She may be trailing 14-year-old LeAnn Rimes in the country music race, but Nashville's Deana Carter wouldn't switch places with the teenage sensation for anything.

Carter's two-million-selling debut, Did I Shave My Legs For This?, is currently the No. 3 country album on the Billboard charts, behind Rimes' two albums, Unchained Melody: The Early Years and Blue, which hold down the No. 1 and 2 spots, respectively.

"I say thank God it's happening now 'cause your level of maturity helps a little bit," said Carter, 31, on the phone from Chicago prior to two back-to-back shows on Saturday night at Massey Hall.

"I always knew in my gut that it was what I needed to do. It took a lot of searching and living life to figure all that out and that's where the songs come from. I'm so glad. I am a real person.

"I'm just like everybody else, because I've experienced everything that everybody else goes through, for the most part. It's not like I've been some sheltered weirdo."

Which is not to say that Carter, whose failed attempt at age 17 to get into the record business led her to study rehabilitation therapy, thinks any less of Rimes.

"She's an amazing young person. I'm pulling for her, you know. It's just I hope they don't make bad business choices 'cause I think she could be around for a long time."

And so, hopefully, will Carter, who is co-headlining her Canadian tour with fellow country music-maker John Berry.

She just attended her first Grammy Awards, where she was up for best female country peformance for Strawberry Wine, also a No. 1 country hit in Canada.

"It was amazing. It was like prom night. It was a lot of fun. And Chris, my husband, and I got to meet Bruce Springsteen and his wife and that was like a big, fat dream come true."

But as the daughter of Fred Carter Jr., one of Nashville's most respected session musicians, it seems almost strange she would be starstruck. Especially considering the people who sat at the family's dinner table over the years.

"The people close to my parents ate with us or stayed with us," she remembers. "Levon Helm and Kris Kristofferson, John Anderson, Gordon Lightfoot, there were quite a few people I remember coming and spending time. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel."

And there is one Canadian-based legend in particular that Carter remembers.

"My dad used to play with Ronnie Hawkins years ago and they tore Toronto to pieces, from what I understand. They terrorized Toronto. My little brother plays in the band with me, so we look forward to playing there. It's kind of like a changing of the guard."