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Opening Remarks
Martina just plain has a big voice. She is pretty, but she isn't flashy. Her songs are powerful but they aren't out there. They are nice simple songs about everyday life things. When it comes to Martina McBride, it is just about the work and the product. You know when you buy one of her albums you are going to hear a certain type of song, and you are most likely going to like it.
She knew she had talent, and she just found a way to get to where she needed to be. There were a lot of bumps on the road, but Martina is really about perseverance.
She is someone who at every step took an active role in making her career get to the next level. She got a record contract because she found a clever way to get noticed. She got her song "Independence Day" played on radio when most wouldn't because she called the stations and convinced them to play it. She got Garth Brooks to take notice of her and give her that first big break that sent her on her way to what she has become.
She made her own luck.
McBride has been called the "Céline Dion of Country Music" for her big-voiced ballads and soprano range.
She was raised in Sharon, Kansas, a small town with population of about 200. Her father, who was a farmer and cabinetry shop owner, exposed McBride to country music at a young age.
Listening to country music helped her acquire a love for singing. After school, she would spend hours singing along to the records of such popular artists as Reba McEntire, Linda Ronstadt, Juice Newton, Jeanne Pruett, Connie Smith and Patsy Cline.
Around the age of 8 or 9, McBride began singing with a band her father fronted, "The Schiffters."
She began performing with a local rock band, The Penetrators, in Wichita. Then, in 1987, she gathered a group of musicians called Lotus and started looking for rehearsal space; she began renting space from a studio engineer named John McBride. In 1988, the two married. McBride has been married to McBride, since May 15, 1988. The couple has three daughters: Delaney Katharine (born December 22, 1994), Emma Justine (b. March 29, 1998), and Ava Rose Kathleen (b. June 20, 2005).
After marrying, the couple moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1989 with the hope of beginning a career in country music. John McBride joined Garth Brooks's sound crew and later became his concert production manager. Martina occasionally joined her husband on the road and helped sell Garth Brooks souvenirs.
In 1990, impressed by Martina's enthusiastic spirit, Brooks offered her the position of his opening act provided she could obtain a recording contract. During this time, while her husband was working with country artists Charlie Daniels and Ricky Van Shelton, he also helped produce her demo tape, which helped her gain a recording contract with RCA Nashville Records in 1991.
McBride released her debut studio album through the RCA Records label in 1992, titled The Time Has Come. This album's title track made number 23 on the country music charts, but the next two singles both failed to make top 40. Unlike her later country pop-influenced albums, The Time Has Come featured honky tonk and country folk influences.
The Way That I Am was the title of McBride's second album. Its first two singles both brought her into the country top ten:
"My Baby Loves Me" peaked at number two,
"Life #9" at number six.
The third single, "Independence Day", This song did not reach top 10 because many radio programmers objected to the song's subject of a mother fighting back against abuse by burning the family home to the ground. "Independence Day" won Video of the Year and Song of the Year.
After it, the fourth and fifth singles from The Way That I Am were less successful:
"Heart Trouble" peaked at number 21
"Where I Used to Have a Heart" fell short of top 40.
Released in 1995, Wild Angels accounted for another top five hit in "Safe in the Arms of Love"
and her first number-one hit in the album's title track.
"Phones Are Ringin' All Over Town"
"Swingin' Doors"
"Cry on the Shoulder of the Road"
In early 1997, after "Cry on the Shoulder of the Road" peaked, McBride released two duets.
A duet with Clint Black which was the lead-off single to his album Nothin' but the Taillights,
"Still Holding On",
with Jim Brickman which appeared on his album Picture This.
"Valentine"
After these two songs were released, she had her second number one on the country charts with "A Broken Wing", the lead-off to her album Evolution.
This album went on to produce four more top ten hits at country radio. Towards the end of 1998, the album was certified double platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling two million units.
"Happy Girl",
"Wrong Again" (which also went to number one)
"Whatever You Say"
Also in 1998, McBride released a Christmas album titled White Christmas. Included on it was a rendition of "O Holy Night",
Her fifth studio album, Emotion, was released in 1999. Its lead single, "I Love You," reached number one on the Billboard country charts in 1999, and also crossed over to the Adult Contemporary chart.
The song's follow-ups, both made top ten at country radio
"Love's the Only House"
"There You Are",
In 2001, she released her first compilation, Greatest Hits. The album included four new songs, all of which made top ten on the country music charts between 2001 and 2003:
"When God-Fearin' Women Get the Blues",
"Blessed"
"Where Would You Be"
"Concrete Angel".
The first single, "This One's for the Girls," went to number three on the country charts and became her only number-one hit on the Adult Contemporary charts.
Follow-up single "In My Daughter's Eyes" was also a top five hit at both country and adult contemporary.
"How Far" and "God's Will" from the same album both made top 20 at country radio
In 2004 McBride won the CMA's Female Vocalist award for the fourth time, following the wins in 2003, 2002 & 1999
After finding success in country pop-styled music, McBride released her next studio album in 2005, Timeless, which was an album consisting of country covers. The album included cover versions of country music standards, such as
"You Win Again,"
"You Ain't Woman Enough"
"Help Me Make It Through the Night."
To make the album fit its older style, McBride and her husband hired older Nashville session players and outdated analog equipment. The album sold over 250,000 copies within its first week, the highest sales start for a Martina McBride album.
The lead single, a cover of Lynn Anderson's "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden," went to number 18 on the country charts
In 2007, McBride released her eighth studio album, Waking Up Laughing. It was the first album in which McBride co-wrote some of the tracks. The album's lead single, "Anyway," went to No. 5 on the Billboard Country Chart, becoming her first Top 10 hit since 2003.
, "How I Feel," reached the Top 15.
McBride recently recorded an electronically-produced duet with the late Elvis Presley, performing his song "Blue Christmas" as a duet with him on his latest compilation, The Elvis Presley Christmas Duets
A music video produced by Kristin Barlowe was also released at the end of the year. The album, Shine, was released by RCA Records on March 24, 2009, and debuted at the top of the U.S. Country album chart and number 10 on the Billboard 200. McBride co-produced the album with Dann Huff, and it featured "Sunny Side Up", a song that she co-wrote.
The second single, "I Just Call You Mine", was released in May 2009 and reached the Top 20.
" Wrong Baby Wrong Baby Wrong",
Charity work
Martina McBride works with a variety of charities. She is currently the spokeswoman for the "National Domestic Violence Hotline" as well as for the "National Network to End Domestic Violence" and national spokeswoman for the Tulsa Domestic Violence and Intervention Services. Every year since 1995, she has hosted Middle Tennessee's YWCA, "Celebrity Auction", and it has raised nearly $400,000 so far. In 2004, she worked with "Kids Wish Network" to fulfill the wish of a young girl dying from Muscular Dystrophy.McBride was awarded the "Minnie Pearl Humanitarian Award" in 2003.McBride explained that educating girls and women on domestic violence is something she works on at home with her own daughters, stating that:
| “ | A lot of teenage girls will be first dating and they'll think, 'Oh he doesn't want me to see my friends. He just wants me all to himself. Isn't that sweet?' Or 'Oh, he's just being protective. Isn't that sweet?' And then it turns into something else and it's controlling. They don't recognize that until it's too late. So it's an ongoing education that you have to give young girls, I think." | ” |
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