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Shania Twain

The time since the October 1997 release of Shania Twain's Come On Over has been among the most fulfilling of her career. The achievements immediately comprising that chapter in Shania's work were staggering: She won two Grammy Awards for Come On Over 's smash single "You're Still The One." The album was certified nine times Platinum, with over nine million CDs sold (and counting). Her first ever World Tour, one of the biggest successes of 1998/99, sold over one million tickets, but it's with a great deal of hard work and faith that led to Shania's emergence as one of the most prominent forces in music today.

Shania has written most of her songs either on her own or with her husband and producer, Robert John "Mutt" Lange. "I love to write stories," says Shania Twain, "Song-writing is my favorite part of what I do. I like to give every song its own personality and attitude and to sing each one in its style."

For her achievements around the release of "The Woman In Me", previously, Shania earned Billboard honors as 1996's #1 Top Country Album Artist. Her 1996 Grammy award for Best Country Album was echoed by the Academy of Country Music and her native Canadian Country Music Awards as Album of the Year, and she was variously named Favorite New Country Artist or Favorite Female Country Artist by the American Music Awards, Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, Canada's JUNO Awards, World Music Awards, and so on. Her videos earned similar awards from CMT (Country Music Television, US and European outlets), ABC Radio Networks and others. One of the most telegenically accessible figures on the planet, her promo video clips were compiled on The Complete Woman In Me Video Collection. The honors for Come On Over were equally impressive.

Shania's appeal is beyond question. She was the subject of the a VHI Behind The Music special, which became the channel's highest rated produced program. VHI Divas Live, which also featured Shania, was the network's highest rated program ever. At the same time, magazine profiles over the past few years have included covers of Rolling Stone, TV Guide and Cosmopolitan. When Shania appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1998, she became the first country music female in over 18 years to accomplish such a feat. Other coverage included a USA Weekend cover story, and being named one of Entertainment Weekly's 'Entertainers of the Year.' Shania has been the subject of major features in publications as diverse as Newsweek, and the New York Times. Her highly-rated first prime time network television special, 'Shania Twain's Winter Break', which aired on CBS and featured Elton John and the Backstreet Boys, became that week's second highest rated program among the 18 to 39 year old age group.

Shania's ability to connect with her audience is evident throughout her albums, and her fun-loving sense of humor is evident on such titles as "Don't Be Stupid (You Know I Love You)", "That Don't Impress Me Much," "Honey, I'm Home," "Man! I Feel Like A Woman," and the house-shakin' "Rock This Country." She also draws serious attention to herself as one of today's strongest ballad writers and singers in "From This Moment On," "You're Still The One", "When", "I Won't Leave You Lonely" and "You've Got A Way."

Shania's story may well be the great American dream, that is, the great North American dream since Shania was born in Canada on August 28, 1965, the second oldest of five siblings. Shania was raised in Timmins, Ontario (about 500 miles due north of Toronto), where Shania's stepfather, an Ojibway Indian and mother had both been raised. It was a proud but, at times, impoverished existence. There may have been a struggle to keep enough food in the cupboards but there was always an abundance of music in the household.

Shania often grabbed a guitar and retreated to the solitude of her bedroom, singing and writing until her fingers ached. "But I loved it! I grew up listening to Waylon, Willie, Dolly, Tammy, all of them," she recalls. "But we also listened to the Mamas and the Papas, the Carpenters, the Supremes, and Stevie Wonder. The many different styles of music I was exposed to as a child not only influenced my vocal style but, even more so, my writing style." Mom noticed her daughter's talents, and Shania was soon being shuffled to radio and TV studios, community centers, senior citizen homes, "everywhere they could get me booked."

Part of the legend has eight year-old Shania being dragged out of bed at midnight, to sing with the house band at a local club after the nightly liquor curfew went into effect. Later, she spent her summers working with her father as a foreman of a dozen-man reforestation crew in the Canadian bush, where she learned to wield an axe. In the winter season, she would sing in clubs and do as many television and radio performances as often as her schooling would allow. At age 21, Shania lost her parents to an automobile accident. She then took on the task of handling her parents' affairs as executor, and the responsibility of bringing her three younger siblings to live with her. She managed to keep the household going with a job at Ontario's Deerhurst Resort, which not only provided for her new family responsibilities but also gave her an education in every aspect of theatrical performance, from musical comedy to Andrew Lloyd Webber to Gershwin, an experience quite different from the bar gigs she grew up doing. After a couple of years the kids came into their own, lightening the load of her responsibilities. It was 1990, and she was on her own. Shedding her real name, Eilleen, she adopted the Ojibway name of Shania, meaning "I'm on my way."

Shania's "way" resulted in a demo tape of original music and a road map to Nashville. Although she was signed on the basis of her original material, her self-titled debut album of 1993 featured only one of her songs, the feisty "God Ain't Gonna Getcha For That." It took a phone call from a distant admirer, rock producer Mutt Lange (AC/DC, Cars, Def Leppard, Foreigner, Bryan Adams and many others) for Shania to find a true believer, both in her voice and her original songs.

Shania and Mutt met face to face in 1993, and were wed by December, by which time they'd written half an album's worth of tunes together. As the following year unfolded, they traveled (and wrote) their way across the U.S., Canada, England, Spain, Italy, and the Caribbean. They began to lay down basic tracks for the new album in Nashville, later recording overdubs and mixing it in Quebec. The first results of their labor, "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under" entered the Billboard Country Singles chart in January 1995; and debuted on the Country Albums chart the following month.

The next logical step was launching the first of many massive tours, in which Shania has been able to bring her music to the masses. "When I get out on tour, I'm able to do a full show of original songs that people are familiar with. It's ideal, almost like I couldn't have planned it better, even though I didn't really plan at all. When I perform, I give it all I've got to make it everything the fans have been waiting for."

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