Shania Twain

Shania Twain

Shania Twain, OC (born Eilleen Regina Edwards, August 28, 1965, Windsor, Ontario) is a Canadian singer and songwriter in the country and pop music genres. Her third album Come on Over is the biggest-selling album of all time by a female musician, and the best-selling album in the history of country music. She is the only female musician to have three albums certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America, and is also the best selling artist in Canada, with all three of her studio albums being certified double diamond by the Canadian Recording Industry Association. Twain has achieved both critical and financial success, having received five Grammy awards, 27 BMI Songwriter awards, and sold over 65 million albums worldwide to date.

Early years

Twain is the daughter of Sharon and Clarence Edwards, who divorced when she was two. Her mother then moved Eilleen and her sister Jill to Timmins, Ontario where her mother met and married Jerry Twain, a native Ojibwa Indian. He then adopted Eilleen, and her name was changed to Eilleen Twain. Because of her connection to her step-father, in the past she has given the impression that her ancestry is Ojibwa Indian, but her actual ethnic makeup is Irish and French.

One of five children, Eilleen Twain had a hard childhood in Timmins, Ontario. Her parents earned little, and there was often a shortage of food and money in the household. In the remote, rugged community she learned to hunt and to chop wood. Twain began to earn money by singing in local clubs and bars from a very young age to support her family. She was singing in bars at the age of just eight to try to make ends meet often earning twenty dollars, between midnight and two in the morning when the bar had closed but the people remained. Although she has expressed a dislike for singing in such a smoky atmosphere at such a young age, Shania believes that this was her performing arts school on the road to becoming a successful singer. At one point, while Jerry was at work, her mother drove the family 425 miles to a Toronto homeless shelter for assistance.

Career as "Eilleen"

At the age of thirteen, Eilleen Twain was invited to perform on CBC television's Tommy Hunter Show. While attending Timmins High and Vocational School in Timmins, Ontario, she was the singer for a local band called "Longshot" which covered Top 40 music.

In 1984, she sang a duet performance on an album by Canadian musician (and present-day CKTB radio personality) Tim Denis.

When her mother and adoptive father died in a car accident on November 1, 1987, the 22-year-old Twain put her musical career on hold and took care of her family. She and her half-brothers Mark and Darryl, and sister Carrie-Ann moved to Huntsville, Ontario, where she supported them by performing at the nearby Deerhurst Resort.

After "Eilleen" becomes "Shania"

1993: Shania Twain

In 1991, she was invited to record a demo tape in Huntsville, Ontario. That led to her first recording contract with entertainment lawyer Richard Frank, whereupon she changed her name to Shania [Sha-nye-uh] an Ojibwa word which means "On my way".

Twain co-wrote only one of the songs ("God Ain't Gonna Getcha for That") on her self-titled debut album. The album's first two singles, "What Made You Say That" and "Dance with the One That Brought You" peaked at #55 on the Hot Country Songs chart, while its third single, "You Lay a Whole Lot of Love on Me", failed to reach the charts. By the end of 1993 the album had sold fewer than 250,000 copies.

That same year, Twain sang harmony vocals on Sammy Kershaw's Haunted Heart album.

1995—1996: The Woman in Me

When rock producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange heard Twain's original songs and singing, he offered to produce her and to write songs with her. After many telephone conversations, they met in person at Nashville's Fan Fair in June 1993. Initially Shania had no idea who he was but expressed a high degree of praise for his demos on the phone. Mutt had frequently mentioned Bryan to her and it was only after some time she realised he was talking about Bryan Adams whom she was a fan of. Twain and Lange became very close within just weeks.

Lange and Twain started working on a second album, and in 1995 The Woman in Me produced her first #1 single, "Any Man of Mine". The album topped the country charts for months and crossed over to mainstream charts, peaking at No. 5. As of 2007 it has sold more than 12 million copies. The Woman in Me won the Grammy Award for Best Country Album as well as the Academy of Country Music award for Album of the Year; the latter group also awarded Twain as Best New Female Vocalist.

1997—2000: Come on Over

In 1997, Twain released her follow-up album, Come on Over. This was the album that would establish Twain as a successful crossover singer. Slowly, the album started racking up sales. It never hit the top spot, but with the multi-chart hit single "You're Still the One", sales skyrocketed. Other songs like "Don't Be Stupid", "Honey, I'm Home", "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!", "That Don't Impress Me Much" and "From This Moment On" joined the 12 songs that eventually saw release as singles.

The album stayed on the charts for the next two years and Come on Over went on to sell 20 million copies in the United States and over 34 million worldwide, making it the biggest-selling album of all time by a female musician, and the biggest-selling country album of all time.

Songs from the album won four Grammy Awards over the next two years, including Best Country Song for Twain and Lange for "You're Still the One" and "Come on Over" and Best Female Country Performance for "You're Still the One" and "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!"

Despite the album's record sales it wasn't able to top the Billboard 200, reaching a peak of #2. In 1999, the "Come on Over" album was remixed for the European market as a pop album with less country instrumentation and actually gave her the big breakthrough in Europe she and her producer husband were looking for. "Come on over" went to No.1 on the UK album charts for 11 weeks. It became the biggest selling album of the year in Great Britain and a bestseller in other big European markets as well, selling more than 1 million copies in both the UK and Germany. The songs that had finally drawn European attention to the album were the pop remixed singles "That Don't Impress Me Much", a No.3 in the UK and Top 10 hit in Germany in the summer of 1999, and "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" which peaked at No.3 in both the UK and France in autumn of that year. Additionally, the album set the record for the longest ever stay in the Top 20 of The US Billboard 200, remaining in the Top 20 for 99 weeks.

Twain's mainstream pop acceptance was further helped by her appearance in the 1998 first edition of the VH1 Divas concert, where she sang alongside Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan and Aretha Franklin and by VH1's 1999 heavily-aired Behind the Music treatment of her, which concentrated on the tragic aspects of her early life as well as her physical attractiveness and Nashville's early resistance to her bared-midriff music videos.

In 1998, Twain launched her first major concert tour, aided by her manager Jon Landau, a veteran of many large-scale tours with Bruce Springsteen. The Come on Over Tour shows were enthusiastically received by audiences around the globe and answered critics who speculated that she could not perform live.

2002—2004: Up!

After a two year break, Twain went back into the studio, along with a management change (Twain dropped Landau and went with QPrime), and recorded her latest CD. Up! was released on November 19, 2002. About a year later, Shania kicked off the Up! Tour in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on September 25, 2003.

Up! was released as a double album, with three different "remix" discs - pop (a red CD), country (a green CD) and Indian (a blue CD). For North American markets, the pop disc was paired with the country disc and in international markets, the pop disc was paired with the Indian/Latin disc. The Indian disc was recorded in Mumbai, India. Up! was given 4 out of 5 stars by Rolling Stone magazine, and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart, selling 874,000 in the first week alone. It charted at the top for five weeks. The success of the albums pop version outide the US was equally amazing when "Up!" reached No.1 in Germany, No.2 in Australia and the Top Five in the UK and France. Especially in Germany it became a real longseller, certified quadruple platinum and stayed in the Top 100 for 1 and a half years.

The first single from the album "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!", became a modest country hit in the US, but only made the Top 40 on the pop charts. It was a much bigger hit on the other side of the atlantic, released in a pop version, the single hit the Top Five in the UK and Australia as well as the Top 15 in Germany and France. The follow-up single "Up!" reached the top 15 in the US country charts but failed to reach the pop top 40.

The second European single became the mid tempo song "Ka-Ching!" (which was never released as a single in North America) with lyrics where Shania was criticising unchecked consumerism. The song eventually became another smash hit in the important European markets, reaching No.1 in Germany and Austria and other European countries, the UK Top 10 and the Top 15 in France.

The third single from the album would be the most successful in the US. The romantic ballad "Forever and for Always" was released as a single in April 2003 and peaked at number four on the country chart and number one on the Adult Contemporary chart, and made as well the Billboard Top 20. Again success was even bigger on the other side of the Atlantic with "Forever and for always" again reaching the Top 10 in both, the UK and Germany. Further singles were "She's Not Just a Pretty Face" a country top-ten hit, while the last US single, "It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing", made the top 20 on both Country and AC.

Due to the enormous European success of Up! and its first 3 singles, 2 more singles were released in the 2nd half of 2003 with up-tempo "Thank you baby" (No.11 in the UK, Top 20 in Germany) and just before Christmas the romantic, acoustic ballad "When You Kiss Me", at least a minor hit in both territories. The title track "Up!" also saw a single release in a limited edition of European countries, such as Germany, in early 2004. To date, Up! has sold 5.5 million copies in the U.S. (Certified by the RIAA as 11 times platinum due to the organization's rules regarding double albums, which are counted as 2 units for certifications).

In 2003, Twain participated in the Dolly Parton tribute album, Just Because I'm a Woman, covering Parton's classic "Coat of Many Colors", as a duet with Alison Krauss & Union Station. The cover peaked at #57 on the Hot Country Songs charts as an album cut. During the Super Bowl XXXVII halftime show Twain performed two songs, "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" and "Up!".

2004—present: Greatest Hits

In 2004, she released the Greatest Hits album, with three new tracks. To date, it has sold over 3.5 million copies in the U.S. The first single, the multi-format duet "Party for Two", made the country top ten with Billy Currington, while the pop version with Sugar Ray lead singer Mark McGrath made top ten in the United Kingdom and Germany. The follow-up singles, "Don't!" and "I Ain't No Quitter" didn't fare as well, the former made top twenty on Adult Contemporary, while the latter didn't gain enough airplay to even crack the Country top 40.

In August 2005, when Twain hit 40, she released the single "Shoes" from the Desperate Housewives soundtrack. It only peaked at #29 on the country chart and therefore, a video, which was scheduled to be created, was cancelled.

Forthcoming album

At the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas on May 16, 2007, Twain said that she was currently writing songs for a new album, and that she is doing a "lot of soul searching" and "indulging in the writing". When asked with new music will come out she said "next year".

Twain featured on the song, "You Needed Me", with Canadian country star Anne Murray on Murray's duets album was released on November 13, 2007 in Canada, and on January 15, 2008 in the US.

In the December 2007 issue of Redbook magazine, Twain is quoted as saying that she is working on a new album for 2008.

Discography

Main article: Shania Twain discography

Personal life

Shania Twain performing during her Up! Tour

Shania married music producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange on December 28, 1993. The couple have a son, Eja D'Angelo (pronounced "Asia") who was born on August 12, 2001. Twain and her family currently reside in Switzerland and New Zealand, where they own several horses. The Langes are vegetarians.

Twain's commercial ventures outside of the music industry include a series of cosmetic ads in 1999 based on "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" for Revlon. In 2005, Twain partnered with COTY for the creation of her fragrance Shania by Stetson.

Despite the Revlon adverts and venture into the perfume market, Shania has confessed that she is uneasy about being a sex symbol and has often felt uncomfortable and stressed during photo shoots where she believes it is music that will last forever, not an image. "When I began singing I wanted to be a backing singer for Dolly Parton or Stevie Wonder, I didn't sign up to be a model or actress and didn't want fame," she has said. "For me it's all about music. Music is when I feel at my best, spiritually, emotionally and physically".

According to Shania one of her beauty tips is applying an ointment that is normally applied to cow's udders during the winter months to protect it from the harsh weather. Shania has confessed to using the covering on her legs and all over her face for clear skin.

In November 2005, Twain appeared on an episode of the reality show The Apprentice. In September 2007, Twain released a second fragrance from COTY called, "Shania Starlight".

Twain is a fan of Australian hard rock band AC/DC, a band for whom her husband produced a number of albums. Twain has performed some of their songs, notably "You Shook Me All Night Long" for her Up! Close and Personal televised concert and is often seen wearing an AC/DC vest or t-shirt.

Awards and honors

Main article: List of Awards and Achievements of Shania Twain

In addition to her various awards for her singles and albums, Twain has received a number of personal honours:

• She was named the 1999 Entertainer of the Year by both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association; Twain was the first non-US citizen to win the CMA award.
• Shania Twain was ranked #7 in Country Music Television's 40 Greatest Women of Country Music in 2002.
• In 2003, Twain was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.
• The city of Timmins renamed a street for her, gave her the key to the city, and built the Shania Twain Centre in her honour.
• On November 18, 2005, Twain was invested as an Officer in the Order of Canada.

External links

• Official website
• Shania Twain - Universal Music Page
• Shania Twain Centre