All in the country family

Shane Gammon

Friday, July 25, 1997 | 9:19 a.m.

Hold back the glitter and the wild dancing because these ladies aren't considered a lounge show.

The country-singing mother-daughter duo Sandra Lee and Brittini will be opening for Lonestar Saturday at the Texas Station hotel-casino's South Padre outdoor arena.

"They are compared a lot to the Judds, but their music sounds different," says Lee Millard, husband of Sandra Lee Millard (that's the mom half of the team) and manager of the duo. He adds that a mother-daughter duo is rare and that they are not trying to be The Judds, "but you can't deny that they are mother and daughter."

Sandra Lee Millard, 38, is currently the advertising manager of KWNR ("New Country") 95.5-FM, which is sponsoring Saturday's "listener appreciation concert." After graduating from Chaparral High School in 1977 she attended UNLV with a full scholarship, majoring in theater arts with a minor in music.

After college, she toured with the band Night Flame for 10 years, singing pop music and finding time to raise a daughter. She stopped touring once Brittini was old enough to start singing with her.

"It's really weird because now she goes to Chaparral and she's been in every single thing I've been in and kind of following the same path," Sandra Lee says.

Brittini Black, 17, will start her senior year at Chaparral High School this fall. She's involved in cheerleading, honor choir, all-state choir and has also been named most outstanding musician and most outstanding player in the school band.

"I play everything," Black says. "My dad is a band musician. Whenever I wanted to try an instrument he would bring them home to me."

Black has been singing with her mom since she was 7, but her mom says they weren't able to start their musical partnership at that point because her daughter still had a "kid's voice."

But once Black entered her teenage years, they started performing at coffee shops and Cousin's Cafe, eventually moving on to charity events. This is their first time opening for a band.

"We do all original music," Sandra Lee continued. "And we used to just do acoustic stuff and then we put together a five-piece band." But the duo also performs some re-makes which, says Millard, they do so the audience can relate to something familiar. One of their re-makes is of the Everly Brothers' classic, "Bye, Bye Love."

"Hopefully something will happen by the time I graduate so maybe we can get started on music right away," Black says, "If not, then probably I am planning to go to a music school in Nashville."

Getting a record deal, Sandra Lee says, has "been a lifelong goal" that they are closer to reaching. The duo has already produced some recordings and videos and will soon be selling their music at their concerts, "but without the national producer and the national sound you don't really get a home run," Sandra Lee says.

"I think the whole thing to it is to have Nashville take two girls from this area seriously," she adds, noting that people stereotype an act from Las Vegas as glittery and imitative.

"I was raised in Las Vegas and we were raised listening to country music and people don't realize what a western town Las Vegas is. A lot of people think of Las Vegas as just the strip shows and the lounge shows and they kind of stereotype it and they don't realize that there are people that live here that have ranches and rodeos. There are a lot of cowboys and a lot of country people here."

Adds Lee Millard: "Even if you say you're from Henderson it's better than saying your from Las Vegas."

For Sandra Lee, country music "is in your soul -- it's not where you live. It's got to be something that's in your heart. (It's about) normal people doing normal things, and real heartbreak and it's not glittered up."

Record producers, she says, have told her that Brittini's voice is unique and really works on the radio. Her mom decided that their voices are more magical together than separately.

Three weeks ago, Lee Millard invited Chuck Howard, who has produced with LeAnn Rhines, to their home to listen to the duo. After hearing them sing, he said he would pay to fly them to Nashville and produce a couple of songs to "see if he could hear that magic that he is looking for on tape," Millard says.

Sandra Lee hopes that if they can "really make it," then Nashville might start looking at Las Vegas for more talent.

"Most people in Vegas shows are copying someone else" she says, "but we're trying to be the originator of the music."