Deana Carter’s Sassy 1995 Debut Album Was More of a Technical Feat Than Its Title Suggested

The title of a debut album is an artist’s opportunity to make a big impact in a small way, and the one Deana Carter chose in 1995 certainly made a strong impression. Although this album contained sentimental classics like “Strawberry Wine” and “We Danced Anyway”, Carter and her production team opted to use the album’s sixth track, “Did I Shave My Legs for This?” as the title.

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The quippy song title was an attention-grabbing inside joke between Carter and anyone who has engaged in lengthy, often uncomfortable primping rituals for a romantic night out only to be stuck smooth, perfumed, and disappointed. “Did I Shave My Legs for This?” was sassy and feminine, which was fun.

But the title also gave the album a sort of joke-like quality, which we’d argue did more to detract from its impressive technical feats than it did to highlight them. Are we splitting leg hairs about it? Maybe. Or maybe it’s more appropriate to say we’re trying to give Carter and her crew their well-deserved flowers.

The Technical Feat Behind Deana Carter’s 1995 Debut Album

Deana Carter recorded Did I Shave My Legs For This? at Emerald Sound in Nashville, Tennessee. The Capitol Nashville artist worked with producers Chris Farren, John Guess, and Jimmy Bowen, the last of whom was trying out brand-new technology that hadn’t been used in Music City before. “It was the very first record ever done on ProTools in Nashville ever,” Carter said proudly on an episode of Talking in Circles with Clint Black. “No one had heard of it.”

Carter recalled other engineers and studio personnel “coming around trying to see what Bowen [was] doing.” ProTools is a digital audio workstation, or DAW, that was first released in the late 1980s. These days, ProTools is a common feature in most recording studios. But its novelty in the mid-1990s made it a notable aspect of the making of Carter’s debut album.

Equally noteworthy is the unique relationship Carter had with Bowen. “He was a very well-known, great producer,” Carter told Black. “He’d come to Nashville from LA, and people were pretty skeptical of him initially. But he was my mentor and just took me under his wing. He wanted me to produce my records, which was unheard of for a woman back then. For new artists, especially.”

That Carter’s debut album was hiding such admirable technical feats behind its tongue-in-cheek title is a testament to the importance of never underestimating a woman. She knows more than she would have you think, and her legs are probably smoother than yours.

Photo by Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle