Since late 2005, Kellie has been living life in fast forward. Landing a spot on the 5th season of American Idol, Kellie made it all the way to the top six, a finish good enough to guarantee her a place on the American Idol tour. Her unmistakable talent and star quality also earned her a recording contract in Nashville; she barely had time to catch her breath before she was in her new label chief’s office on Music Row, discussing her future as their new artist, a future that was taking off before she even had her seat belt fastened. She had turned 20 the month before.
She recorded her first album in between dates on the grueling 60-city/90-day American Idol tour. "Every day off I was in the studio," she recalls. "Either they were flying out to meet me somewhere or I was flying back to Nashville to record. I had written five songs for that record - "I Wonder," "My Angel" and "Red High Heels" - but every song I didn’t write, I had to learn in the studio the day we recorded it. I don’t remember anything about recording that album. It was all a blur."
The album Small Town Girl, a reference to Kellie’s upbringing in tiny Albemarle NC, was released on Halloween Day, 2006, and Kellie was off on another whirlwind of radio visits, media appearances and concerts, meeting and rubbing shoulders with her childhood heroes---particularly Dolly Parton; opening Brad Paisley’s tour, where she became fast friends with another country newcomer, Taylor Swift. Her album was certified Gold just three months after its release, and yielded three top 15 singles. She was, without a doubt, one of country music’s It Girls.
Barely one year after she hit the ground running with her debut album, she was given a coveted slot on the national broadcast of the 41st CMA Awards. November 7th, 2007, should have been one of the best nights of her life. Lit by a single spotlight that dramatically revealed her fragile vulnerability, she offered a heart-wrenching performance of "I Wonder," the yearning song she had written about the mother who abandoned her as a child. With tears streaming down her face, Pickler finished the song, seemingly bent double in pain, and the audience rose to its feet in empathy, many in the crowd shedding tears with her.
While the emotional waterloo seemed the obvious consequence of a very public confession of need and longing, there was actually far more turmoil roiling beneath the surface. "That should have been one of the most magical nights of my life, career-wise," she says. "But in my personal life, I was so depressed. I was going through a break-up, which was bad enough. Then, right before I was to go on stage, I got a call from someone back home telling me that my mother had shown up, and was talking to the press. It was all too much, and I just broke down on stage.
"That was such a hard time for me. On the surface, I had everything a girl could ask, everything I dreamed about, but I was miserable and crying myself to sleep. I was so lonely. I wrote an email to [songwriter] Aimee Mayo and at the end I said, ‘I just want someone to love me.’ It was 3 in the morning, but she answered right back. She said, ‘We have to write that!’ Leave it to a songwriter!"
That answer from a true friend in the middle of one of Kellie’s darkest nights began the healing journey. "The best therapy in the world to me is writing. I can’t express what writing has given to me---every sadness, every hurt, every tear, and every happiness. Writing works for me. Even though I broke down singing it that night, ‘I Wonder’ was actually empowering. In that song, I was a little girl who was left, but in the end, was the one who left, I was the one in control and went to Tennessee. It really is about accepting what you can’t change, not blaming yourself for things you had no control over, and overcoming situations to move on. Now, I can sing it from a place of strength, for people in the audience who need to hear that message, who aren’t there yet."
A crucial part in getting where she is now was taking charge of her second album, and she embraced the challenge wholeheartedly. "The first year after my record came out was a crash course in the music business. I was barely 20 years old, and I had to learn how to basically be the CEO of a company, the Kellie Pickler Company. I had no training for anything like that. I had never been anywhere and wasn’t exposed to anything outside of Albemarle. When most girls my age are picking what classes they’ll take and what sorority to join, I was trying to decide on a manager, a lawyer, a business manager, hire a band, record an album, sing in front of 50,000 people, and sell enough records to keep all that going and pay all those people who rely on you. I know from some media I did that people may have thought of me as ditzy or not very bright. But you can’t survive in this business and not be knowledgeable, or you won’t be in this business very long.
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