Listen To Carrie Underwood

Lauren Alaina

Soon after, she made her much-anticipated Opry debut to sing her debut hit, "Like My Mother Does." "I dreamed since I was a kid of being on that stage because my daddy grew up playing the banjo and he’s really good at it," she says. "He always wanted me to perform at the Grand Ole Opry because he never got the chance. When I was little, he told me he wanted me to perform there and it would be as good as him getting to, and he was there. I need someone to pinch me because it was just the way it was supposed to be."

But she barely had time to reflect on her accomplishment because the achievements are coming fast and furious. Last summer, she was a cheerleader and pizza parlor employee. This summer, she signed a record deal with Mercury Nashville/19 Recordings/Interscope and joined Martina McBride in a duet of "Anyway" at LP Field during CMA Music Fest. She’s started recording her debut album and is now on the American Idols Live tour, which travels across the nation through September.

Although the venues and audience sizes have drastically changed in the last year, she’s still doing what she’s always done--singing for anyone who would listen whenever she got the chance.

She was born in Chattanooga, Tenn., and raised in nearby Rossville, Ga., by her father, J.J., a chemical technician, and mother, Kristy, a transcriptionist. It was a musical household because her mother and older brother, Tyler, sang and her father is a multi-instrumentalist. Her parents played country and rock music in the house and Lauren found that she favored music – adult songs, not those made for children -- to television and was especially drawn to Shania Twain, Aerosmith and the Dixie Chicks.