LeAnn Rimes is an American country and pop singer-songwriter from Jackson, Mississippi. Born Margaret LeAnn Rimes in 1982, she emerges in the 1990s as a teenage artist, with her first single, “Blue,” appearing when she is thirteen.

Career

Rimes becomes widely known through crossover country and pop material. Her best-known song is “How Do I Live,” which becomes one of the most successful songs in American chart history and spends 69 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. Although Trisha Yearwood’s version of the song wins a Grammy in 1998, Rimes’s recording outsells it by millions of copies.

Other well-known songs include “Can’t Fight the Moonlight,” “You’re the Right Kind of Wrong,” from the film Coyote Ugly, and “I Need You,” which is associated with American Idol.

Her album This Woman is released in 2005 and includes singles such as “Nothin’ ’Bout Love Makes Sense,” “Probably Wouldn’t Be This Way,” and “Something’s Gotta Give.” Rimes co-writes four songs on the album: “Something’s Gotta Give,” “I Got It Bad,” “When This Woman Loves a Man,” and “Afraid to Fall.” “I Got It Bad” is co-written with her husband, Dean Sheremet. The album becomes her best-selling release since her 1999 self-titled album.

In 2006 she releases Whatever We Wanna in Europe. The album has a more pop-oriented sound, and its first single is “And It Feels Like.”

Other work and performances

Rimes sings “Light the Fire Within” for the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. She also performs the national anthem before the Rose Bowl championship game in Pasadena in 2006.

She is selected in 2005 to host the USA Network reality series Nashville Star for one season, and she also records “Remember When” for Disneyland’s 50th anniversary celebration. In 2005 she gives a concert on Larry King Live as a benefit for people affected by Hurricane Katrina. After “What I Cannot Change” is remixed, she becomes the first country crossover artist to top the Billboard Club Play chart.

Awards

Rimes wins an American Music Award, two Grammy Awards, three Academy of Country Music Awards, and four Billboard Music Awards.