Friday, May 16, 2003 | 8:50 a.m.
Who: LeAnn Rimes.
When: 8 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Stratosphere's Outdoor Events Center.
Tickets: $39, $49.
Information: (702) 380-7711.
Time flies.
It's hard to believe that singing protege LeAnn Rimes, who has been belting out songs almost before she was out of diapers, will be 21 on Aug. 28.
The Jackson, Miss., native was 5 when she won her first talent contest and 8 when she made her first TV appearance at Disney World.
Rimes recorded her first album, "All That," when she was 11 and her second when she was 14 -- the chart topping "Blue," which catapulted the teenager to stardom.
Often compared to one of her favorite country singers, the late Patsy Cline, Rimes has been so much a part of the music scene for the past seven years that fans probably think of her as being much older.
"I missed out on normal childhood things," Rimes noted during a recent telephone interview in Los Angeles, where she was on the latest leg of her most recent national tour. "But I got to attend the Grammys when I was 11."
That was also the year she signed her first recording contract.
Rimes will perform at the Stratosphere on Saturday.
"I really have enjoyed every minute of my career," she said.
When Rimes' career began in the early '90s, country music was in a slump after riding a high that had lasted more than a decade following the release of the 1980 film, "Urban Cowboy," starring John Travolta.
"It was going downhill a little," she said. "It was harder to make it in this business when I first started."
Rimes, along with such performers as Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, Dixie Chicks and a host of others, are credited with a country music revival.
"It's really booming right now," she said.
Almost gone from the airwaves are such classic country performers as Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Eddy Arnold and other legends of the genre, replaced by the new country sound of Brooks, Shania Twain and others, such as Rimes.
"Someone wrote a huge article about whether I was going to save country music," Rimes said.
What saved it, she said, was that she and many other artists crossed over into pop. Her first crossover hit was "How Do I Live." Her most recent album, "Twisted Angel," downplays her country side and focuses on rock and pop.
"Country music today is not so hillbilly," Rimes said. "It has a totally new and younger audience."
Yet she prefers the classics.
"I loved Patsy Cline," Rimes said. "She was one of the most amazing country artists of our time, yet she was considered pop at one time.
"Hank Williams. I loved him. I grew up on all that stuff."
To some country fans, old is music from the '40s and '50s. For Rimes, old begins in the '80s.
"When I was growing up I was into Garth and George Strait and Alabama," she said.
Beginning a career so young has its upside and downside.
The upside is obvious: international fame, wealth and security.
Albums "Blue," "Unchained Melody: The Early Years" and "You Light Up My Life" had combined sales of 12 million.
In 1996 "Blue" won for her the Academy of Country Music Top New Female Vocalist of the Year Award as well as Single of the Year and Song of the Year awards and Grammys for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and Best New Artist.
The following year she won American Music Awards' Favorite New Artist honor and co-authored a semi-autobiographical novel, "Holiday in Your Heart," with Tom Carter.
A major downside to Rimes' early fame and fortune, besides the missed childhood, included, for a time at least, loss of a relationship with her father.
She sued her father, Wilbur Rimes, and his partner in 2000, charging they cheated her out of $7 million.
In 2001 Rimes settled the suit, mended the fences with her father, married Dean Sheremet (one of her backup dancers) and changed her image from that of an ingenue to siren.
"All the downside stuff made me a really strong person who can endure anything," Rimes said. "Now I know what I want and what I don't want."
What she doesn't want any longer is to live in Los Angeles, her home for the past five years.
She and her husband moved from Los Angeles to Nashville a couple of weeks ago.
"I enjoyed it very much in L.A.," Rimes said. "But after we got married I decided to move back to the South. I missed the Southern life, and Nashville is a place for my husband and myself to work."
She is putting the finishing touches on a Christmas album, scheduled to be released in the fall.
"It will include eight traditional songs and three originals I have co-written," Rimes said.
She said the Brian Setzer Orchestra performs three songs on the album to give it a swing flavor.
Rimes and her husband are also working on a series of children's books.
The first, "Jag," is scheduled to be released in August.
"My husband and I have a great love for children," she said.
The books, she said, will help children deal with hard times.
Like how to cope with becoming a multi-millionaire recording artist before you're out of your teens.
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