Jim Colyer

Click on Shania for pictures.

I thought ABBA was the last music to influence me. It was Elvis Presley, The Beatles and ABBA summing up everything. From nowhere, Shania Twain appeared on the Nashville scene. She was country with a difference. Her music had its roots in rock and pop.

Shania's real name is Eilleen Regina Edwards. She was born on August 28, 1965, and grew up in Timmins, Ontario, Canada. Timmins is 500 miles north of Toronto. Shania's parents divorced when she was two, and she never knew her father. She shares the Nordic background and estrangement from her father with Frida from ABBA. Shania's mother married an Ojibway Indian named Jerry Twain, and he helped raise Shania. The family struggled for necessities. Shania remembers growing up hungry. She hunted rabbits and cut trees in the wilderness. From the age of 8, she played guitar and wrote songs. Her mother encouraged her. She would wake Shania from her sleep to perform in bars around Timmins after alcohol stopped being served. Shania learned to feel comfortable in front of an audience. Mary Bailey, a Canadian singer, took her under her wing and became her manager. For a while, Shania honed her skills at an Ontario resort called Deerhurst. It was there that she was dubbed "Shania," meaning "on my way." A tragedy occurred when Shania was 21. Her mother and stepfather were hit head on and killed by a logging truck. It was hard work and sacrifice as Shania's "family" became her responsibility.

Finally, Mary and a Nashville music attorney engineered a deal with Mercury Records. Shania was signed by Mercury president Luke Lewis. The first CD was run-of-the-mill. It was produced by long-time Music Row guy, Norro Wilson. Norro was old school, and it showed. The Nashville method was for a producer and his artist to collect songs from publishers and to record them in one of a handful of studios using the same session musicians who played for everybody. It was a stale system and the reason all country music sounded alike. There was nothing about Shania's first album to recommend it. It sold 50,000, not enough. Mercury was going to drop her from the label.

Enter Robert John "Mutt" Lange! Mutt was a rock producer from South Africa. He had money. He had connections. By chance, he saw one of Shania's videos on television in London. He saw and heard something no one else did. It was Shania's body, her movements, her grace. He heard the senuality in her voice. He made several attempts to reach her by phone and finally connected. Conversations began. Mutt wanted to produce Shania and wanted her to sing her own songs. That did it! Romance bloomed, and the couple married in December, 1993.

Work began on The Woman In Me. Mutt spent a million dollars, and they recorded in Nashville. There had never been a country album like it. It was country infused with a pop and rock spirit. Shania and Mutt co-wrote. Their songs were instant classics. Any Man Of Mine became Shania's signature. (If You're Not In It For Love) I'm Outta Here! rocked! Country radio reluctantly played Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under? It was risque stuff for Nashville. So was Shania's belly button. She was sexy and not afraid to flaunt it. She was Elvis reborn as a woman.

Shania held off touring. She declined to open for established Nashville acts, which was the accepted way. Mutt Lange knew what he had. He wanted to build a catalog of songs that would fill a two-hour concert. Shania had superstar potential.

Mutt was 16 years older than Shania. He remembered the golden era of rock and the great songs of Elvis, The Beatles and ABBA. He and Shania penned 16 gems for their second album. Come On Over was released in November, 1997, and went on to become the biggest selling record of all time by a female artist, selling 39 million copies. It dominated the airwaves through 1998 and 1999. Come On Over was #1 on the country album chart for over a year. Unheard of! Single after single went number one: Love Gets Me Everytime, Don't Be Stupid, Honey I'm Home, That Don't Impress Me Much, Man! I Feel Like A Woman! Girls around the country sang Shania nightly in karaoke bars. 1998 was to her what 1956 was to Elvis.

When Shania did tour, she was ready. The concerts consisted of wall-to-wall hits. Her band showed cultural diversity, fine musicians who deferred to her stardom. They played the Nashville Arena in September, 1998, and I was there with my son Michael. It was an orgy of music and energy. In her prime, Shania was carried aloft through the crowd as if she were Cleopatra. Fans reached, hoping to touch. It was Bill Clinton's presidency at its hedonistic zenith.

Nashville was jealous of Shania's success. Ultimately, common sense prevailed, and the Country Music Association voted her Entertainer of the Year for 1999. It is their most prestigious award. She had done it: books, magazines, endorsements. It was all there. The girl who killed rabbits to eat was wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. But anonymity and privacy were gone. She and Mutt sold their property in upstate New York and moved to Switzerland. The economy sagged in April, 2000, and Shania disappeared. New songs had to be written.

Motherhood was next. Mutt and Shania took time out from their fairytale careers to become parents. Their son Eja was born, August 12, 2001. Mutt had been married before but had no kids. He vowed to never marry again. Shania gave him a reason to.

The Chicago concert in July, 2003, kicked off the second world tour. It was released on DVD. Up Close & Personal, taped in Nashville, simulated Elvis' 1968 Comeback Special. Shania was making an effort with the powers in country music even while they resisted Up! Radio did not want to play it, and there were no #1s. Forever And For Always stopped at #4. The accompanying video had Shania on a beach. She was still beautiful. Motherhood had taken nothing away. Up! did one thing that Come On Over did not. It reached #1 on the pop album chart.

Up! was a progression. The couple had evolved musically. They did not stay in one vein the way country artists tend to. There are good songs on Up! even if Nashville considered it artsy: Waiter! Bring Me Water! and Nah! C'est La Vie proved conclusively that Shania and Mutt descended from ABBA. Notes in the chorus are identical to notes in the chorus of Dancing Queen. Up! has a disco feel with its classical riffs. Politics changed drastically from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush as 9/11 set America on a conservative course. Up! took the party into the 21st century, and Shania became the only female artist with three consecutive albums topping the 10 million mark. On the strength of three records, she stood with Elvis, The Beatles and ABBA as the Big Four.

Shania's Greatest Hits used new songs as bait to re-sell the hits. Party For Two, a duet with Billy Currington, and Don't were supported by two fine videos. Party For Two had Shania sashaying down a street and talking to Billy on a cell phone. They meet, and Shania swings from a chandelier. Michael said she acted 19. Don't was sombre. She rides a white horse through fields of green plants. Her outfit accents her bosom. Every man's dream! A third song, I Ain't No Quitter was rockabilly, straight from Elvis with girl lyrics.

Shania's catalog is thematic. Lyrics are female. She is the consummate libber, dealing with the concerns of women: men, looks, money, clothes, work, bosses, abuse, fun, hair, weight, food and cars. Shania is Everywoman. In one respect, she differed. She broke loose from men her own age and married a father figure, a man who could elevate her career to the level she deserved.

It came out in 2008 that Shania caught Mutt in an affair with their housekeeper. They divorced. Once more, Shania followed the path of Elvis, The Beatles and ABBA.

An album is due in 2009. Shania discarded everything she and Mutt had been working on. It remains to be seen whether the quality demonstrated to this point will be maintained.


Bibliography:
1 Eggar, Robin. Shania Twain: The Biography. Simon & Schuster, 2005

2 Gray, Scott. On Her Way: The Shania Twain Story. New York, Ballantine Books, 1998

3 Hager, Barbara. On Her Way: The Life and Music of Shania Twain. New York, Berkley Boulevard Books, 1998

4 McCall, Michael. Shania Twain: An Intimate Portrait of a Country Music Diva. New York, St. Martin's Griffin. 1999

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