her version of Dianne Warren song 'How Do I
Live' - performed by Trisha Yearwood in the Con Air movie.
"It was all sort of interesting. Things come back full circle. It's
business," Rimes said at the time.
Yearwood got the Grammy and Rimes got the sales.
Her version of How Do I Live sold 3 million copies and was on Billboard's
Hot 100 chart for 69 consecutive weeks.
Irrespective of that genuine international success the marketeers have
been forced to nail her to the crass crossover cross in the unlucky radio
country.
COYOTE UGLY
LeAnn, who turned 21 on August 29, scored her big crossover break with
'Coyote Ugly' in which she performed live.
Rimes recorded four Dianne Warren penned songs Can't Fight The Moonlight,
The Right Kind Of Wrong, But I Love You and Please Remember against doctor's
orders to rest her voice.
Her determination then caused her to cancel a tour to repair her vocal
cords.
Rimes had wanted to include Diane Warren's 'Please Remember' on her own
album but Warren told her that producer Jerry Bruckheimer was using it
for Coyote Ugly.
"So when I went over to Jerry and they didn't have anybody for the
soundtrack yet, I'm like, 'I really, really would like to do this song,'
and he said, 'OK,'" she said.
Leann reportedly split from actor fiance Andrew Keegan because he became
involved with Coyote Ugly star Piper Perabo - who borrowed Rimes voice
in the movie - on the set of 'Piece Of My Heart.'
LEGALLY BLONDE 2
Now it's
new Reese Witherspoon movie Legally Blonde 2 which is the launch pad for
new single We Can.
She also stars in baseball movie The Girl Who Struck Out Babe Ruth.
And she and husband Dean Sheremet are collaborating on a series of children's
books - the first is Jag.
ROUGH AND ROCKY TRAVELLING
It's not
surprising the early success of Rimes was rough and rocky travelling.
In 1999 her mother Brenda split with her dad Wilbur - also her manager
and record producer.
LeAnn sued her dad Wilbur and his business partner Lyle Walker for $14.3
million and they counter sued with some amazing claims.
Wilbur alleged LeAnn had an affair with fellow country singer Bryan White
when she was 15.
He also alleged she was 16 when she moved in with actor Andrew Keegan,
then 20, who was in TV series Party Of Five and the movie 10 Things I
Hate About You.
Wilbur claimed he sprung LeAnn in bed with Keegan on her tour bus outside
his home and that she wrecked a $350,000 Bentley and a $150,000 Ferrari.
But not all, of course, on the same stormy Dallas night.
LeAnn also sued her record label Curb after she claimed it released her
sub standard eighth album 'I Need You' in 2000.
"The album was made without my creative input," Rimes wrote
on her web site, "it consists largely of unfinished material and
songs that didn't make other albums."
But Rimes didn't object when her embryonic indie recorded songs dominated
her 1997 album 'Unchained Melody: The Early Years.'
Her Christian album 'You Light Up My Life: Inspirational Songs' came next
and was followed by Sittin' On Top Of The World in 1998 and LeAnn Rimes
in 1999.
FROM PUBESCENT PRINCESS TO
"My
baby gives me satisfaction/ a full time lover and full grown man,"
- 'My Baby' - Deborah Allen.
When LeAnn Rimes recorded adult songs such as My Baby, One Way Ticket,
Blue and Hurt Me on her fourth album Blue at just 13 she had not acted
the themes.
"If I did (live out the lyrics) I probably wouldn't be singing them,"
LeAnn, then 14, told me on the eve of her first Australian tour in 1997.
"I don't have to live anything to sing it. I know what the songs
are about and if I love the song when I go into the studio I'm going to
put all God into it to sing it. Just like an actor or an actress being
interpreter of a script I'm an interpreter of a song."
But, now five years later, LeAnn has done a lot of living and has built
on one co-write on Talk To Me on Blue to four originals on her 10th album
Twisted Angel - we count the early indie discs and her Greatest Hits.
Rimes is latest in a large group of American country stars to record Tina
Arena songs.
Fittingly the Arena song chosen was the divorce-fuelled anthem You Made
Me Find Myself.
"Songwriting is therapy for me," Rimes has revealed, "having
the life experiences I have behind me it's definitely easier for me to
write my own music."
Rimes wrote Life Goes On, Wound Up, No Way Out and the title track of
Twisted Angel with tunesmiths diverse as co-producers Desmond Child, Peter
Amato and Gregg Pagani and hit writer Gary Burr - one of many singers
for Pure Prairie League.
Life Goes On expresses Rimes desire to be free (from puppeteers and past
lovers) - "wish I knew then what I know now/ you held all the cards
and sold me out.'
And if that is not explicit enough she creates the character of "Little
Carrie Ann" who is suicidal in Wound Up.
"She gets wound up, she gets higher by the minute/ turns the sound
up to drown out all the pain."
The exorcism of sins and sinners is complete in No Way Out and You Made
Me Find Myself which read like back chapters in Rimes cluttered career
and personal life.
RIMES COMES ALIVE
But not the
sensual strut of Tic Toc, credited to Amato, Pagani and Christina Rumley.
Not sure if there is a video but here are some of the images - verse by
verse.
"Come inside my walls of ecstasy with me/ close the door and throw
away the key/ that's the way you can start by moving in nice and slow/
taking your time to move down low."
That's the entrée.
"Tic toc, you got the spot, here I come ready or not/ move with me,
you get me so hot that I can't stop."
Then a bridge, but not over troubled waters.
"You opened up my world to paradise so nice/ feels so good my body
liquefies."
And then there's the climax in the final verse.
"A little to the left, a little to the right/ a little bit longer,
all the way tonight/ I close my eyes, my body tenses/ boy your touch hits
all my senses."
And for those who would wish to deny Rimes, like Natalie Maines, her freedom
of speech and the language of love.
"I thing it's time for people to let me grow up," she says,
"it's not any racier than anything anyone else has put out. Actually
it's pretty tame. I have grown up. I'm a real woman. I'm married, I'm
embracing that."
And, of course, she is just interpreting the songs like she did on Blue.
TOUR DATES
Rimes and
Keith Urban appeared on the ARIA awards as an entrée to their Victorian
gig at Rod Laver Arena on Tuesday October 28.
CLICK HERE for Tonk Girl's Gig Guide
for full tour dates.