Shania Twain Has A Talented Mutt
Shania Twain attributes much of her sudden, skyrocketing success to her husband, longtime pop-rock producer John (Mutt) Lange, a first-time country interloper who encouraged her to write her own songs and then imparted to them “a new sound that they don’t have (in country music) right now.”
A native Canadian whose current smash “Any Man of Mine” is moving across sales counters even faster than its very popular predecessor, “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under,” Twain is seeing her second album (“The Woman in Me” on Mercury Records) sell at a phenomenal pace after her career’s initial collection went nowhere.
Between the release of the two packages, she met and married Lange, who never had been involved in country music before.
“But he’s a big country fan, and he knows country music very well,” Twain says. “That’s how we met in the first place. He was basically listening to my (first) album every day and was intrigued by my voice - and wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t been a country fan. He kind of keeps up with all the new artists as well as the old artists. His favorite female of all time is Tammy Wynette.
“I think it was more the music that he got relief from, for his ears and his mind, something he could relax to. Being in the studio working with rock or pop, it was a refreshing break for him to do country.”
Lange - who currently produces Michael Bolton and Bryan Adams and previously worked with such groups as AC/DC, Def Leppard and The Cars - first heard of her, Twain says, through one of his British friends with A&M Records who had seen one of her early videos on CMT-Europe. Knowing Lange’s interest in staying current on new artists, the Briton sent him Twain’s CD.
Lange then called her several times before finally meeting her face-to-face backstage at Nashville’s annual Fan Fair celebration in 1993.
“He likes to come to Fan Fair, and he was taking in all the shows - just being a fan, basically, because nobody knew who he was or that he was famous even in a much bigger way than most of the stars at Fan Fair. In his own world, he’s huge, so it’s beautiful for him to be able to go somewhere and just be a fan.”
Don’t count on anonymity in Nashville much longer, Mutt.
A good place to be
Having finally emerged as a bona fide star on the threshold of the release of his just-issued third album, Tracy Byrd grants that his upward movement coincides with increased crowd exposure he has gotten as the middle act on Reba McEntire’s huge-drawing three-act tour.
He adds that it was a trade-off financially.
“It comes down to (being) willing to sacrifice some money, because I could’ve gone out and made more money a lot of places in the short run,” he says.
“But I want a long career. Money will come later, and I’m happy with the money I’m making right now. On the Reba shows you make a sacrifice, but the sacrifice is a good one because it’s establishing you as a big-arena future headliner. That’s the way people see you.”
Noting that Brooks & Dunn, Vince Gill, John Michael Montgomery and Alan Jackson all held down the spot on the McEntire tour that he currently occupies, he says being in that position makes fans see him as a comer.
“That’s why they buy the album and you go platinum,” he says. “All of a sudden they’re seeing you and they say, ‘I’m gonna get on the bandwagon now, because he’s gonna be a headliner in two or three years.’ So it’s a good place to be.”
Wal-Mart update
The Wal-Mart “Country Music Across America Tour ‘95” - boasting special tour displays in 1,400 Wal-Mart stores across the United States - is continuing to exhibit big impact on country record sales.
George Ducas and Lisa Brokop saw their album sales jump by an eye-popping 97 percent and 99 percent respectively after playing the tour in mid-June. And the group Shenandoah, which played the tour a few weeks earlier, saw its sales increase by 67 percent over the six-week period beginning three weeks before their well-advertised appearances.
Chew on this
When rodeo rock ‘n’ roller Chris LeDoux entered a Nashville studio recently to remake “Copenhagen,” his noted humorous tribute to chewing tobacco, fellow singer Toby Keith dropped in to say hello and ended up adding his voice to the cut.
The result, scheduled for use as a radio promotion, apparently was nothing to spit at.
Considering Kris
“Why is he so good?” producer Don Was asks himself about Kris Kristofferson.
“Probably because Kris is both an acutely sensitive guy and the most intelligent human I’ve ever met. That kind of enhanced consciousness can be a psychic burden to the poor soul who’s got to live with it 24 hours a day, but it sure makes for some great music.
“At times, Kristofferson has done his utmost to drown the intensity of his perceptiveness. But, like a wild dolphin, his buoyant artistry continues to explode past the surface - unbridled by ego, greed or the need of others to cast him in a mold they can categorize and mass market.”
Was is the producer of the latest Kristofferson album (his first in nearly a decade), Justice Records’ “A Moment of Forever,” which is scheduled to hit the streets Aug. 15. It contains 14 new songs by one of the greatest songwriters in country music history.
“A lot of people who know what they’re talking about think this is his best work in 20 years; maybe his best ever,” Was says. “I know that from the first time we pushed the record button, everyone involved with this album knew that they were part of something special and unique.”