NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Amanda Wilkinson's eyes light up as she talks about the days when her family got their dinner from a food bank and their clothing from thrift shops.
"I STILL love shopping at thrift shops and finding cool stuff for next to nothing," says the 17-year-old lead singer of country music trio The Wilkinsons. Pipes in younger brother Tyler with the same enthusiasm: "Other kids would ask, 'Where did you get those clothes, we've never seen anything like that before!'"Their father, Steve, 43, looks on proudly. He figures a family that endured poverty with such elan will navigate country music stardom just fine. Steve is at the helm of the family trio, which hit it big last year with a No. 1 single, "26 Cents," and the debut album "Nothing But Love."
They were the only new act to crack a tough country market in 1998 and are a Grammy nominee for country performance by a duo or group with vocal for "26 Cents." They are the sleeper in a category flush with critical favorites BR5-49 and The Mavericks, and big sellers the Dixie Chicks and Alabama.
Steve hopes The Wilkinsons' success will serve as an inspiration.
"There are so many forces that pull families apart these days, and it's getting tougher and tougher to stay together," he says. "And I just thought, it's all right, if we can do this as a family, and people get from that that families aren't dead."
There's no denying this family has come a long way.
Wednesday night's Grammy Awards show at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles is a marked contrast from the family's years of poverty back home in Belleville, Ontario, while they struggled to make it in the music business.
Family acts dot the country music landscape, dating back to The Carter Family of the 1920s and '30s. Since then, familial-harmony acts like The Everly Brothers, The Louvin Brothers and The Judds have regularly come along.
Instead of harmonies, The Wilkinsons' debut album is a showcase for Amanda's vocals. Tyler, 14, sings lead on three songs, one -- "Don't I Have a Heart" -- aimed squarely at the teeny-boppers.
Their father's main contribution is as co-writer of seven of 11 songs on "Nothing But Love," including the hits "Fly" and "26 Cents."
It's a debut album that suggests possibilities instead of limitations. Tyler and Amanda display charisma and easy versatility handling material geared toward their own age group and more mature songs as well. And Steve Wilkinson's singing lead on "One Faithful Heart" suggests he, too, has potential as a folk balladeer in the James Taylor tradition.
The glue that holds it all together is family.
"26 Cents" tells the story of an 18-year-old girl leaving her home town to strike out on her own, carrying a note from her mother taped to a quarter and a penny: "Here's a penny for your thoughts, a quarter for the call, and all of your momma's love," goes the chorus of the song.
During an interview at their manager's office, Amanda and Tyler are refreshingly free of child star pretenses. They aren't dressed or trying to act like adults and seem to be genuinely affectionate toward each other and their father.
They reveal they've recently been punished for the high crime of staying too late after a church hay ride.
"We broke curfew big-time," Amanda said.
The family includes two nonperformers: wife-mother Christine and younger sister Kiaya, 9. Their common goal of a musical career helped them become close-knit, they say.
Even as he struggled to feed and shelter his family, Steve says he sought only temporary jobs, so he could keep his schedule open for songwriting. He had the full support of Amanda and Tyler, who both took up the family vocation.
"I was doing carpentry work," Steve said. "I was building decks and fences and framing houses. And when the carpentry work dried up in the winter time, I would clean.
"I would clean restaurants every morning at 5 a.m. for three hours. . . . Anything I could do to pay the bills rather than seek out a full-time 40 hour a week job -- what my older brother would call 'a normal job.' "
The family act worked its way up from clubs to opening for Canadian country music singers and Americans who passed through Canada. Money was still tight, though.
Christmas 1996 was a crisis point. Steve announced he'd had enough and was going to stop pursuing music and look for a steady job. Instead, the family persuaded him to move to Nashville and go for broke.
"Our life would have been filled with 'What Ifs?' " Tyler said. Steve said his children saved him from "the biggest tragedy in life."
"Being poor isn't a tragedy," he said. "And failing at something is not a tragedy. But not trying, that's a tragedy."
With money raised by selling their home and a stipend from a Canadian song publisher, the family moved to Nashville in September 1997. They had enough money to last 2 1/2 years but scored a record deal with Giant and a hit with "26 Cents" in 1998.
Amanda and Tyler have separate fan bases -- teenage girls write to Tyler, while Amanda appeals to young men. But their favorite fans -- of course -- are families.