LeAnn Rimes looks back at ‘Blue’ and life as a child country star: “I really respect myself as a kid”

It’s been 25 years since LeAnn Rimes released her career-making debut album, Blue, when she was just 13 years old. Now, in a new conversation with Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music Hits, LeAnn says she stands behind who she was as an artist back then.

“When I was younger, people would say, ‘Oh, you’re really going to be able to sing amazing when you get older, because you’ll have this life experience to connect with it,’” she remembers, adding that the sentiment offended her at the time.

Now, she says, she can understand what they meant, but she’s still proud of the way she tapped into adult emotions as a young performer.

“I was able to really dig into emotion I didn’t know where to place as a kid, and act in a lot of ways,” LeAnn explains. “Then, as I grew, there was real truth to the power behind what I was singing.”

LeAnn goes on to say that only recently has she been able to fully appreciate who she was as a young artist.

“I really respect myself as a kid…I don’t think I’ve had the respect I have for her now until recently,” the singer reveals. “Because I was just in survival mode for 25 years and now being out of survival mode and being able to reflect…I’m kind of always looking to reconnect with what it was about her that was so clear and so powerful.”

Blue won LeAnn two Grammy Awards, including Best Female Country Performance for the title track, her version of the 1958 Bill Mack song “Blue.”