Document text
Email Story to a Friend June 9, 2006 Deana Carter opens the Britt Festivals' summer season Deana Carter The progressive country music recording artist shares her recipe for success When Deana Carter was a girl, her father, the studio guitarist Fred Carter Jr., worked with Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and other music royalty, but she says she never had a sense of entitlement. "It was like I was born half-way up the mountain," she says. "But I didn't know how to get to the top. My dad was there, but he had talent I knew I didn't have." Maybe so. But by the time she was 30 she would record "Did I Shave My Legs for This?" the multi-platinum monster that would sell 5 million copies, loose the break-out single "Strawberry Wine" on the world and put her at the hot center of the Nashville map. A decade later, living in Los Angeles, the proud mother of a 20-month-old son, she has downsized her career, at least for now, and sounds like a happy woman. Carter's season-opening performance at Britt on Friday, June 9, will be just her second or third show this year. Austin-based guitarist and vocalist Junior Brown will open the show. Advertisement "I've never done this before," she says in a phone interview. "We're used to taking off in the bus for a year at a time. But with my son," she laughs, "... I always made fun of people who talked about their kids' ages in months, and now I'm doin' it." Carter is bringing four backup musicians, a sound man and a tech guy — no big band, no steel guitar or fiddle. "It's still loud," she says. "We rock." "Shave My Legs" was the kind of phenomenon that happens to few artists, ever. "If we knew then what we know now," she says. "I would've stopped to smell the roses a little more. It was a blessing and a blur. You have to keep truckin'." The CD was the first country debut album to be nominated for five Country Music Association awards. And it almost didn't happen. Carter had to fight for her vision of it every step of the way. She wrote the songs and didn't want them to get the standard Nashville treatment. She co-produced the CD, but wasn't credited. "When it came out, it was as close as I was allowed to get," she says. "Progressive, but country-er than I wanted, just progressive enough for people to get a sense I wasn't another cookie-cutter artist." After the album there was a bandwagon effect. "The people who fought it were the very people who said, 'I made her do that,'" she says. "Nashville has a formula. They're afraid to step outside the box." She fought with labels and executives with little success, and subsequent albums didn't match the commercial or critical success of the first. Finally she signed with the somewhat independent Vanguard label, where she says she found creative freedom for 2005's "The Story of My Life." "No one at the label heard a note until the album was finished," she says. It's an odd twist she wound up fighting the music establishment, since she pretty much grew up in it. "When I was 5, we lived in guitar cases," she says. "Levon Helm, Rick Danko, that whole crew. We'd go up to Woodstock in an old Caddy limo, the hippiemobile, and go to Levon's house." As a teen she sang in the church choir and listened to rock. "I always get so much crap for saying this," she says. "I never listened to country growing up. I loved Bread, Queen, Elton John, Linda Ronstadt, Steely Dan, melodic rock, musical journeys." As a young artist she signed a deal to write songs for $500 a month and gave away all the rights. "I learned the hard way," she says. "I had to write 15 or 20 a year and they owned 'em. 'I Shaved My Legs for This' was in that catalog. I got so hornswoggled, but I don't blame anyone. "My dad flipped out. I did it behind his back. But I'm grateful for every mistake. Some day I'll get my publishing back." That's why she says her recipe for success is "lots of rebellion and failure." She says she's looking forward to playing the occasional gig instead of the grind of a long tour. "You get this energy that it's not every night," she says. "Now if I can just remember all the lyrics." Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback www.bingo.com Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker Custom Build Computers Discount Hotel Reservations --> online casinos news Ashley Furniture HomeStore Send Flowers California Casinos GMAT Prep Windermere Van Vleet Sports Equipment Online Casino Reviews Entertainment Guide --> Online Casino Fundraisers Sudoku Online Casinos Canada Online Pharmacy Advertisement s Advertisement