Shania Twain was born Eilleen Regina Edwards in Windsor,
Ontario, Canada on August 28, 1965, the second oldest of five siblings.
She was raised in Timmins, Ontario, about 500 miles due north of
Toronto, where her adoptive father, an Ojibway Indian named Jerry Twain,
and mother, Sharon, had both been raised. It was a proud but, at times,
impoverished existence. They struggled to keep enough food in the
cupboards, but there was always an abundance of music and love in the
household.
Twain often grabbed a guitar and retreated to the solitude of her
bedroom singing and writing until her fingers ached. "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." Her mom noticed Twain's talents, and soon the
youngster was being shuttled to radio and TV studios, community centers,
senior citizens' homes, "everywhere they could get me booked." An
8-year-old Twain was often pulled out of bed to sing with the house band
at a local club but only after alcohol sales ended at midnight. Later,
Twain spent summers working with her stepfather as the foreman of a
dozen-man reforestation crew in the Canadian bush, where she learned to
wield an axe and handle a chain saw as well as any man. In the winter
season, she would sing in clubs and do television and radio performances
as often as her schooling would allow.
In 1987, at age 21, Twain lost her parents in an automobile accident.
She took on the responsibility of raising her three younger siblings.
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. Three years later, with her brothers grown enough to take care
of themselves, Twain was on her own. Shedding her real name, Eilleen,
she adopted the Ojibway name of Shania, meaning "I'm on my way." Twain
recorded a demo tape of original music and set her sights on Nashville.
Although Twain landed a record deal with Mercury Records on the basis
of her original material, her self-titled 1993 debut album featured only
one of her songs, the feisty "God Ain't Gonna Getcha for That." Singles
"What Made You Say That" and "Dance With the One That Brought You" each
peaked at No. 55 on the Billboard country singles chart. It took a phone
call from a distant admirer, rock producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange
(AD/DC, Def Leppard, Foreigner, Bryan Adams and many more) for Twain to
find a true believer, both in her voice and her original songs. Twain
and Lange met face to face in Nashville at Fan Fair in 1993 and married
six months later, by which time they'd written half an album's worth of
tunes together. As 1994 unfolded, they traveled and wrote their way
across the United States, Canada, England, Spain, Italy and the
Caribbean. They began to lay down basic tracks for a new album in
Nashville, later recording overdubs and mixing in Quebec.
The first results of their labor, "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been
Under," entered the Billboard country singles chart in January 1995,
peaking at No. 11. Twain's second album, The Woman in Me, debuted
on the country albums chart the following month. The collection has sold
18 million copies, making Twain the best-selling country female artist
of all time. The single "Any Man of Mine," hit the charts in May and
became the first of four consecutive No. 1 hits for Twain, including
"(If You're Not in It for Love) I'm Outta Here!," "You Win My Love" and
"No One Needs to Know." The project won a Grammy for country album of
the year and was named album of the year by the Academy of Country Music
in 1995.
Twain's third Mercury collection, Come on Over, was released
in 1997, two years after her last album. The project continued Twain's
hot streak, producing No. 1 hits "Honey, I'm Home" and "Love Gets Me
Every Time." The sultry ballad "You're Still the One" went to No. 1 on
the country singles chart and made it to No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 100
pop chart, solidifying Twain as a crossover artist. The sassy "Man! I
Feel Like a Woman," a Top 5 country hit, helped secure the singer a
contract with cosmetics company Revlon, which used the tune in TV ads
featuring Twain. Come on Over has sold 11 million copies to date.
While The Woman in Me broke records and made Twain an
international star, critics didn't know what to make of her sexy image
and independent approach to marketing her music. Instead of touring to
promote the record, Twain made a series of sexy videos, one of which was
shot on location in Egypt. The singer finally mounted her first major
tour in 1998 following the release of Come on Over. The highly
anticipated outing helped earn Twain entertainer of the year trophies
from the ACM and the Country Music Association in 1999. Twain has won a
total of five Grammys, including two for best country song ("Come on
Over" and "You're Still the One") and two for best country female vocal
performance ("Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" and "You're Still the One").
She also has taken home trophies from the Canadian Country Music Awards,
Canada's JUNO Awards and the American Music Awards. In 1999, Broadcast
Music, Inc. (BMI) named Twain both country songwriter of the year and
pop songwriter of the year. Her ballad, "You're Still the One," was
named BMI's country and pop song of the year.
At the top of her game, Twain retreated to her home in Switzerland
with her husband at the end of 1999. She and Lange welcomed their first
child, a son named Eja, together in the summer of 2001 while preparing
her 2002 release Up!, featuring the hit single "I'm Gonna Getcha
Good."
Twain released her "Greatest Hits" album in the fall of 2004. She was
also featured on the "Desperate Housewives" soundtrack in 2005 and sang
a duet with Canadian legend, Anne Murray, in 2007.
In 2008, Twain and Lange divorced. In April 2010, Shania joined
forces with Oprah Winfrey's new television network, OWN, to star in a
six-episode docu-series titled, Why Not? With Shania Twain.
Why Not? is set to premiere in May 2011. Twain is also releasing her
first memoir in the spring of 2011 with Atria Books, a division of Simon
and Schuster. On January 1, 2011, it was announced that Twain and Swiss
businessman, Frederic Thiébaud, were married in Puerto Rico. It is the
second marriage for both.
