A Disappearing Act
Shania Twain is the best selling female country artist of all time, despite her Canadian upbringing. In recent years, however, Twain stopped churning out the hits and seemed to shrink from the spotlight.
A Personal Touch
Shania rose to fame in part due to her incredible vocal skills, but also intensely passionate music. The care she wrote into all of her songs, often her emotional outlet from an early age, translated well to audiences, and she steadily gained steam as a recording artist. It was her second album, however, that became a breakout hit, placing Twain firmly in the ranks of the other top country singers. It was lucky that Twain heeded early suggestions she become a country star.
Finding New Inspiration
The muse behind Shania’s mind blowing success was Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange, who was already the producer of a number of successful rock albums, including several albums for AC/DC. The South African-raised Lange got in contact with Shania after hearing her first album, suggesting that the pair collaborate, but neither had any idea just how integral they’d become to one another. Even years after the fact, Lange’s influence still lingers on, even in Shania’s new music.
Her True Calling
Shania released her second album which was mostly co-written with Lange in 1995, and became a verifiable country star practically overnight. The pair had spent hours on the phone with one another, as Shania sang to Lange in order to work on the album, before finally meeting in June 1993. They married only six months later. While the collaboration with Lange was likely the force behind Shania’s overwhelming success as an artist, he was also the reason behind her disappearance from the public eye.
Up! In The Air
Prior to this year, Shania’s last album, Up! was released in 2002, which came after she took a two year hiatus to give birth to her and Lange’s son, Eja. The album and subsequent tour were also wildly successful, which led fans to expect more from the Canadian songstress in the near future. It was surprise when suddenly her musical output slowed with no explanation from the singer nor from her husband and collaborator Lange. The story she’s finally sharing is multifaceted.
Searching For A Fairy Tale
Shania Twain, born Eileen Regina Edwards, was raised in the northern Ontario town of Timmins by her mother Sharon and step-dad Jerry Twain, who adopted Shania and her two sisters as young children. Her early life was not exactly a fairy tale, given the rough and tumble rural area they were living in. Shania discovered her voice when she was only 3 years old, but began singing publicly at 8 years old in order to help make ends meet at home.
Sadness In Her Soul
So much of the emotional resonance in Shania’s career has stemmed from her early childhood. Music became her coping mechanism when she needed to distract herself from the difficulties between her mother and step-father. By the age of 10, she had begun writing her own songs. It was the process of that creation that carried Shania through the years, even when things weren’t always sunny between her parents, which often lead to the young Shania carrying a lot of sadness.
Music’s Saving Grace
Shania needed her musical outlet during the many times when food was in short supply in her childhood home. Though she often considered asking her fellow students to share their lunch with her on days when she was hungry, she felt to embarrassed to admit that she was in need. Shania is also fiercely committed to her family, and was worried that if school officials ever found out they were sometimes short on food, the family would be split up.
Taking Refuge
There was only one time Shania decided to speak up to her mother, begging her to take her and her siblings away from their step father. Sharon obliged, packing up all five of the children and driving hours to a shelter in Toronto, which was more than 600 miles from their home in Timmins. Shania had asked, sensing that her mother needed help, but at such a young age, it was the only thing Shania could think of suggesting.
Looking Backwards
Shania, her mother, and siblings stayed in Toronto until 1981, at which time her mother decided it was time to reunite the family. She once again packed up the kids, driving the long road back to Timmins, where Jerry accepted their return. Though the house was never exactly what one could deem peaceful, for the time being, it was what Shania had. Even at such a formative age, she was committed to being a nurturer, understanding that she could use her gifts to help out.
Singing For Supper
In looking back on the origins of her music career, Shania revealed that she had begun singing at bars when she was only eight years old. She explained that the bars in Timmins would often remain open until 2 am, but they would stop serving drinks at midnight, and therefore allowed the young girl to come and perform during that time. Shania said she would usually earn between $20 and $50 per performance. She added that her parents accompanied her to keep her safe.
Surviving By Necessity
Shania revealed in a 2007 interview on The Today Show with Des and Mel, that she didn’t love being around sloppy adults, but because she loved music, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. She said, “My deepest passion was music and it helped. There were moments when I thought, ‘I hate this.’ I hated going into bars and being with drunks. But I loved the music and so I survived.” The experience became a good foundation for her future career.
Forest Of Solitude
Towards the end of high school, Shania decided to take a break from singing in bars and try her hand at a different way to earn money. Her father picked up a number of different professions over the years, and this time, the teenaged Shania decided to join him working reforestation. She has said that many of her coworkers at the time were First Nations people, and that though the work was hard, she was greatly comforted by the solitude of the forest.
Reflection On the Trees
Shania looked back on those summers, “I loved the feeling of being stranded. I’m not afraid of being in my own environment, being physical, working hard. I was very strong, I walked miles and miles every day and carried heavy loads of trees…you have to bathe and rinse your clothes in the lake. It was a very rugged existence, but I was very creative and I would sit alone in the forest with my dog and a guitar and would just write songs”
Keeping The Dream Alive
By the time she graduated high school, Shania only had music on her mind. Though the first band she sang for split up, another band knew her voice and asked her to sing with them. As she became more serious about a career in music, Shania decided it was time to take voice lessons, with the hopes that training would improve her prospects. Knowing that her parents would never be able to afford her lessons, she would clean her voice teacher’s house as payment.
Taking The Country Road
Shania was finally discovered by someone who held some clout in the music industry in 1984, when Stan Campbell, a DJ local to Toronto heard her singing. He managed to book her several gigs singing back up vocals for some more established musicians. They followed up with a trip to Nashville in order to give Shania the opportunity to record some demos, but it was difficult for Shania to manage the cost. She was willing to do whatever it took to make her dream happen.
Left In The Cold
Things were looking up for Shania. Her career seemed to be on track, though she had returned to Toronto, but she was enjoying her work with her new band. Though she was trying to move away from country, the genre kept calling her back, earning her performances with even bigger names, when suddenly things ground to a halt as she received a fateful call. Both her mother Sharon, and step-father, Jerry, had been killed in a car accident.
More Important Things
When her parents passed away, her two younger brothers were still quite young, only 13 and 14, and couldn’t be left on their own. Shania once again stepped up to the plate and became their primary caretaker. She had to put some of her musical ambitions on hold in order to provide for them, since she now was unable to jet off to Nashville whenever she wanted, but she managed to find other ways to pay the bills through music.
Belting For Broadway
Shania shared that she was thankful she managed to find an opportunity that paid her to sing while her brothers were in care, even if it meant trading in her cowboy boots for character shoes. Shania booked a gig singing for a Broadway style review at a resort near their home in Huntsville, Ontario. Huntsville certainly didn’t have the same kind of music scene that Toronto did, but Shania knew that this was a chance to train her performance instinct, not a setback.
On Her Way
By the time her brothers were ready to be on their own, it was the early 90s, and Shania was back at it. She was quickly signed by Mercury Nashville Records, and decided at that time to become Shania, a name she claims has Ojibwa roots, though it’s unclear where the word actually comes from. She chose the name both as an homage to her late step-father, as well as for its meaning, which she claims is “on my way”.
The Hills Are Alive
Given her rural upbringing, it’s no surprise that Shania has been drawn to the quiet solitude of country locales. By 2004, her husband wanted to shy away from the public life they’d been living, against their more private nature. Shania obliged, given that they had a young son to take care of, and he’d already spent half of his early life on tour. The couple retreated to a mountain home in Switzerland, but it seemed like only a matter of time until Shania returned to music.
The Lonely Road
Though Shania was happy to oblige her husband’s desires for privacy and solitude, friends say it wasn’t so easy for her to be wrapped in such seclusion. One friend shared, “She’s very warm, she likes to socialize and have people around. She gave up everything for him.” While it would have seemed that the hit making pair would never have done anything to jeopardize Shania’s career, it started to become clear that Lange thought the story should revolve more around him.
Hiding Her True Self
Shania shared that as the years passed hidden away in the countryside, she began to feel entirely alone, despite the loving appearance she and her husband always had when out in public, even just running their errands. She later shared, “When I started to get lonely, then I knew that something wasn’t right,” she said. “I’m married to someone I love, and I’m so lonely…I didn’t want to live that way.” Some of her time off was taken in part to work on her marriage.
The Great Betrayal
As Shania readjusted to life in Switzerland, she befriended a local, Marie-Anne Thiébaud, who she eventually hired as a personal assistant. The two women developed a close friendship, and Shania often confided her marital problems to Thiébaud. She never guessed that Thiébaud herself was one of the sources of discontent in her marriage. Shania was utterly shocked and betrayed when she learned through another friend that Thiébaud and Lange were allegedly having an affair. Shania’s next album would have to wait.
Separating The Hurt
It was Lange who asked Shania for a divorce. The music producer was no stranger to divorce, having been married twice prior to meeting Twain. “Whether she was part of the cause … of the breakup or whether it was just me leaning on her because it was already breaking up, I really don’t know which came first,” Twain said. “What I do know is she took advantage of, you know, the weakness in the relationship between Mutt and I.”
Constricting Her Soul
One of the consequences of her husband’s betrayal and Shania’s subsequent devastation was that the heartache caused her to begin to lose her voice. Twain was eventually diagnosed with dysphonia, a condition that affects the vocal chords and caused the afflicted person to be unable to properly speak or sing. Cases of dysphonia are often related to illnesses, but can also be attributed to misuse. In Shania’s case, it was sadness that constricted the muscles in her throat, causing her to be unable to sing.
A Renewed Spirit
It was difficult for Shania to be unable to sing loudly enough to perform, but just like in her childhood, she managed to channel her heartbreak into song writing. She also found that her ex-husband and friend’s betrayal brought a new man into her life. Thiébaud’s ex-husband, Frédéric could understand the pain Shania was going through, and the two became close to one another. They eventually married a year after Twain’s divorce was finalized, showing that it is possible to find love again.
Taking The Plunge
Twain needed to try something new in the course of reinventing herself post-divorce. She accepted an offer from Oprah to create a reality show, where she challenged herself to try new things. In 2011, she spoke to ABC about the show saying, “Talking about it now is all part of that, forcing myself to do things that are difficult,” she continued. “Take myself out of my comfort zone, face my anxieties and just get more comfortable with my fears.”
A Hidden Battle
Shania recently opened up to The Sun to say that there was another reason behind her dysphonia, one that wasn’t just due to sadness: she had been suffering from Lyme Disease. Twain revealed that she had been bitten by a tick in Virginia at one point, and the disease ended up affecting the nerves surround her vocal chords. She worried she may never sing again, but via physical therapy and long vocal warmups, her voice began to return.
Back In The Spotlight
Shania has shared that though she began herself imposed break from music because she was feeling overworked, she is absolutely loving it upon her return. When she finally finished recording her newest album she said, “I felt like I had climbed a huge mountain and was standing on top of it, looking God in the eye, and saying, ‘I’m here! What do I gotta do next?'” For Shania, it seems like it’s good to be back in the spotlight.
