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Photo by Bob Pennell Beth Singer, 16, just returned to Wolf Creek from Nashville, where she recorded an album of country songs. Singer comes home to sell CD Wolf Creek teen makes recording in Nashville By BILL VARBLE WOLF CREEK -- Many are called to the Nashville hit machine, but few are chosen. If Beth Singer understands this, she seems undaunted. The 16-year-old singer just came home to Wolf Creek after cutting a CD in the country music mecca. Now comes the hard part: trying to interest a record company in the product. "I've got the support system I need right here," she says. That would be her mom and dad, Ernie and Susan Singer. The Singers spent a week in Nashville just before Christmas in order for Beth to make her CD. They paid $12,000 for a package deal that included her studio time, session musicians, original songs, the technical stuff. The week began with a photo shoot, then moved to the recording studio. "I was nervous," Beth Singer says. It's heady stuff to sing with people like drummer Mike Kennedy of George Strait's band, and bassist Kevin Grant, who has played on Garth Brooks' tracks. "There are so many musicians there," Beth Singer says. The CD is to be delivered in January. "The goal now is a recording deal with a label," Ernie Singer says. Nashville doors aren't known for opening easily, and Singer says the family has no illusions. "Most of them, you can't get past the answering machine," he says. But Ernie Singer, 56, who used to run the Coast to Coast store in Oakridge until it burned down this year, isn't a salesman for nothing. Calling cold, he managed to reach Pat Quigley, the president/CEO of Capitol Nashville, he says. Quigley said he'd give the CD a listen. Singer also talked with execs at Sony, Arista and some minor labels. Back home, two of the family's cats, Mama Kitty and Dante, stretch luxuriously in the sun falling through the south window of Beth Singer's bedroom as she plays a Yamaha keyboard and her voice fills the house. The aptly named Singer started singing in church at age 5. As a tyke she wanted to be a gymnast, but eight surgeries for a serious kidney problem put an end to that. "Singing was something she could do," Susan Singer says. Blessed with a natural voice -- it's sweet and smooth and without the twang of a LeAnn Rimes -- she made friends wherever she sang. She won the Oakridge Talent Show three years in a row. By the time she was 14 and 15, she seemed to be singing somewhere all the time -- churches, rodeos, county fairs, conventions, sporting events, festivals around the state. Her parents even built a sound studio in the hardware store, complete with a 16-track recording machine. Songwriter David MacKechnie, who has written for Kenny Rogers and other stars and now lives in Josephine County, heard Singer at the Josephine County Fair. He gave her some songs and introduced her to Jim Moore at his PSR Studio in Cave Junction. After hearing her, Grants Pass recording artist Michael Vallee introduced the family to producer Gary Sadker in Nashville. The first day in the studio Singer did scratch vocals -- tracks that weren't kept for the album. The band members put down the instrumentals in one day. Background vocals and finishing touches such as violin would be added later. Nashville types told the Singers it's up to Beth to perform regionally, sell albums, get airplay, gain a following. Home-schooled, she's able to concentrate on her singing. And the Singers work out of their home at an electronics business that involves national marketing. Next month she goes to music showcases in Eugene and Los Angeles. Performers who do well can get booked for a number of fairs in one stop. Singer says she likes performing, especially before crowds. "The bigger the better." "We're trying to keep her out of bars," her dad says. She knows she's probably too easily hurt by criticism. "I have to develop a tougher skin," she says. Everybody knows the odds are long on being the next Trisha Yearwood. "We'll see which door opens," Ernie Singer says. "So many people are trying to make it, like me," Beth says. "But I'm willing to work for it." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA