Old articles

[Jud]

Shania Twain - Living the Life of a Country Song


Nashville is noted for hard-luck stories that turn into sequined successes, seemingly overnight. But Shania Twain, a Canadian and part-Ojibway Indian who raised her three younger siblings after their parents died, holds bragging rights to the toughest tale. A gifted songwriter who learned her craft in Canada's Living the life of a country song honky-tonks, Twain, 30, broke onto country playlists in January with "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?" No sooner had that song reached No. 1 than Twain scored again with "Any Man of Mine" and the title tune to her now 3-million-selling album, The Woman in Me, making many wonder how such full-blown talent had been nurtured without being noticed first on Nashville's Music Row.

The answer could be turned into a classic down-and-out ballad. Born in poverty to an Irish mother and Ojibway father, Shania--the name means "On My Way" in Ojibwan--learned to hunt, trap and pick guitar while growing up .She sang in bars as a teen to earn money for her family in Timmins, an Ontario mining town. After her parents were killed in a 1987 car accident, Shania, then 22, cared for her brothers and sister .She headed to Nashville only after they were grown.

Twain added another colorful twist to her résumé two years ago when she met British album producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange. His platinum touch has helped albums for AC/DC, Def Leppard and Michael Bolton, among others, sell more than 100 million copies. Twain's debut album caught Lange's ear, and the two began a transoceanic collaboration that led to marriage in 1993--and to The Woman in Me. For Twain, who capped her year with a performance for the First Couple at Ford's Theatre in Washington on Nov. 12, success means having little time to share with her husband at their lavish new 3,000-acre estate in the Adirondacks. "I've been so busy," she says with a weary smile, "we usually pass each other at airports."
People Weekly, Jan/1996

(from the Shania Filez that unfortunatelly not existing anymore)

[cbspock]

Interesting article, have any other old ones?


success means having little time to share with her husband at their lavish new 3,000-acre estate in the Adirondacks. "I've been so busy," she says with a weary smile, "we usually pass each other at airports."

I bet she is happy they don't do that anymore.


-Chris

[Jud]

Shania Twain rises from poverty and the loss of her parents to country music stardom

By Louise Lague, Lisa Kay Greissinger,
At the moment, Shania Twain is reveling in her newfound status as the hottest young female star in country music. Clad in jeans and sneakers, she surveys her estate in Upstate New York, which includes part of Cat Mountain, stables, a tennis court and--still under construction--a recording studio and a 12,000-square-foot house built in a style she calls "Mediterranean-meets-Adirondacks." Twain owns it all with her husband, music producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange. "Our goal," she says, "is to walk every inch of this property." It won't be a mere stroll: the estate covers 20 square miles.
This kind of splendor is brand-new to Twain, 29, who grew up in such poverty in Canada that she often went without lunch at school. She remembers pretending to teachers that she wasn't hungry, for fear that welfare agencies might split up her family. "My parents were loving," she says. "We just didn't have any money."
Now Shania is definitely living up to her name, which means "on her way" in Ojibway. Her second album, The Woman in Me, find the feisty single "Any Man of Mine" both hit No. I on the country charts. Critics too have swooned over Twain's talents as a songwriter--"Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?" is a title-of-the-year contender--and a singer whose "throaty intimacy," TIME enthused, wins her "a free pass into the pantheon of thrushes."
Though she's been singing since she first picked up a guitar at the age of 8, what changed Twain's life was joining forces with Lange, 46, who orchestrated Def Leppard's multiplatinum rise to stardom in the 1980s before switching over--selling out, some rock purists would say--to work with mellower artists like Bryan Adams and Michael Bolton. Winner of a 1992 songwriting Grammy, Lange is obsessively reclusive, refusing to be interviewed or photographed, though a peek at Shania's wedding photos shows him to be a tall blond hunk. "Mutt doesn't want to be the star," explains Twain. "He wants people to know him through his music."
Even Twain didn't lay eyes on Mutt for the first three months of their relationship. In 1993, upon hearing Shonia Twain, her debut album, which had been released to lukewarm reviews in 1991, Mutt called her from London, where he was working, and they began talking and playing music to each other almost daily over the phone. (Mutt picked up the bill.) At first Shania thought they wouldn't get romantically involved, but weeks after they finally met in Nashville in June 1993, she says, "we knew we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives." They wed six months later in Huntsville,Ont., then continued working on Twain's album, cowriting 10 of the album's 12 songs.
For Twain, music has always been a means of escape. She grew up near the Temagami Reserve near Timmins, Ont.; her father, Jerry, an Ojibway, did odd jobs, while her Irish-Canadian mother, Sharon, often suffered bouts of debilitating depression. "I ironed Dad's clothes and made porridge in the morning for the kids," recalls Twain. To retreat, she sang and "played in my room, like a hermit" until her parents pushed her, at 8, to perform. Since she was too young to play in clubs while liquor was being served, "they would wake me at 1 a.m. to sing" after last call. Stardom was "their dream," she says. "I dreamed about being a kid."
When Twain was 22, both parents were killed in an auto accident, and she had to work to support three teenage siblings. (Her older sister Jill had left home 10 years earlier.) "It was like being thrown into the deep end of a pool and just having to swim," she says. Twain got a job singing at the upscale Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, where she rented a tiny house for her family and did the laundry in a stream when the well went dry. Recalls her youngest brother, Mark, now 22: "She was really strict with us. She was scared." When Mark moved out four years later, Shania says, "I felt it was time to go for something." With the help of her friend and agent Mary Bailey, Twain earned a contract to record Shania Twain--the album, as she puts it, that "got me to Mutt."
Even now, as she oversees completion of her dream retreat, Twain says her happiness is tempered by painful past memories. One song on her album, "God Bless the Child," an aching lullaby, was written after her parents' tragic accident: "I felt totally lost, and that song was my crying out. I sang it until I met Mutt." Now, she says, "I don't feel lost anymore."
(People Magazine, September 4, 1995)

[Jud]

by Chet Flippo

It's not the typical country music success story: struggling Canadian singer works one-nighters across Canada for years, finally nets a U.S. record deal, chooses a rock producer (as a producer and husband), quits touring, and goes triple platinum with her second album.
Not your everyday scenario, but then she is not your everyday artist. Shania Twain (her father, an Ojibway Indian, gave her the tribal name "shu-Nye-uh," meaning "I'm on my way") was born in Windsor, Ontario, and raised in the northern provincial town of Timmins. Her parents were avid country fans and musicians who performed locally. By the time Twain was 8, they would take her along to sing with them in clubs, on the radio, and in community centers.
When Twain was 21, her parents were killed in a car accident. Taking responsibility of her younger brothers and sister, she took a job singing--show tunes, country, everything--at a local resort, bought a little house and truck, and raised her siblings.
When they were grown, she says she wondered what to do with her new-found freedom. She put together a demo tape, but was still hesitant to head for Nashville. Her friend and manager, Mary Bailey, called Nashville music lawyer Dick Frank, who came to see her perform. Excited, he called Mercury producer Norm Wilson. Twain was quickly on her way
After a so-so performance by her self-titled debut (although she was named CMT Europe's rising star of the year), Twain got a call out of the blue from a new fan, Robert John "Mutt" Lange. They began an intense phone relationship, playing music for each other. She didn't know he was a famous producer, thinking he was a fan who was a gifted songwriter. He went to meet Twain at the 1993 Fan Fair in Nashville. They fell in love at first sight.
And, musically, too, it seemed a perfect match. They wrote all of her next album, "Any Man Of Mine," and the difference from the first album was immediately apparent. And you know the rest.

(Billboard Magazine, issue date: 9th of December 1995)

I have more from the "flipper"

[STFanForever]

Originally posted by Jud
"I felt totally lost, and that song was my crying out. I sang it until I met Mutt." Now, she says, "I don't feel lost anymore."


I love that! You can really see how much Mutt means to her. :BigLove

[cbspock]

"they would wake me at 1 a.m. to sing" after last call. Stardom was "their dream," she says. "I dreamed about being a kid."


This is someting she has been saying more often these days.



-Chris

[Steve F]

What nice stories of Shania past. A lot of it I've heard and read before, but it is always nice to read it again. Thanks.:)

Steve