First Published in Country Music International – February 1999

Despite her sensational debut album selling nearly five million records in two years, Deana Carter is still country music’s best-kept secret. “It’s not as though the information isn’t out there,” she tells Alan Cackett. “I actually have quite a high profile.”

Deana Carter's debut album, DID I SHAVE MY LEGS FOR THIS?, has sold almost five million in little more than two years. It has been one of the quietest multi-million selling albums in country music history. While media and fans have been talking about LeAnn Rimes, Shania Twain and Trisha Yearwood, Carter has been quietly and resolutely going about her business and chalking up sales.

She is country music's best-kept secret-success story, yet it's not as if she has been inconspicuous. The past year-and-a-half has seen her out on the road with Alan Jackson, guesting on Tonight with Jay Leno, The Late Show with David Letterman, the CMA Awards and several more top-ranking American TV shows, not to mention gracing the covers of People, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly and many other glossy periodicals.

"Isn't that funny," she purrs in the same sweet, slightly-cracked, Southern voice that comes across as so sincere and intimate when she sings. "I don't know what the reason is for what has been referred to as my lack of hype. I do have quite a high-profile, it's not like the information isn't out there. I think it's really good, though, because maybe it means I'm not acting like a big star. I'm trying to keep my head in the same state it was in before we sold all these records."

After a debut album that was five years in the making, spanning two massive record label shake-ups and with a seemingly verboten five-minute ballad about sexual initiation as the first single, Deana Carter might well have suffered the fate of many Nashville hopefuls whose first effort is buried in the glut of newcomer albums. Instead, that infamous single, Strawberry Wine, gradually gained momentum and became a massive success, propelling her to multi-platinum status.

She attributes her success to the fact that she has taken chances with her music, the production and lyrical topics. She portrays a youthful vitality, but works with strong subject matter that challenges her audience with real-life situations and themes. Often the first casualty of success in a singer's career is songwriting. It's commonly said that an artist has a whole life to write the songs for the first album, and just a few short weeks or months to write the second one. Under pressure to follow-up a multi-platinum milestone album, Deana approached her new album, EVERYTHING'S GONNA BE ALRIGHT, as if she was starting from scratch, rather than trying to repeat a winning formula.

"I never try and calculate what I think I should be doing,” she says. “I couldn't put myself forward that way. For me, trying to calculate what people want, you never know if you're going to be right or not. So when I went in to do this album, I wanted my music to be fresh and modern. The choice of songs and the production—everything for me had to be totally honest."

With the album she joins a small but growing group of women in Nashville who have become producers. What has traditionally been a Men's Only club has slowly been undergoing a gender shift, and in recent years Martina McBride, Pam Tillis, Suzy Boggus and Kathy Mattea have all co-produced their albums. Deana says that the studio is her favourite place to be, and that good production means everything.

"Chris Farren produced my first album, and we've co-produced this one," she says. "It's really funny, because Jimmy Bowen taught me a lot in the studio. On the first record that we did together, he made me co-produce the record and keep notes on everything we did. He said: 'You may not get your name on this one, but you will one day.’ He told me:, ‘You need to know how to do this, because this is what it's all about. There's no reason you can't do it.’”

Though she didn't always see eye-to-eye with Bowen in the studio, Deana acknowledges that she learnt a lot from him as she matured as a singer and songwriter. Her climb to the top has been a series of long, hard-fought battles. She first set out on a music career when she was just 16-years-old, guided at the time by her father. She admits now that it was too soon and that she was not nearly mature enough. But a detour into gaining a college degree and working as a rehabilitation therapist brought her into close contact with the kind of life experiences that fueled her songwriting aspirations.

"It's a wonderful experience, but it was pretty tough, as well," she explains. "It enabled me to face up to the realities of life with much more confidence. I've always had an innate sense of other people's problems and disabilities, and being a care worker just made it that much easier to understand. It made me grateful for my eyebrows and the ability to be able to brush your own teeth, so it was monumental in my outlook on life. I was always writing songs—I suppose it was my way of trying to deal with it."

She began to pursue music seriously again in 1990, and originally signed with Capitol a year later. She recorded more than two albums worth of material that wasn't released, although an album co-produced by Jimmy Bowen and John Guess did surface in Britan more than a year before she had anything issued in the States. She worked on three introductory videos that were never put out. She survived several label changes, having originally been signed by Jimmy Bowen to Liberty Records, then moved over to Patriot and finally had her debut American album released on Capitol Nashville. "The first record that I did with Bowen, that was a real honour," she says. "I think it was a little bit immature. I was writing a lot, but still finding my way and not really ready to have my songs out there."

Blessed with a unique voice combining a winsome little-girl quality with a husky adult sensuality, Deana emerged as one of the new, brash, pop-orientated young women who have kept country music afloat. Although she has an across-the-board appeal outside country music's boundaries, she stresses that crossover is not something that she is wooing.

"I think it's wonderful that some country artists are crossing over," she says. "Nobody deserves to be held back, and no consumer should be denied exposure to my music. As long as we always include the people who were there first. As long as we always include country radio, as long as we don't get bigger than our britches."

The songs on the new album seem more cohesive than on her debut, as Deana travels an image-drenched back road through a Southern Gothic landscape in such dark tales as Ruby Brown and Dickson County. "I wrote that with Matraca Berg before Strawberry Wine—I think it was in 1993,''she says. "It was the first time I wrote with Matraca. We were talking about going to the same school and about my boyfriend in high school. She knew him, and he was kinda like the guy everyone has a crush on. We started talking about him, and that's how Dickson County came out."

In little more than two years, Deana Carter has emerged as a major new talent destined to make a long-lasting impact on the cutting edge of country music. Rather than taking the usual Nashville star route of burning herself out on the road, she is taking her time off during the first quarter of this year to spend time writing songs for her third album. She also hopes to return to Britain, having made an early connection over here as Jimmy Nail’s opening act four years ago.

“I’m always tapping everybody on the shoulder going: ‘Remember that time I was I was overseas? Well, I really want to go back,’” she says. “I’m crazy for scones and crumpets. I hit a few pubs, travelling around, for the beer, especially Newcastle Brown. I think I might have had a fair few. I’m telling you, I really hope to be able to incorporate a European tour later this year.”