Country music siren Miranda Lambert isn’t just another boxed and packaged Nashville commodity. The twenty-one year old Lindale, Texas native doesn’t just sing the songs someone else writes; she wrote or co-wrote all but one of the songs on Kerosene, her debut album. The depth and maturity of her writing and singing seems born of hard times and heartache.
   Indeed much of the inspiration for Miranda’s songwriting is derived from the life tragedies she witnessed in her parent’s work as licensed private investigators.
    “I’ve seen a lot of heartbreak and sadness because of my parent’s work,” says Lambert. “I grew up hearing the dinner conversations about cheating and broken homes.” In addition to her second-hand experience, Miranda’s songs also embody her own lively Texas personality. “If you make me mad,” she told Billboard magazine, “you’re definitely going to hear about it in my songs.”
   Lambert’s adept singing abilities match her songwriting skills. Her rich, distinctive voice has earned her comparisons to Dolly Parton, Natalie Maines and Suzy Bogguss. Yet her Texas twang is solely hers. “There are a million blond chicks who can sing,” says Lambert. “I’ve always wanted to be different.”
   Lambert first enamored national audiences in 2003 as a contestant on Nashville Star. Buddy Jewel eventually won out during that inaugural season and Lambert finished as second runner-up. “I was hoping not to win,” Miranda told The Tennesseean in April. “The winner had to go in right after the contest and make a record in a couple of weeks and I wasn’t ready.”
   After her stint on Nashville Star, Lambert met with officials from Sony Records, the parent company of Lambert’s label Epic Records. In true-to-her-roots Texas fashion Lambert laid it all out on the table. “I’m from Texas,” she says she told them; “I write my own stuff. I will never dance around on stage in a halter-top. I will always play my guitar… if I can’t make a record that reflects me honestly, I’d rather just go home and play in Texas like I was.”
   Label chief John Grady saw the wisdom in letting Miranda have her way. The resulting album was Kerosene.
   With Kerosene, Miranda accomplished what only five other country artists have ever done – she earned a number one country chart debut on her very first album. Only Wynnona (‘92), Billy Ray Cyrus (‘92), LeAnn Rimes (‘96), Buddy Jewel (‘03), and Gretchen Wilson (‘04) have accomplished that feat.
   The album’s first single, “Me and Charlie Talking,” became a top twenty-five radio hit and the subsequent release, “Bring Me Down,” is currently climbing the charts.
   Texans are generally noted as forthright and bold – both qualities Miranda has in her personality. An April 18 People magazine article relates a story of how after one particular show, an audience member insulted her mother. Lambert, being a good ole Southern lady, took it personally. “I punched him right in the stomach,” she says, laughing. “I don’t put up with much.”
   The Lone Star belle is more prone to show her better side. “I’m just a good ole Texas girl,” she says. “I was raised to hug everybody and love everybody.”When she’s off the road and not making music, Miranda is the embodiment of the perfect woman for many a corn-fed country boy: she hunts. Once when her manager called while she was hunting hogs, she told him she’d have to call him back as he was “interrupting” her hunting time.