On a new Essential Album special, Kelleigh Bannen has LeAnn Rimes in for an interview to talk about the album that skyrocketed her career – her 1996 record ‘Blue.’ The two discuss the smash hit title track, LeAnn’s unwavering artistry, and her determination to find her place singing traditional country music in the 90’s country landscape. Listen to the Essential Album: Blue special interview with LeAnn Rimes in-full tomorrow at 1pm PT / 3pm CT / 4pm ET / 9pm UK on Apple Music Hits, or anytime on demand here.
LeAnn Rimes on Singing at a Young Age
My parents said that by the time I was five, I mean, I started on stage when I was five. By then, I got my first taste of it and I said I wanted to be a singer. I actually had many things chosen. I wanted to be a singer or I wanted to be the first professional female baseball player, or I wanted to be a psychiatrist, which is all so random, but kind of ties into one another, maybe not the baseball thing, but I always just had these really high aspirations to just… To connect with people, I guess, is what I really think it was about. The easiest route, I guess, for me, was always through music and the most direct route because of my gift, it was just, I kind of came out singing and that just developed. I never really had, I didn’t have voice lessons. I didn’t have any of that kind of stuff. It was just a natural gift. I had dreams of where it might take me, but I don’t think anyone can ever expect their life to take off like it did at any age, much less at 13.
LeAnn Rimes Recalls Digging Through the Trash for “Blue” Demo Her Dad Threw Away
I never knew until recently that there were actually multiple people that had recorded [“Blue.”] I got it as I received it in the mail, my dad and I did after, I think, he heard me sing at some kind of sporting event and the National Anthem. He sent us the demo of “Blue” and my dad threw it in the trash and didn’t let me hear it. I was a very defiant child and sometimes that served me well. In this situation, it did. When my dad left one time after he threw in the trash, he was leaving to go somewhere. I went and dug it out of the trash and I listened to it. Obviously I understand why my dad threw it away because the demo was awful. It didn’t sound anything like the song that you hear now, but because of my defiance, I’m like, “I’m going to show my dad that this song’s great.” By the time he got back, I’d put that little Yodel thing in there. Then he was like, “Oh, it’s like a different song.” That’s really how that song came about, was this little girl who was just like, “I’m going to show my dad that I can make the song cool.”
LeAnn Rimes Reflects on Hearing “Blue” As an Adult
I definitely had a very strong sense of my own artistry, I guess, or what I loved and what moved me as a child from very, very early on. There’s something about [“Blue”] that’s just so classic. I heard it the other day, twice actually in Montana when I was on vacation. I’m like, “This song is haunting me at this moment.” But yeah, I don’t ever really listen to my own music. When I was forced to listen to it by sitting there in the car, I really could appreciate how classic of a record that is. It brought kind of the roots of country music into a genre in the 90s that was very, very different. That was a very different sound for the time. I really do, when I think of country music for myself, there’s so many classic songs that an artist and that kind of vibe of the genre that really plays to my heart and so that spoke very, very much to who I was as a country music lover.
LeAnn Rimes on “Light In Your Eyes” Being the Original First Single
“Light In Your Eyes” was the target. We had made a video and everything for it. I remember back then, a lot of conversations were had with me about what I really wanted to be a single and I don’t remember about exactly how “Blue” was chosen, but I think we all kind of had this feeling that it was so different than anything else. I think that was kind of my trajectory, always was like, “Who am I outside of what everyone else is doing?” That’s always how I have kind of seen myself. “What makes me unique? What can I do that other people aren’t doing right now?”
LeAnn Rimes on the Reactions She Got from Audiences as a Young Singer
I have to say, as a kid, when I sang, that was the reaction I got back from people, was that “Whoa.” Not just because of how young I was, but because I was moving them in some way. That was, like I said, just like I was kind of expecting that to be the reaction, naivety there as a kid, like, “Oh, this is just what I do.” Yeah, not until I was older and understood the business, like you’re saying, did I ever think really that there was another way that that could have gone.
LeAnn Rimes on Being Compared to Patsy Cline
[Patsy Cline] was such a huge part of how I created my sound. I listened to so many different artists growing up, female artists, and took something from each of them. From her, really it was about this true, honest, emotional connection and the way that she could just take you to a place that you don’t normally go within yourself when you listened to her music. We are all unique and special and one of a kind, and also we are the influences that we have grown up listening to when it comes to being an artist. We all pull pieces from each of them or something from each of them and then create us in our own selves and our own sound. Yeah, each of them were very influential in what you see and hear me do now.
LeAnn Rimes on “One Way Ticket” and Reimagining It As An Adult
“One Way Ticket” was, I think, one of the last songs we recorded for the record, because I remember the label saying they wanted something that was more commercial, more of the time at that moment or the sound that was happening. “One Way Ticket” was it. It’s such a fun uplifting song, but it’s interesting because I’ve taken that song now all these years later and re-imagined it in a way that’s like so heartbreaking when you listen to it. It’s a completely different take on it. It’s kind of my adult version. It’s interesting how that song can be kind of taken in two different ways, whether this really uplifting empowerment piece, or still empowering but heartbreaking and knowing the wisdom that is behind it now, of knowing how lonely and tough it can be to really claim yourself in that way of stepping out on your own journey.
LeAnn Rimes on Receiving Criticism as a Child Singer
When I was younger, people would say, “Oh, you’re really going to be able to sing amazing when you get older, because you’ll have this kind of life experience to connect with it.” I was so offended as a kid, I’m like, “That’s such bullshit. What’re you talking about?”… There was a lot of truth to that in so many ways, and I can totally appreciate both places that I was at. I was able to really dig into emotion I didn’t know where to place as a kid and act in a lot of ways. Then, as I grew, there was real truth to the power behind what I was singing.
LeAnn Rimes on Singing Mature Lyrics in “My Baby”
That was a topic of conversation back in the day. I’m like, “What are you talking about?” For me, it was just a song. I loved [“My Baby.”] My dad was always really supportive of that, which I really appreciated. He was like, “She doesn’t have to experience the things she’s singing about. She just likes the music and she likes the song.” As an adult, I can totally understand where some people were coming from. Like I said, it was never odd because I really hadn’t experienced that. I really just was coming from a very innocent place. I will say my dad used to explain songs to me from the time I was really young, because he would help me rehearse and the show I would sing at all the time I would learn a new song for basically every weekend. I remember wanting to sing “Fancy” [by Reba McEntire] and them not letting me sing it. I’m like, “Why? You have to tell me why.”
LeAnn Rimes on Releasing “How Do I Live” at the Same Time as Trisha Yearwood
I was very aware of it. I was 14 and that was my first taste of the industry, I guess, in a way. It didn’t feel good, that’s for sure. I remember thinking that my version of the song would never be heard and I’m glad I was really wrong about that. Then, that was also a time where Mike Curb and I had a conversation in an airport, actually, we just happened to see each other crossing paths. He was like, “Do you mind if I take this and release it to pop radio, to top 40?” I’m like, “Absolutely not. I would love that.” Then, that was kind of my — once I talk about those boxes that people tried to fit me in — that was kind of my breaking out of that one box of, “Oh, she’s just this, she’s the little girl who sings country music.” That was kind of the first… I was crossing over when people didn’t cross over and got my hand slapped big time for that, but it was also one of the most, I mean, it’s the most successful song by a woman ever still to this date.
LeAnn Rimes on the Tone ‘Blue’ The Album Set for Her Career
I think we’ve touched upon it, and that is my own unique artistry, and the way in which I was going to set my own trajectory and I was never going to be labeled. That was very, very clear, I think, within the first single and the record. There was a real defiance in a way, but in a good way, that I was just going to do the things that I loved and I was going to tell the stories that I wanted to tell, and I was going to speak to truth in the way I knew how as a kid. It was clearly set out for everyone on that record, more so than I realized, or anybody realized at the time.
LeAnn Rimes Gets Emotional Reflecting on Her Younger Self
I really respect myself as a kid. I’ll start crying talking about it, but yeah, it’s beautiful. I don’t think I’ve had the respect that I have had for her, or have for her now until recently. Because I was just in survival mode for 25 years and now being out of survival mode and being able to reflect, and that’s a recent thing… I’m kind of always looking to reconnect with what was it about her that was so clear and so powerful. I know that because of that respect and that connection, I now have to that piece of myself that it’s back online.
