says 17-year-old Academy of Country Music Award winner Jessica Andrews (2000 Top New Female Vocalist). "Everything I'm doing now is new, from the types of songs I'm singing, to the musicians I'm working with, to the way I see the world. This album is a reflection of all that change."
Much of the change Jessica explores on Who I Am (released Feb. 27, 2001, on DreamWorks Records), her second album, is an effect of months on the road with country titans Tim McGraw, Trisha Yearwood and Faith Hill. Of the latter two, who are infamous for their impeccable standards, the singer and budding songwriter says: "I know how serious these women are about music and their performances. So I took the offers to tour with Faith, and then Trisha, not only as a huge honor but as an opportunity to learn from the best." Jessica indeed took these studies to heart, keeping a close eye on possible refinements of her live show. By the time the tours wrapped up, she was itching to get back into the studio, where she would apply her lessons on everything from vocal delivery to production.
The result is an album that redefines this young artist while exercising her rich alto and soaring soprano. On Who I Am (produced by Byron Gallimore), Jessica is no longer the starry-eyed ingenue of her debut album, 1999's Heart-Shaped World; but she's not a jaded woman singing about loss and insecurity, either. She is experienced and optimistic, and judging by fan response, downright contagious (soon after its release to radio, the track "Who I Am" entered the Top 40 of Gavin's G2 chart).
Over a whimpering fiddle and folksy slide guitar, Jessica sings on "Who I Am": "I am Rosemary's granddaughter/ The spitting image of my father/ And when the day is done, my mama's still my biggest fan ... It's all a part of me/ That's who I am." The anthem merges the integrity of traditional Nashville songwriting with Jessica's own youthful exuberance. And like the rest of Who I Am, it's a celebration of growth, understanding, failure, love and identity, delivered with fresh candor.
The upbeat "Karma" takes country to the fringe, expressing a New Age catechism in sharp hooks and plain language - "What goes up comes down/ Hits the ground ... k-k-k-k-karma"; "These Wings" looks at the delicacy of new love; the playfully worded "I Don't Like Anyone" captures the frustration of being apart from a loved one; and the wistful "Show Me Heaven," which appears on the "Dawson's Creek" soundtrack (2000), paints a picture of utopian love.
As Jessica is quick to explain, the 12 songs comprising Who I Am show just how far she's come since she first won that talent contest back home in Huntingdon, Tenn. "I was obsessed with the Dolly Parton song 'I Will Always Love You,'" she recalls. "But of course, I was just a kid, so the song I was singing around the house was Whitney Houston's version, which was constantly on the radio." That didn't matter to Jessica's older sister, who heard her hit those high notes and convinced her to sing Parton's ode to country great Porter Wagoner at their school talent show.
Only a fourth-grader at the time, Jessica nonetheless took the prize. "The funny thing was, before then, I didn't even think I could sing since I could never get myself to sound exactly like Whitney," she confides. "But at that moment, I realized it was okay if I didn't sound like her. It was just fine to sound like me." Plenty of people who heard Jessica sing agreed, and by the time she entered the sixth grade, producer Byron Gallimore (busy producing Tim McGraw at the time) had heard rumors of this 12-year-old. He did not hesitate to call her into his Nashville office.
"When I walked in there," Jessica remembers, "Byron was really honest about his feelings. He said, 'You're 12 - no one is going to take you seriously.' But my mother insisted he just let me sing. So I started snapping my fingers, and I went right into my lower register and sang that Shania song 'If You're Not In It For Love.' He stopped me right away. I don't know what he heard in my voice, but he called everyone into his office and had me start again. When I finished the song, he asked if it was okay to put this thing into high gear."
After completing the painstaking process of finding just the right songs, Jessica entered the studio to record Heart-Shaped World. But even before she had the chance to unveil her first song, "I Will Be There For You" (which originally appeared on The Prince of Egypt - Nashville, wherein Jessica was the only new artist represented), another teen sensation had already begun making inroads at Country radio.
"When LeAnn Rimes first came out, I was devastated," Jessica admits. "But Byron insisted we get the songs right and not rush the record. Sure enough, next comes teenager #2, Lila McCann." A bit nervous but still determined, Jessica released Heart-Shaped World at the risk of simply becoming #3. "It was difficult because radio was starting to see young singers as novelty acts," she says. "But I was just as serious about music as any older singer. In fact, I'd made up my mind that if my recording career didn't work out, I was still going to pursue songwriting and production. Nothing was going to keep me away from music."
As it turned out, some of country's best and brightest, as well as the folks working in Country radio, were just as serious about Jessica's talent. She further justified their confidence by tirelessly promoting her album, scoring a Gavin Top 20 hit with "I Will Be There for You," touring with Hill and Yearwood and becoming a devoted student of country music.
All the while, she concentrated on her live performance, at the same time immersing herself in the intricacies of producing, publishing and putting together a band. And, of course, Jessica never gave up the fight for a great song. She also fell in love for the first time. "Well, maybe it wasn't exactly love, looking back, but it was definitely something," she says. "I needed someone, and he was there for me. And then he was gone. So, as you can imagine, it was rough for a while."
Jessica took those painful emotions and put them to music. Working with Annie Roboff (Hill's "This Kiss") and singer-songwriter Bekka Bramlett, she sat down and figured out what went wrong. "We just started thinking about what we girls really want from our guys," Jessica recalls. "We talked about how we expect to be treated, and I realized that before anything happens, before you can get serious, you need to find someone you can trust, someone you can open up to."
The payoff of that thinking was "Good Friend To Me," which officially marks the beginning of Jessica's writing career. "It's really important for me to write," she says. "Anything I can do to become a better musician and performer - whether it's playing an instrument, dancing or writing - is going to be a big goal of mine."
Now that she's cut the apron strings - "My mom just sits back and lets me make the decisions" - and has lived through a little heartache, Jessica is no longer wearing the rose-tinted glasses that colored her first album. She's looking forward to introducing her newly matured, newly defined self to the world - and to defy all categorization.
"I get compared to a lot of people, from LeAnn, to Faith, to Britney Spears. But what's more important to me than how people see me is how they hear me. The music, the songs on Who I Am, must come first and foremost. I chose songs that are unique musically but universal in what they're saying. So I can only hope people listen to those and view me as my own person. I hope they recognize that I've got something to offer that's different from everybody else."
Source: http://www.jessicaandrews.com
