Country fans are going to have to get through at least three nights without LeAnn Rimes. 

The 23-year-old singer was forced to cancel three concerts this week so that she can undergo surgery for a leg infection, her publicist, Diana Baron, said in a statement Monday. Rhimes is expected to need about three or four days to recover.

“It’s a minor surgery, but because of the infection it was urgent that she takes care of it right away,” Baron said. The “How Do I Live” artist had suffered a “tear in the tissue” of one of her legs.

Rimes had to X-out dates in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, and Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada, but she’s expected to play the remaining shows, starting July 19, on her This Woman tour. The album debuted in 2005 at number two on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart and has sold more than 620,000 copies.

In September the Jackson, Mississippi, native performed a Hurricane Katrina benefit concert, saying that the devastation wrought by the natural disaster “hit close to home.” On a happier note, Rimes sang the National Anthem at the Rose Bowl in January when the University of Southern California squared off against, and lost to, the University of Texas.

The two-time Grammy winner has also been exploring the pop side of her personality lately, releasing an album in Europe in June called Whatever We Wanna that features less of a country vibe. The album’s first single, “And It Feels Like,” peaked at number 22 on the UK Singles Chart.

“I was so much America’s sweetheart and this really sweet little girl and people didn’t want to see me grow up,” Rimes told TMZ.com last month. “I think that is the way with any child star and it is so hard to make that transition.”

Rimes was also briefly sidelined last year when she needed dental surgery in March and again in April when she burst a blood vessel in her throat during a coughing fit while she was battling bronchitis. A doctor ordered her not to speak for two weeks, after which she was good to go.

“When your passion’s almost stripped from you, at least for a couple of weeks, you realize how much you do love what you do. I guess I have a little more drive now than I ever have,” Rimes told the Associated Press last year after taking the prescribed time off.