Carrie Underwood takes the wheel

Carrie Underwood has brought doughnuts, but nobody's
eating them.
Singer Carrie Underwood moved to Nashville after winning American Idol
in May. Her first album arrives

"I bought these for everybody," says the 22-year-old American Idol
winner from Checotah, Okla., pointing to the box of Krispy Kremes.
"Only two of them are gone, and I ate one of them."


Carrie Underwood is working hard to make good first impressions in
Nashville, where she moved after winning American Idol in May.


She's doing a good job. Country radio stations have taken quickly to
Jesus, Take the Wheel, the first single from her Some Hearts album,
which arrives Tuesday. Jesus, Take the Wheel is inside the top 30 on
Billboard's chart after only two weeks.


Though her American Idol crown immediately made her one of the most
recognizable acts in country music, Underwood still comes across as
wide-eyed, almost shy. In these days of badly behaved celebrities, she
literally recoils at the notion someone might think poorly of her.


"If I called and said, 'I need ice water,' somebody would probably go
get it," she says. "I don't ever do stuff like that."


Not even once, just to see if someone really would do it?


"No. That's weird.


"I want people to say, 'Carrie's easy to work with. She follows
directions and she pays attention.' I want people to say that about me,
so that years down the line, when some girl says, 'I grew up listening
to Carrie Underwood,' somebody can say, 'Oh, she's great.' "


So far, that's what people are saying about her.


"I didn't know what to expect when I met her," says Hillary Lindsey,
the Nashville songwriter who co-wrote Underwood's single and two other
songs on Some Hearts. "I wondered, 'Is she going to be egotistical? I
mean, she won American Idol, for crying out loud. But she was the total
opposite. She's really sweet. There's no pretentiousness at all."


Dann Huff, who produced six tracks on Some Hearts, calls Underwood "a
breath of fresh air."


"She doesn't seem to have an overt need to impress people," Huff says.
"Which is funny, because you see her on TV, and she can really kick in
the afterburners. But usually you equate that with a real neediness for
acceptance. I get the impression that Carrie would be totally fine
sitting in college studying for some history test."


Huff also is impressed by Underwood's voice. "Usually, with that range
and that kind of pipes, emotionally you're limited to blasting. She
also can deal with subtlety. That's what really tweaks my ear."


Underwood hopes to close on a three-bedroom brick and stucco house near
Nashville in two weeks. Until then, she's living out of a hotel. She's
not dating - "There's no other anything," she says, "significant or
otherwise" - because her schedule hasn't left much time to maintain
anything but business relationships.


"I keep talking like, 'I don't have any friends here! I don't know
anybody!' " she says. "But I'm not being a very good friend right now,
either. Every time anybody calls me, I'm on a video shoot or I'm in the
studio.


"But it will all happen in due time. I'll have time for a personal life
later. Right now, it's down to business."