Shania Twain

Did You Know?

• In January 2005, Twain joined Scentstories by Febreze to create a limited edition scent disc with proceeds going to Feeding America.
• She carried the Olympic Torch through her hometown on January 1, 2010, as part of the 2010 Winter Olympics torch relay.
• Twain was ranked No.7 in Country Music Television's 40 Greatest Women of Country Music in 2002.

Early life

Shania Twain was born Eilleen Regina Edwards on August 28, 1965, in Windsor, Ontario. Her mother, Sharon Morrison, was of Irish descent, and her father, Clarence Edwards, worked as a railway engineer. She has two sisters, Jill and Carrie Ann. When she was two years old, her parents divorced, and her mother moved the family to Timmins, Ontario. There, Sharon married Jerry Twain, an Ojibwe man from the nearby Mattagami First Nation, and they had a son named Mark. Jerry adopted the girls, and their last name was legally changed to Twain. Later, when Mark was a toddler, Jerry and Sharon also adopted Jerry’s baby nephew, Darryl, after his mother died.

Because of her connection to Jerry, the media have often mistakenly reported that Twain is of Ojibwe descent. After she began achieving success and winning awards, her hometown newspaper, the Timmins Daily Press, ran several stories with sensational headlines. In these articles, relatives of her biological father sold personal details about her life and accused her of trying to use Native ancestry as a way to boost her career. However, the Ojibwe community where she was raised disagreed. They suggested that these estranged relatives were motivated by a hope of profiting from Twain’s fame. Her adoptive father’s cousin spoke for the family and community, saying, “We treated her as Native, raised her as Native. We accepted her as part of our family, no questions asked.”

Roger Ellis, then president of the First Americans in the Arts organization, had given Twain an award for Outstanding Musical Achievement. He noted that the award was given in “good faith” based on her Canadian reserve card. He concluded that “Ms. Twain has not intentionally misrepresented herself and that she has celebrated her Native American heritage without capitalizing at the expense of the Native American community.”

Career

After graduating from Timmins High in June 1983, Shania Twain was ready to move beyond her local music scene. When her band Longshot ended, she joined a cover group called Flirt, led by Diane Chase, and traveled across Ontario performing. To improve her technique, she took voice lessons from Toronto coach Ian Garrett, often cleaning his house to pay for them. In the fall of 1984, Toronto DJ Stan Campbell noticed her talent and wrote in a Country Music News article that she had a powerful voice, impressive range, and the drive to succeed.

At the time, Campbell was producing an album for Canadian musician Tim Denis, and Twain sang backing vocals on the track "Heavy on the Sunshine." Country singer Mary Bailey caught her act in Sudbury, Ontario, and was stunned by the young performer. Bailey recalled seeing a small girl onstage with a guitar, delivering covers of Willie Nelson's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." She compared Twain's voice to Tanya Tucker's, noting its strength, character, and deep emotion.

Bailey also heard some of Twain's original songs and was amazed that someone so young could write with the wisdom of a much older person. Tragedy struck on November 1, 1987, when Twain's mother and adoptive father died in a car crash about 50 kilometers north of Wawa, Ontario. She returned to Timmins to care for her younger siblings, then moved the family to Huntsville, Ontario. There, she supported them by earning money performing at the nearby Deerhurst Resort.

Artistry

Shania Twain sings in a contralto range. In 1996, Newsweek pushed back against critics who claimed she avoided touring because she couldn’t match her studio recordings live, calling her voice “a warm, languid alto sweetened with a wisp of bedroom allure.” She has acknowledged that her singing voice is weaker than before she had Lyme disease, and she had to figure out how to work with her changed instrument to keep performing. Before her correct diagnosis, multiple doctors she saw over the years mostly blamed vocal loss on emotional stress.

She recovered from that by trying different relaxation methods and spending a lot of time on vocal warm-ups. The real cause was found when she visited Dr. Robert Sataloff in Philadelphia; he discovered nerve damage in her vocal cords and recommended surgery. In 2018, she had a laryngoplasty where Gore-Tex stabilizers were placed in her throat to ease the strain on her vocal muscles.

She didn’t write much for her first album, which was self-titled, but producer Mutt Lange noticed she had “a distinctive voice as a songwriter” that other collaborators had missed. Bob Paxman of Sounds Like Nashville called Twain and Lange a “versatile” songwriting team, noting their songs cover feminism and romantic longing. Brian D. Johnson of Maclean’s said her songs “range from domestic-bliss ballads to sassy rockers that taunt and tease.” Alanna Nash of AARP observed that on The Woman in Me, Twain built the album around “hooky melodies and clever wordplay” from her own perspective.

In the 1990s, record executives worried her lyrics were too “male-threatening”; both The Woman in Me and Come On Over include feminist and anti-infidelity themes. Though she’s known for singing about female empowerment with “full of attitude,” her work also includes love songs. She believes female singers are often misunderstood when they express “feminist views” or stand up for themselves—something she often sings about—and explains, “that doesn’t mean that we don’t love the men in our lives, and that we don’t need the men in our lives.”

When writing, she prefers to isolate herself to avoid distractions, feeling she’s most productive that way. She also says she turns sad experiences into upbeat songs.

Public image and reception

Shania Twain’s career has sparked sharp debate within country music, especially among traditionalists who resisted her fusion of styles. Biographer Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted that many critics felt she was weakening country music by mixing it with generic, loud hard rock elements and relying on provocative music videos to boost sales. Some country reviewers argued her work simply did not sound like country music, and fans have speculated that this attitude led to her hugely successful album The Woman in Me being overlooked at the 1995 Country Music Awards. Like Garth Brooks before her, Twain was initially seen as an outsider whose modern production, image, and songwriting upset the genre’s established norms. Her unconventional, liberated look as a female country singer drew frequent criticism throughout the 1990s.

Even after The Woman in Me became a hit, early skeptics refused to view her as a serious artist. Several music journalists questioned the quality of her lyrics, the polished, studio-driven sound of her records, and her vocal abilities. These critics largely agreed that she had little to offer beyond her sexual appeal and flashy videos, often commenting on her physical appearance rather than her music. Early on, her bold personality and tendency to wear revealing clothes that showed her midriff put her at odds with the conservative country music scene.

The criticism of her exposed stomach became so relentless that journalists nicknamed it “the most famous midriff in Nashville,” and CMT even banned the video for her first single, “What Made You Say That.” Roisin O’Connor of The Independent observed that Nashville had never encountered an artist like Twain—someone who loved leopard print, showed her midriff, and was determined to become a global star. According to Kristin M. Hall of the Associated Press, because Twain had not yet started touring, she relied on music videos to reach a wider audience.

Erlewine similarly described her as the first country musician to fully embrace MTV’s approach, crafting a sexy, video-focused image that attracted both country and pop fans, all without extensive touring.