Showbiz Today Star of Tomorrow

Jamie O'Neal: Country dreams come true

By Lori Blackman
Showbiz Today Reports

Jamie O'Neal says it is a dream come true to have two No. 1 singles on the country charts

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Country artist Jamie O'Neal is 32 years old, but she's no Jamie-come-lately. The Australian-born singer has been performing live since she was 8.

But it did take O'Neal a while to get on the charts. She worked as a demo singer and songwriter in and around Nashville, Tennessee, writing songs for LeAnn Rimes and Tammy Cochrane.

Then, she went out on her own last year and released "Shiver," her debut album. It has produced two No. 1 country singles, including "There Is No Arizona." O'Neal is now up for two American Country Music Awards.

Lori Blackman talked with this Star of Tomorrow about her climb to fame, growing up in Australia, and the "gift of music."

CNN: Does this feel a little bit like a dream come true for you, to have two No. 1 singles on the country charts from your first album?

Jamie O'Neal: It sounds really good when you say it like that. It really is a dream come true, yeah. I've been working since I was 8 and it's just exactly what I want to do.

O'Neal hopes for more fans who can relate to her songs

The first single, "There Is No Arizona," when it went to No. 1, took a long time to get there. I mean, it came out at the end of July last year and it went to No. 1 in February, so that's a long time to be climbing the charts very slowly. When it got near Christmas, it was almost top 10, (so) right before Christmas, I said, "If it goes to top 10 that's the best Christmas present." Then it went to 10 and it stayed there because there is a (chart) freeze over Christmas, and then it kept climbing after Christmas and I was like, "No way, this is amazing!"

CNN: Your recent single is "When I Think About Angels." What's that about?

O'Neal: Well, it is actually dedicated to my dogs, ... my one dog that I lost and my new dog that my husband bought for me. We nicknamed him "the Angel," (and the song is) dedicated to him. He kind of brought me through a really hard time -- losing my other dog I brought over from Australia. I was really close to him. ... It's like losing a child and that's how I felt, and so that song really means a lot to me in that way.

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CNN: You came in to audition for a record deal and you thought you had bombed. Then you got a call the next day to be signed up. Were you surprised?

O'Neal: Yeah, I had four songs to do and of course I was saving the best for the last. I was going to warm up with the first song because the last song had really high notes and I had saved that for the end.

He stopped me after two and said, "Come in." He tapped on the glass. I was in the studio. And he said, "I've heard enough," and I thought, "Oh, I'm not what he's looking for." I was like, "If you could just hear the end you'd like it. Let me just try more, let me just try harder."

And then when my publisher told me I had been offered a record deal, I really didn't believe it.

CNN: What are you hoping for now?

O'Neal: A wider audience ... more fans, more people to know who I am and like the music and (are) able to relate to what I am singing about. ... I've been getting some fan mail, and that just means the world to me as an artist and as a songwriter, that people can relate to what I am singing about.

CNN: How important is if for audiences to relate to what the song is about?

O'Neal: I think it is probably the most important thing. It is the biggest compliment you can get as a writer when someone actually writes to you and says, "I know exactly how you felt, I went through that same thing."

CNN: You wrote nine of the 13 songs on this album. What do you write about?

O'Neal: I had just met my husband and we were falling in love and just got engaged and everything, so a lot of my album reflects that. "Shiver" is a song I wrote about him. And he sings on this album too, and he plays in my band as well. ... So that's really great that we can be together all the time.

CNN: You were born in Australia, into a performing family and took to the stage at 8. That's pretty young.

O'Neal: I know. Well, my parents were performers and my sister and I were on the road with them. My little sister tells me -- I don't even remember it this way -- but she said that we said that we were bored waiting in the hotel room for them to get back from the gig. And so if we were on the road, we wanted to sing, too.

So Dad kind of thought, "We'll put them onstage every once and a while and see how they like it." But once we started singing, we didn't want to stop, so we became a permanent part of the act.

CNN: You sing the song "All By Myself" in "Bridget Jones's Diary." Is it true that you recorded that song in two days?

O'Neal: Yeah. ... It happened very quickly, bada-bing, bada- boom. I was in the studio trying to sing this song, this really really high song. But it's just such a great song to sing.

You know, singing, to me, is a gift. It's nothing that I went out and studied for years, like a doctor or a lawyer would study for years. I feel like singers are very lucky because they are given the gift and then their gift is what they give back to everybody, you know: the gift of music.