Buena Vista – Twenty minutes before showtime, Carin Mari Lechner and her brothers casually munched on fast food while their father paced nervously.
“I just don’t know how this audience is going to react,” Lee Lechner said, looking over the vast Orpheum ballroom where diners had paid $100 a plate to support renovating the dilapidated concrete building. “Maybe they won’t like our music.”
Four show-stopping songs and two thunderous standing ovations later, he beamed as Carin and her two brothers, Colin and Evan, took their bows before a wildly cheering audience, having completely stolen the show from headliner Michael Martin Murphey.
“I think she’s going to go a long way,” Murphey conceded. “She’s one of the most poised, graceful child performers I’ve ever seen in my life.”
A pixie in an oversized black cowboy hat, Carin Mari looks like a typical freckle-faced, skinny 13-year-old, flashing braces whenever she breaks into one of her frequent heartwarming smiles.
But put her on stage, hand her the guitar that she taught herself to play, drop the microphone stand down low enough for a 5-foot-nothing singer, and she reveals that somewhere inside her resides Patsy Montana, the famed “Cowboy’s Sweetheart” who became the first female western-music superstar in the 1930s.
With a big, sophisticated voice that belies her age and a teen’s sense of fun, Carin stands on the cusp of cowboy-culture stardom, generating accolades and adoration everywhere she goes, including winning the Patsy Montana National Yodeling Championship last year.
“I really love doing this,” she said from the leather couch of the family’s Western-decor living room in a rural subdivision just outside Buena Vista. “It’s so much fun.”
The family kind of fell into music: Older brother Colin, who just turned 16 and is the family jokester, started with piano lessons and singing, then picked up the guitar, and Carin followed suit.
Lee and Nancy Lechner, who home-school their kids, have supported their musical inclinations – Nancy apologized for the “recording studio” in the corner – but refuse to push it.
“They don’t make us sit down and play every day,” Carin said.
“They slapped our wrists and told us, ‘No,”‘ Colin jokingly retorted. “They complained the whole way.”
Along the way, Carin took charge of teaching her younger brother, Evan, how to play the acoustic bass guitar, even though none of the kids reads music very much.
“They have me in the band because they needed me, and Mom couldn’t learn the bass quick enough. And I had to go along (to the shows) anyway,” said Evan, a cherubic 10-year- old who clearly is amused by the celebrity.
The family maintains balance by limiting big performances to about once a month and participating in a raft of other avocations. By 15, Colin had begun taking college courses and is earning a pilot’s license, while Carin is into horses.
“They don’t let it, and we don’t let it, be overwhelming,” Lee said. “It’s not what they’re about. They’re still kids doing all kinds of kid stuff. In my opinion, if this (music) ground to a halt tomorrow, it would be fine as long as they went someplace else. But they really enjoy doing music above all else.”
And oh, the music.
Since they made Murphey’s acquaintance several years ago and were sold on his cowboy sound, Carin Mari and Pony Express have devoted themselves to old-time western music, with its sunset imagery and yodels of delight.
“This just seemed like our best fit,” Carin said. “The thing I like with the western music is just the pretty lyrics.”
Nancy laughed recounting how she had to explain to Carin what “tie one on” meant in one song, and how the youngster at first shied away from performing it, finding it out of character.
Murphey, famed for 1970s hits such as “Wildfire” and a major force in the resurgence of western music, has carefully nurtured Carin, frequently inviting her on stage and even providing her with a smaller custom-made guitar.
“A lot of kids get applause because they’re pretty cute,” he said. “But Carin actually has the poise to entertain people. You’re rooting for her, too, but she puts something into it that makes people enjoy what’s going on. It’s more than just rooting for a little kid.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
