Entertainment, Music - Air Force Times

Women a force of nature at country music awards

Taylor Swift grew up comfortably with parents ready to dote on her.

Kellie Pickler grew up hectically with no parent nearby.

They were opposites who reached the same spot: Both are promising singer-songwriters. At the Academy of Country Music awards they join Miranda Lambert as nominees for top new female vocalist.

“It’s something I’ve always dreamed about,” Pickler says.

Well, one of the things. Back home in North Carolina she had lots of time to dream.

“I always wanted to be on the ‘Price is Right,”’ Pickler says. “I thought I’d do great.”

Instead, she was diverted to “American Idol” and then to a record deal. She arrives at a time when the women of country need fresh inroads.

Reba McEntire is hosting the show. Carrie Underwood, however, is the only woman nominated for best album (“Some Hearts”), single and video (both for “Before He Cheats”).

The encouraging sign is that those three new-female-vocal nominees are promising singer-songwriters.

“I had a notebook when I was in fourth grade,” says Swift, 17. “I started writing down songs.”

Like her grandmother (a star in Puerto Rico), Swift loved to sing. She did karaoke contests at 10, sang the national anthem before a Philadelphia 76ers game at 11, obsessed over guitar at 12.

All of that was on a farm near Wyomissing, a town of 8,800 near Reading, Pa.

“It was such an ideal place to grow up,” Swift says. “There is no comparison to having such wide-open spaces.”

But it had limits. When she was 13 her family moved near Nashville to help her career.

“There was a culture shock but ... I fit in school a lot better,” Swift says. “Up in Pennsylvania, people would say, ‘You do what?!?’ “

In Tennessee, kids understood the music business. After school, Swift had songwriting sessions with pros. “I would come with 10 or 15 ideas.”

So far, two of her songs - “Tim McGraw” and “Teardrops on My Guitar” - have had plenty of radio play.

Both bring a gentle feeling of lost love. By comparison, Pickler’s songs — like her life — have moments of high drama.

Pickler was 2 when her mother left. Her father had alcohol and drug problems so she lived with his parents near Albemarle, N.C.

“I was very fortunate to have my grandmother be such a huge part of my life,” she says. “I wouldn’t have had any opportunities without her.”

Pickler recalls getting off the school bus each day and running to her grandmother on the porch. “It was an old sliding kind of swing,” she says. “She had a children’s book there and she would read to me.”

And Pickler would sing to her - or without her. “I would sit in the sandbox and sing - just singing to the sand.”

This was her nature. She liked attention and so was involved in gymnastics, dance, cheerleading, singing and more.

“I’ve always been the most obnoxious person in the group,” Pickler says. “I’d go up to anyone and start talking.”

Her one shy moment came during the “American Idol” tryouts in Greensboro, N.C. Pickler wanted to quit but her maternal grandfather insisted she stay.

He was “the only one on that side of the family who cared.” She says she hasn’t seen her mother in years.

She saw her dad last year after he finished a prison term for aggravated assault. “It was kind of hard. We’re two different people now.”

Mostly, she can put her emotions into songs. “I Wonder” is about a motherless girl, “My Angel” about a loving grandmother, “Red High Heels” about booming ahead.

These are country songs, from a country life, ready for Nashville and beyond.