> Correct me if I'm wrong here (and I've been meaning to bring this up about
> Shania), but since when was Shania ever really "Country." From what I've
> read about her, she was singing pop songs in a Vegas format in
> some vacation lodges in Canada. It just so happens that the one person
> that "discovered" her was from Nashville. Her musical background before
> that time was pretty much "Pop" bands playing in Ontario.
As Mike Hays pointed out, Twain's first album, produced by Norro Wilson and
Harold Shedd (he's the guy who signed her), was pretty much straightahead
country. More to the point, though, the CMF's new Encyclopedia of Country
Music says that 1) she came to Nashville with a tape and hooked up with
Shedd there, and 2) "by her teens she was a veteran of Canadian country TV
shows," which suggests that her background wasn't solely pop.
Looking at the matter in terms of the country music industry and the way
that it works, Twain's career, at least through The Woman In Me, bears a
considerable resemblance to that of some of the 70s Outlaws - that is to
say, a struggle with "conservative" producers and label execs over her
desire to pursue a new sound that could appeal beyond the "normal" country
audience by bringing in pop/rock elements.
Jon Weisberger Kenton County, KY [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.fuse.net/jonweisberger/
