Carrie-Okie
Anything and Everything About Carrie Underwood
Carried Away - American Way Magazine Article
IS THERE ANYTHING CARRIE UNDERWOOD doesn’t have going for her? She’s got the talent: She breezed past thousands of hopefuls to claim the title of American Idol three years ago. She’s got the looks: She’s been voted to People magazine’s Most Beautiful list the past two years. And she’s got the accolades: She’s won a trio of Grammys and has sold millions of records worldwide. • Yet, for someone so undeniably in, the 25-year-old superstar still has plenty of moments when she feels awkward and, frankly, a little out of her comfort zone.
Take, for instance, when she organized a songwriting retreat last year at the Ryman Auditorium in preparation for her second album. “On the second [album], we just had a lot more time,” says Underwood, calling in from the road. “I was able to slow things down and meet up with some of the people who wrote for the first album.” But she needed only to look around the historic theater and take stock of the caliber of writers to realize that she was a skosh out of her league. Underwood was determined to make this meeting work, though a star of her wattage didn’t need to prove herself by trying to help pen her own hits. Plenty of big-time country-music artists are content to sift through the mountain of Music Row offerings crafted by songwriting pros, select their favorites, and extend their fame.
Whether Underwood was intimidated or not, this retreat was her idea. When she won American Idol in May 2005, she began picking her songs immediately for her debut album, Some Hearts, which came out six months later. She was completely unprepared, having never written any songs; she didn’t know -- couldn’t believe, until the moment she was announced the winner of American Idol -- that she could possibly make a career as a singer.
The second album would be different, she decided. She’d established herself as the fastest-selling debut country artist in Nielsen SoundScan history, with Some Hearts selling more than seven million copies. And although she’d been a team player with the first album, she’d also gained some experience asserting her will, like when she’d refused to make a poppier version of her hit “Before He Cheats,” which went on to be a huge crossover smash anyway. This time, she could do things exactly how she wanted to.
There was an obvious advantage to this writing retreat: Underwood would be able to write with people whose songs she had already sung on a successful album. They wrote songs that worked for her, in terms of what she liked and what her fans liked. But another benefit was less obvious: The songwriters would have her to guide them.
“They’re incredibly talented, but even they need direction sometimes,” Underwood says. “It’s not fair to say, ‘Hey, Carrie Underwood is working on a new album, so write for her.’ They don’t know me personally; they don’t know what direction I want to take the album. It was important to all of us to get together so I could hang out with them. And we started writing, and soon we had all these great songs. … It was awesome.”
Taking this approach to her new album, Carnival Ride, also helped Underwood prove the naysayers wrong. The critics who contend that she doesn’t have enough to do with crafting her albums (guilty on the first one, she’ll admit). The folks who say if a song doesn’t originate from living a broken-down, alcohol-fueled, honky-tonk life, then it ain’t country (fairly ridiculous).
“I think country music is cool in this way: It has its own little levels of music,” she says. “Whether you like more traditional or more contemporary people, like me and Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban, I think there really is something for everybody. So, instead of being upset at somebody -- oh, they’re too old; oh, they’re too new -- I think people should embrace that and be happy that country music is different. It’s different from person to person. It doesn’t feel like the same song being played over and over and over again on the radio.”
And while she’s aware that she can’t please everyone -- “Haters are going to hate,” she’s said before -- that’s not going to stop her from trying. Because Underwood feels she’s had to prove she belongs in the country-music scene ever since 2004, when she first made the eight-hour drive to audition for Idol. And even when she was selected at the audition, even when Simon Cowell later declared she would win in a cakewalk while there were still nearly a dozen contestants competing, she never saw herself as having a chance to live the American dream she’s currently drifting through.
UNDERWOOD IS EXPERIENCING another awkward moment. This time, it’s March, and she’s playing at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. She’s just finished her set, ending with the Randy Travis song “I Told You So,” which she covers on Carnival Ride, and the crowd is giving her a standing ovation. She’s been told to wait onstage after she’s finished, but she doesn’t know how to take the adulation. It embarrasses her to just stand there like a dork. She’s about to walk backstage, when she turns to see Travis himself, one of her idols, standing next to her.
“Oh my gosh!” she yelps. She hugs him, turns to the crowd, and says, “I thought you guys were standin’ up for me.”
They are, of course, a point Travis makes clear when he asks her on behalf of the Grand Ole Opry to be its newest member.
It’s a symbolic occasion, a traditional country icon reaching out to a contemporary star. That it’s Travis isn’t surprising -- besides covering his late-’80s hit, Underwood often talks about him being a favorite of hers and her father’s -- but it is a watershed moment in her career nonetheless, because too often the controversies that bubble around her (some media-created, some more legitimate) have to do with a disregard for the new crop of country stars, of which she is the most visible. (This was made most plain when Wynonna Judd, within earshot of Underwood, said that country music was becoming “vanilla.” The two have since reconciled.)
That it would take such an act to give her a measure of country-music street cred, as it were, seems even sillier when you consider Underwood’s life to date. She was born in 1983 and grew up in Checotah, Oklahoma, on a nearly 200-acre patch of pasture and farmland. The pasture was on old rodeo grounds, where there was still a corral, a bathroom, and large overhead lights that had been used for nighttime shows but no longer worked. Her father raised cattle, which he sold at market to supplement his income from a paper mill, and her mother taught elementary school.
She is the youngest of three girls, the other two older than her by 13 and 10 years, respectively. Underwood’s sisters proved to be an important part of her musical influence, as they listened to ’80s pop when she was growing up. Her parents favored oldies. But most of her friends in Checotah listened to country music. So it was she who introduced her parents to the fiddle-rich music of folks like Randy Travis and Martina McBride.
Underwood would sing at church and festivals while she was growing up, but she wasn’t being groomed to be a child star. In fact, she liked to sing only at out-of-town events, because the local kids would make fun of her whenever she would sing in Checotah (which her mother sometimes convinced her to do). But that was just typical kid cruelty. Underwood says those days shaped more than just her singing style.
“I really appreciate where I grew up,” she says. “My parents were very poor, and they worked very hard to make sure that my sisters and I were never without. I never went without anything that I needed, ever. And just being able to run around outside -- I don’t think my parents ever had to worry about me. Being raised in a small community made me who I am.”
Underwood studied at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. After her sophomore year, she began performing at a summer festival at the university. The theater she sang in was small, with maybe 200 stiff, uncomfortable seats, but the experience gave her just enough confidence to think she should try out for something larger and to dream a little bigger.
One evening before the start of her final semester, she was at her parents’ home in Checotah, watching a newscast about American Idol tryouts in Cleveland. Hopefuls were camping out, and a reporter was interviewing those in line. On a whim, Underwood went to her computer to see how close to Checotah the traveling auditions would be held. The closest scheduled stop was St. Louis -- eight hours away.
Shoot, she thought. Not this year.
A little later, her mother approached her. “If you want to go, I’ll take you,” she offered. Underwood refused. “It’s dumb. They’ll cut me. There’s no way,” she said. “We would drive up there for nothing.” That night, she reconsidered. She was about to graduate. Realistically, once she got a job and moved away, she would never be in a position to try this again. It might be her only shot.
The audition was on a Sunday. She performed at her university Saturday night and then loaded into the car with her mother and a friend, driving all night to St. Louis. She arrived an hour before the eight a.m. check-in deadline and then waited all day before being called in. She belted out a Martina McBride song and was shocked when she was asked back the following day.
The crazy train of fame then whisked her away. What followed was her well-chronicled rise on America’s number one television show, where she won over fans as a small-town girl with a big voice and Disney-quality beauty. Even though she had a tough battle with Bo Bice in her quest to be named season four’s American Idol, show producer Cowell never had a doubt about the nation’s next country sensation. “It was like everyone that year had auditioned in black and white,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “She was the only one who came in full color.”
PERHAPS THE WORST (certainly the most frequent) uncomfortable moment for Carrie Underwood, The Girl, is seeing the way Carrie Underwood, The Celebrity, is treated in the media. True, people love a small-town success story. But it bothered her that the Idol folks somehow managed to air “every dumb thing” she said. “If you follow someone around 24 hours a day, seven days a week, chances are they’re going to say something stupid,” she says, laughing. She felt she was portrayed as the country bumpkin, when in reality, she was like any other college student. Her mother has a master’s degree, for crying out loud.
Also, there are the tacky accoutrements of fame all young stars are forced to endure: having your dating life played out in supermarket magazines for every young fan to see, having every reaction scrutinized by the press (so if you don’t wail when someone is kicked off American Idol, you’re branded as cold or unfeeling), and having gossip hounds take quotes out of context, thus eliminating sarcasm from your humor bank.
“It’s just a strange thing to get used to,” Underwood says. “And to read blatant lies is odd too. To have family members and friends calling me and saying, ‘I heard you did this,’ or, ‘[I heard] you’re dating so-and-so.’ It’s just like, no, it’s a lie. I read in a magazine one time -- this is how stupid it can get -- that my favorite food at a particular restaurant was something that had meat in it, and I’m like, if they had looked up anything, anybody who knows anything about me would have said, ‘No, it’s not. She’d never eat that: She’s a vegetarian.’ I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it. I’m just trying to tolerate it and deal with it as best I can.
“It’s hard, though,” she continues. “I want people to like me. I’ve always been that way, so to have something negative, I automatically want to come out and defend myself, and sometimes I have to be reminded that it’s just going to make things worse if I do. So, you just kind of have to sit back and bite your tongue. I know the truth. I know what kind of person I am. I’m trying to be content in that and not really worry so much about what everybody else thinks.”
She’s focusing instead on controlling the parts of her career she can -- namely, her music. She began that right away, actually, with her first album. After her Idol victory, there was speculation that perhaps she would make a pop album. “I went to Nashville for the CMA Music Fest, and that was kind of a declaration of ‘this is where I want to be and this is what I’m doing.’ So, for any doubters who think I’m going to make a pop album: It’s not gonna happen.”
Following the festival, she willingly submitted to the folks who held her hand through the record-making process. She toured with big names, learning what she could from Brad Paisley and Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban. (One thing she learned: When you’re on tour, do not watch Borat in a room full of men. You will be embarrassed.) She found a songwriter soul mate, Hillary Lindsey, a young woman who could write and talk about t he same sort of emotions and problems Underwood encounters, which helped Underwood to make her second album more personal.
Now, with dozens of awards, millions of albums sold, and a growing acceptance from a diversified country-music fan base (not to mention the crossover appeal she has earned through her TV profile and the pop success of “Before He Cheats”), Underwood has managed to pull off the nearly impossible: overcoming the pressures of being an overnight sensation, growing a career steadily, and maturing as an artist.
“I still love to go home, still like to do normal things,” she says. “I live in Nashville, so I don’t have paparazzi following me around. I go to the grocery store. I go to the mall. I try to live my life like a normal person would, as best I still can.”
But when you’re Carrie Underwood, normal, of course, is a relative term. A few days after we spoke, she was inducted as a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Undoubtedly, she was squirming onstage, embarrassed from all the attention. But at the rate she’s skyrocketing, she’ll have to get used to it.
Carrie Underwood, LeAnn Rimes Join Cancer Concert
Carrie Underwood Duets with Elvis
August 8, 2008 - Carrie Underwood, Sara Evans, LeAnn Rimes and seven other songbirds are teaming up with the king of rock ‘n’ roll—or his voice, anyway—for Elvis Presley Christmas Duets, due out Oct. 14. This is the first time Presley will be getting the Nat King Cole treatment (minus his holographic performance with Celine Dion on American Idol) and Sony BMG must have figured that celebrating the Yuletide was a good way to ease fans into the idea: Elvis’ Christmas Album, from 1957, has sold more than 9 million copies, making it the top-selling Xmas album of all time. In fact, Presley only recorded 20 holiday tunes, but his various compilations have accounted for more than 25 million albums sold. And while this might not be everyone’s idea of how best to remember the hip-swiveling pop pioneer, Priscilla Presley, who still acts as an advisor to his estate, has extended her approval to the project.“We are so pleased that these accomplished artists are collaborating with Elvis in this unique way to make exciting new versions of his Christmas songs,” said the actress, who was married to Presley for five and a half years before their divorce in 1973. “I am sure Elvis would be proud to have worked with them.” In addition to Underwood, Evans and Rimes—who have Presley’s back on “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Silent Night” and “Here Comes Santa Claus,” respectively—the album features digital duets with Martina McBride, Gretchen Wilson, Anne Murray, Amy Grant, Wynonna Judd and Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman.
Pairings announced so far for Elvis Presley Christmas Duets, set for release Oct. 14, include:
• “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” — Carrie Underwood
• “Blue Christmas” — Martina McBride
• “Here Comes Santa Claus” — LeAnn Rimes
• “Silent Night” — Sara Evans
• “Merry Christmas Baby” — Gretchen Wilson
• “Silver Bells” — Anne Murray
• “White Christmas” — Amy Grant
• “O Little Town” — Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman of Little Big Town
• “Santa Claus Is Back In Town” — Wynonna Judd
Sources: People/CMT/GAC
American Idol Rewind
July 20, 2008- Good news! American Idol Rewind will start up again and this time they are skipping season 3 are going right on to season 4, which is Carrie’s season! For anyone who isn’t familiar with Idol Rewind, it’s a series where they look back on a season with tons of behind the scenes footage, never before seen videos/clips, comentaries, interviews, etc! So this is really exciting 
Not only that, but this time the series will not air on the fox reality channel. It’s heading to primetime. Fox will start airing the series in mid August!
source -carrie-underwood.org
Batter Up: Carrie Underwood, Jo Dee Messina
June 5, 2008 — Given that her signature song has a line about taking a "Louisville slugger to both headlights," it’s appropriate that Carrie Underwood was the lead-off batter for the Grand Ole Opry Live team at yesterday’s 18th annual City of Hope Celebrity Softball Challenge at Nashville’s Greer Stadium.
"I’ve got a lot of practice with a bat one way or another the last couple years," she said before the game.
It wasn’t enough, however, to overcome Blair Garner’s After Midnight team, which won by a score of 8-1 behind the pitching of Jo Dee Messina. Jo Dee walked Carrie in the first inning, but had a shutout going into the final inning, ultimately earning Player of the Game honors. Joe Nichols made a nice play on a one-hopper at shortstop, Sara Evans caught a foul pop-up along the third-base line, and Jake Owen — not only does he make hit records, he can hit a softball. He drilled a triple past a diving left fielder and added a line-drive single over third later in the game.
The best news for all was that the game went without an injury. There was certainly some concern about that before the national anthem was ever sung.
"I’m probably gonna get hit in the face with the ball, and we’re moving into wedding season," Sara noted.
In fact, the stars already had a litany of old bumps and bruises from previous softball and baseball experiences. Keith Anderson tore a rotator cuff in a tryout for the Kansas City Royals; Joe Nichols broke an elbow and a knee, in addition to tearing muscles and tendons; and Phil Vassar actually cracked two ribs when he played in the City of Hope event four years ago.
"This is a sign of getting old," shortstop Chris Cagle asserted. "This morning I went to put on my cleats, and I think I pulled some cartilage in my ribs. I don’t know what I did. I reached down, and it was just like, ‘Bink!’ And it kind of freaked me out."
In one of the plays that came closest to potential damage, "American Gladiator" Hollywood Yates slid into home just before an attempted tag by GAC host Storme Warren, who was catching with a pink — yes, a pink! — glove. Storme’s own glove disappeared, and in its place, he was given a pink, child-size glove by a woman dressed as Minnie Pearl. The price tag was not attached. And Storme was unharmed by Hollywood’s run-scoring slide.
One artist did suffer an injury in a completely different softball game this week. Carolina Rain’s Marvin Evatt tore shoulder ligaments when he slid into first base during the Cops and Jocks charity game on Tuesday. The injury was bad enough that he was taken to a local hospital. After X-rays, he went back to the field and performed with the band. He’s also expected to join the group in a Riverstages concert during the CMA Music Festival on Sunday.
Carrie Underwood Makes "Name" for Herself
May 29, 2008 — When Carrie Underwood goes out at night, she frequently finds her name appearing in gossip columns and night-life rundowns that tell who she was spending time with and where she went.
Her current single, "Last Name," plays off of night-life activity, though when the character gets married to someone and doesn’t remember it, the song clearly goes way farther into the absurd than Carrie ever has. Carrie wrote it with Hillary Lindsey and Luke Laird, and — as should be the case with an oops-I-partied-too-hard song — they had a great time writing it.
"We just had tons of fun and laughing," Carrie told the national radio show GAC Nights: Live From Nashville. "As soon as we got done with it, all of these ideas started rolling in about what we wanted to do with the music and make everything real gritty. It just all came together. It's a lot of fun to perform onstage, and the video was kind of sassy, and I like it."
Carrie’s not the only one who likes it. "Last Name" is ranked at No. 6 on the Country Aircheck singles chart, and the video stands at No. 4 on GAC’s Top 20 Country Countdown.
Visitors to the CMA Music Festival in Nashville will be able to catch both Carrie and Luke in live events. Carrie performs Friday, June 6, at LP Field during the nightly concerts. She shares the bill with Faith Hill, Miranda Lambert, Josh Turner, Lady Antebellum and Jack Ingram. On Thursday, June 5, Luke — who also wrote "So Small" — performs in an After Hours concert at the Hard Rock Café, along with Jon Randall ("Whiskey Lullaby"), Jessi Alexander and Dave Berg ("Stupid Boy").
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Carrie Underwood Bolstered by Opry Induction
May 28, 2008 — Carrie Underwood became the newest addition to the Grand Ole Opry May 10 when fellow Oklahoman Garth Brooks handled the official induction ceremony, and it’s a moment that has given her a lot of confidence about her place in Music City.
Carrie’s had a ton of good fortune come her way in recent years — winning "American Idol," going multi-platinum with two albums, taking Female Vocalist honors from the Academy of Country Music, the Country Music Association and the Recording Academy. Yet the Opry induction still stands out as a sign of how much she’s appreciated by her peers and her fellow citizens in her new hometown.
"You see other people [who’ve been inducted] — their pictures and stuff on the wall — and they’re so happy in their pictures," she told the national radio show GAC Nights: Live From Nashville. "It just seems like the best night of their lives in those pictures, and you just know from seeing how other people treat it how special it is. As I got in the music business especially, and coming [to Nashville], everybody [was] so nice to me, and they didn’t have to be. You know, I came off of ‘American Idol,’ and they didn’t know what to expect from me; they didn’t know what I was going to do, and I could’ve completely shamed country music. Nobody knew what I was gonna do, but they kinda had faith in me. So it’s very special for everything to come around and for me to be a member."
Carrie makes her first post-induction appearance on the Opry Tuesday, June 3, and the show is already a sell-out. So the Opry has added a second show. Also on tap that evening are Montgomery Gentry, Luke Bryan, Little Jimmy Dickens, Bill Anderson and the Oak Ridge Boys.
source-gactv.com
Carrie Underwood Cleans Up
May 23, 2008 — Carrie Underwood has been highly visible the last week, winning the Top Female Vocalist trophy at the American Music Awards and performing "Last Name" on the "American Idol" finale. But TV is not the only place she’s been cleaning up.
One of the by-products of life on tour is that things go unattended at home. So when she gets back to her house in Nashville, Carrie finds time for a vacuum cleaner and a duster.
"When I go home, I don’t do anything," she told Dial-Global. "I clean my house. I’m a cleaner. And when I get home, there is like a thick layer of dust over everything, so I get home and I blow off some steam by cleaning, which my mom never would have thought would have ever happened, ‘cause I was the messiest child in the world."
That makes Carrie’s upcoming appearances at the CMA Music Festival a special deal, since she’ll be working but also sleeping at home. Carrie will perform June 3 on a Tuesday night edition of Opry Live, she’ll sign autographs at the exhibit hall, and she’ll also appear at Nashville’s LP Field on Friday, June 6, along with Faith Hill, Josh Turner, Miranda Lambert and Lady Antebellum.
source-gactv.com
Carrie Underwood to Perform on American Idol Finale
NASHVILLE – (May 19, 2008) – The newest member of the Grand Ole Opry, Carrie Underwood, will return to the American Idol stage to perform on Wednesday, May 21 for the season 7 finale show fresh off her second consecutive win as Top Female Vocalist at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Underwood will perform her current co-written smash hit “Last Name.”
Underwood is currently headlining her “Carnival Ride Tour” with special guest Josh Turner.
May 16, 2008
Another Endorsement Deal - Nintendo DS
Country star Carrie Underwood is getting involved with a whole different kind of video.
Underwood’s publicist Jessie Schmidt of Nashville’s Schmidt Relations announced that Underwood is one of three women appearing in national television commercials for Nintendo DS.
The three celebrities are helping promote different colors for the gaming unit. Underwood and America Ferrera will be featured in commercials for the metallic rose version of Nintendo DS, a color the system debuted in late 2007. Liv Tyler will appear in Nintendo DS commercials that promote a two-toned crimson/black version.
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