Shania Twain - Biography
By Jeff Hunt
In Maryland, there’s this old guy Joe Bussard, who’s a legend in record-collecting circles. He’s got the world’s largest collection of pre-war 78 rpm disks, limited almost exclusively to country, the blues, and gospel. The guy truly is a national treasure; he’s really free when it comes to letting record labels access the material – and sometimes he owns the only copy. We wouldn’t have a lot of priceless, early Americana without Joe Bussard. Joe’s also a bit of a curmudgeon. He claims that the success of Hank Williams killed country music. You can bet Joe doesn’t listen to a lot of Shania Twain. He’s in the minority, though. She’s sold 65 million records to date.
There was a lot of hand wringing in Nashville when Shania Twain hit the scene: she was too risqué; she was too pop; she was injuring the purity of country music by making it too commercial and slick. Yeah, right. That’s rich, coming from Nashville, the city that’s slicker than a greased pig. You can bet there were a lot of people in Austin who got a laugh out of that. Is Garth Brooks still flying around on wires like a stocky Peter Pan? Anyway, it’s intriguing that she hooked up with one of the most powerful rock ‘n’ roll producers on the planet, and managed to bring the pomp and bombast of AC/DC and Foreigner to Nashville.
Okay. We’ve got some name changes ahead, so hold on.
She was born Eileen Edwards in Windsor, Ontario. Her parents divorced when she was two; her stepdad was a Twain. He adopted Eileen and her sister. He was an Ojibwa. Eileen/Shania gets called out for claiming Native American heritage later on, but she claims her biological father is part Cree. She grew up poor, worked at McDonalds, hunted, chopped wood. She started singing in bars, underage. At thirteen she got her first television appearance; she also performed in a top 40 cover band. When she was 22, her parents were killed in a car crash; she supported her younger siblings by performing at a resort. She got a manager and made a demo, got a record deal, and changed her name. Shania is Ojibwa for "On my way.”
Shania Twain (1993 Mercury) was a modest debut, and only a modest success. The songs are bland, and Shania only shares songwriting credit on one track, "God Ain't Gonna Getcha for That.” As it swoops and soars, her voice is a thing of sheer amazement, but the arrangements are more 80s soft pop than anything else. They simply don’t do her voice justice. Furthermore, the original cover art has her standing out in the snow with a Photoshop wolf, and she’s bundled up in furs and a winter coat and boots and whatever else you wear in the winter in arctic Canada. Because, hey, let’s market her as being Canadian, as opposed to, I don’t know, being drop-dead gorgeous.
Robert John "Mutt" Lange is one of the biggest producers in rock. His productions are huge and vivid, and characterized by dense layers of sound, especially in choruses. His work includes: the first four LPs by The Cars; AC/DC Highway to Hell, Back in Black and For Those About to Rock, We Salute You; Foreigner; Def Leppard Pyromania and Hysteria. The list goes on. These are all gargantuan hits – Back in Black is the second-largest-selling record of all time. Mutt Lange heard Shania Twain, contacted Shania, and they started a correspondence. He offered to produce her next release. You don’t get breaks bigger than that. Oh, and while they were working together, they got married.
Twain and Lange co-wrote almost all the material on The Woman in Me (1995 Mercury), and it’s a beautifully effective pairing. Lange’s production gives the songs the bold, lustrous, vivacity of arena rock, while never completely uprooting them from their country origins, while the songwriting itself is perfect for Shania. They’re anthems of female empowerment, self-confidence, and strong will, and they’re just what that great, big, bold voice needed. It sold like gangbusters, has been certified 12× platinum, and won the Grammy for Best Country Album of 1996. And the winter coats and snowshoes and cut-and-paste wolves are definitely gone.
Twain and Lange couldn’t top that, could they? Come on Over (1997 Mercury) is one of the biggest-selling records of all time. To date it has sold 36 million copies. It spawned 11 singles in the US, and they all went to the top of the charts. Everywhere. It’s not really much of a country record – it’s straight-up exuberant, glorious rock, sashaying and stomping. Sure, Shania has boots on here and there, but it’s mostly stilettos. Shrewdly, Lange made two versions, one for the worldwide pop market. It worked. This thing just sold and sold.
They intensified the shrewd marketing ploys with Up! (2002 Mercury/Universal). First of all, on the cover, she is in a torn, sleeveless wifebeater, arms over her head, beaming come hither. This time there were three versions: country, pop, and international. For the international version, Lange took her to Mumbai, to record with Bollywood musicians. That’s right. They’re marketing her in India. It should go without saying that all three versions sold very, very, very well. This is commerce on a scale that would even make arena rock cower. Bollywood. Man oh man. That’s a long way from the Ryman, folks. Twain and Lange split recently, but he’s supposedly working on her next record, anyway. Make that “records,” plural. At the rate these are selling, maybe even Joe Bussard will end up with a copy. Maybe. But don’t hold your breath.
