Andrews

April 15, 1999
Web posted at: 11:17 a.m. EDT (1517 GMT)

From Mark Scheerer
CNN Showbiz Today Correspondent

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Fifteen-year-old country crooner Jessica Andrews is riding high with a single off her debut album, "Heart Shaped World" climbing the charts, and a recently completed concert tour with Faith Hill.

But while country music fans may have found the newcomer has an expressive, powerful voice, few know that at her tender age, Andrews has already faced a serious illness.

She grew up in Huntingdon, Tennessee, within a musical family, and was discovered, in storybook fashion, by a Nashville music producer who brought her to the new DreamWorks Nashville label. She says she still doesn't know why luck and a recording contract found her, instead of another member of her extended musical family.

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"I've been given a chance a lot of my relatives would like, but for whatever reason, never had," Andrews says. "I really did go from singing in the shower to, you know, getting on stage and performing in front of people," she adds.

The teen's encounter with serious illness came very early, when she was just 7. "I had a bone growing through my spinal cord and I had to get it removed.

"And in order to remove something like that you have to dig around your spinal cord, which is very dangerous and there was a fifty-fifty chance I'd come out paralyzed. Fortunately, I didn't."

Andrews still suffers from scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that forced her to wear a brace for most of her early years. "I'm very glad to be out of that. It's like a corset," she says, laughing.

Now, the only hint of a complaint from the successful young singer comes after the frequent comparisons between her and country music's other talented teen, Leann Rimes.

"A lot of people, before they hear me, say, 'Wow you're gonna be the next Leann Rimes.'" But, Andrews is quick to add, "When you hear my album, it's really different, really different from her music, her style, her voice, everything."

Andrews also recently tried her hand at acting on the NBC soap opera "Another World." Show producers directed her to play herself, an up-and-coming country artist who steals the show.