LeAnn Rimes, a star from age 13, was once seen as the future of women in country music. And she probably did pave the way, at least in part for the Carrie Underwoods and Miranda Lamberts of the world. But the sheer power of her versatile voice, twangy and operatic at once, has always set her apart from her peers and successors alike. Since her start in the early 1990s, Rimes has released a steady stream of solid (mostly) country albums and remained a standout singer and musician in the genre, straddling the line between the traditional sounds of country music and some of the 1970s and 1980s rebels who influenced her.
