Martina McBride: Biography

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Martina McBride.Image via Wikimedia Commons

Who Is Martina McBride?

Martina Mariea McBride (née Schiff; born July 29, 1966) is an American country music singer and songwriter. An icon in the country music world, she is known for her country pop material with a powerful soprano voice and expansive range. McBride has won the Country Music Association Award for Female Vocalist of the Year award four times (tied with Reba McEntire for the third-most wins) and the Academy of Country Music's "Top Female Vocalist" award three times. She is also a 14-time Grammy Award nominee.

McBride was born in Sharon, Kansas, and relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1989. She signed to RCA Records in 1991, and made her debut the following year as a neo-traditionalist country singer with the single, "The Time Has Come". Over time, she developed a pop-styled crossover sound, similar to Shania Twain and Faith Hill, and had a string of singles on the Billboard country chart and occasionally on the adult contemporary chart. Five of these singles went to No. 1 on the country chart between 1995 and 2001, and one peaked at No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart in 2003.

McBride has fourteen studio albums, two greatest hits compilations, one "live" album, as well as two additional compilation albums. Eight of her studio albums and two of her compilations have an RIAA Gold certification, or higher. In the U.S., she has sold over 14 million albums.

Early life

Martina Mariea Schiff was born in Sharon, Kansas, on July 29, 1966. She has two brothers, Martin and Steve, who play in her concert band as of 2017, and a sister, Gina.

Early Life: Where Is Martina McBride From?

McBride's parents, Daryl and Jeanne Schiff, owned a dairy farm. Daryl, who was also a cabinetry shop owner, exposed her to country music at a young age. Listening to country music helped her acquire a love for singing. After school, she sang for hours 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 eight or nine, Martina began singing with a band her father fronted, "The Schiffters". As she grew older her role in the band progressively increased, from simply singing, to also playing keyboard with them. She enjoyed performing in her early years.

McBride began performing with a local rock band, The Penetrators, in Wichita instead. Then, in 1987, Schiff gathered a group of musicians called Lotus and started looking for rehearsal space; she began renting space from studio engineer John McBride. In 1988, the two married.

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 her 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.

Music career

1992–1995: The Time Has Come and The Way That I Am

Martina McBride's Career and Major Works

McBride released her debut studio album by RCA Records in 1992, titled The Time Has Come. It was produced by Paul Worley and Ed Seay. This album's title track made it to number 23 on the country music charts, while the next two singles both failed to make the Top 40. Unlike her later country pop-influenced albums, The Time Has Come featured honky tonk and country folk influences. McBride also contributed an arrangement of Paul Williams's original composition "When Love is Gone" to the soundtrack of the 1992 Brian Henson film The Muppet Christmas Carol.

The Way That I Am was McBride's second album. Its first two singles both brought her into the country top ten: "My Baby Loves Me", the album's de facto title song, peaked at number two, and "Life No. 9" peaked at number six. The former was previously a Top 10 hit in Canada for Patricia Conroy. However, it was the third single, "Independence Day", which was prevented from reaching the Top 10 through the oppositions of many radio programmers, who 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 at the Country Music Association Awards, and has since become McBride's signature song. It also earned the song's composer, Gretchen Peters, a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Country Song. The song also gave McBride a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. McBride performed the song at the 1995 Grammys ceremony. The fourth and fifth singles from The Way That I Am were less successful: "Heart Trouble" peaked at number 21, and "Where I Used to Have a Heart" fell short of the Top 40. McBride later criticized these single choices, saying that she felt "Strangers" would have been a better followup, as that song was more popular with fans and later appeared on her first greatest-hits album. The Way That I Am was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

"My Baby Loves Me (Just The Way That I Am)", as produced and released, proved to have a sing-along quality that led McBride to sing it that way in her subsequent concerts.

1995–1999: Wild Angels and Evolution

McBride's third album, Wild Angels, was released in 1995. It accounted for another Top 5 hit in its lead single "Safe in the Arms of Love", which had previously been recorded by both Wild Choir and Baillie & the Boys, and was concurrently released in Canada by Michelle Wright at the time of McBride's version. The album's title track went on to become McBride's first No. 1 single on the country charts in early 1996. The album's third, fourth, and fifth singles, "Phones Are Ringin' All Over Town", "Swingin' Doors", and "Cry on the Shoulder of the Road" were less successful, having reached the lower regions of the Top 40.

Martina McBride's Personal Life and Relationships

In early 1997, after "Cry on the Shoulder of the Road" peaked, McBride released two duets. "Still Holding On", a duet with Clint Black which was the lead-off single to her fourth album Evolution and Black's album Nothin' but the Taillights, and "Valentine", a collaboration with pop pianist Jim Brickman which appeared on his album Picture This. She also sang duet vocals on "Chances Are" with Bob Seger, featured on the soundtrack of the 1998 motion picture Hope Floats.

She had her second number one on the country charts with "A Broken Wing", the second single from her Evolution album, in late 1997. Evolution went on to produce four more Top 10 hits at country radio: a re-release of "Valentine", "Happy Girl", "Wrong Again" (which also went to number one), and "Whatever You Say". 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. In addition, she also won the Country Music Association Awards' "Female Vocalist of the Year" award in 1999

Also in 1998, McBride released her first Christmas album titled White Christmas, which featured a rendition of "O Holy Night" that first charted in 1997 and continued to re-enter the charts until 2001. She also sang a guest vocal on Jason Sellers' mid-1998 single "This Small Divide".

1999–2002: Emotion and Greatest Hits

McBride's sixth 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, "Love's the Only House" and "There You Are", both made the Top 5 at country radio, and "It's My Time" peaked at number 11.

Where Is Martina McBride Now? Recent Years

In 2001, she released her first compilation, Greatest Hits. This album has been certified 3× Platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America, and is her highest-selling album. It included most of her major hits to that point, and the album track "Strangers" from the album The Way That I Am, which she put on the album because she felt that it should have been a single. The album also included four new songs, all of which were Top 10 hit on the country music charts between 2001 and 2003: "When God-Fearin' Women Get the Blues" (at number 8), "Blessed" (at number 1), "Where Would You Be" (at number 3), and "Concrete Angel" (at number 5). Carolyn Dawn Johnson sang backing vocals on "Blessed"; conversely, McBride sang backing vocals on Johnson's late-2000 debut single, titled "Georgia". Late in 2002, McBride also sang backing vocals on Andy Griggs's single "Practice Life".

In 2003, McBride released her seventh studio album, Martina, which celebrated womanhood. The first single, "This One's for the Girls", went to number 3 on the country charts and became her only number-one hit on the Adult Contemporary charts. It also included backing vocals from Faith Hill, Carolyn Dawn Johnson, and McBride's daughters, Delaney and Emma. Follow-up single "In My Daughter's Eyes" was also a Top 5 hit at both country and adult contemporary. "How Far" and "God's Will" both made the Top 20 at country radio, as did her guest appearance on Jimmy Buffett's single "Trip Around the Sun", whose chart run overlapped that of "God's Will".

In 2004, McBride won the CMA's Female Vocalist award for the fourth time, following the wins in 2003, 2002 and 1999, which tied her for the most wins in that category with Reba McEntire.

2005–2008: Timeless and Waking Up Laughing

After finding success in country pop-styled music, McBride released her next studio album, Timeless, in 2005, which consisted of country covers. The album included cover versions of country music standards, such as Hank Williams' "You Win Again", Loretta Lynn's "You Ain't Woman Enough", and Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through the Night". To make the album sound in its authentic style, McBride and her husband hired veteran Nashville session players and primarily incorporated vintage analog recording equipment. The album sold over 250,000 copies within its first week, the highest sales start for a 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, but the other two singles both failed to make top 40.

Martina McBride's Legacy and Impact

In 2006, McBride served as a guest coach on Canadian Idol. The remaining five finalists traveled to Nashville, where McBride worked with the competitors on the songs they had chosen by country artists such as Gordon Lightfoot and Patsy Cline. Among the other guest judges that year were Nelly Furtado and Cyndi Lauper.

McBride later joined Canadian Idol on a tour in the Spring.

In 2007, McBride also served as a guest coach on Fox Networks television series, American Idol.

In 2007, McBride released her ninth studio album, Waking Up Laughing. It was the first album in which McBride co-wrote some of the tracks. She set up her Waking Up Laughing Tour in 2007, which included country artists Rodney Atkins, Little Big Town, and Jason Michael Carroll. The album's lead single, "Anyway", went to No. 5 on the Billboard Country Chart, becoming her first Top 10 hit since 2003. She also lent her voice singing "Anyway" in a Lifetime movie called, "A Life Interrupted" which premiered on April 23, 2007. Its follow-up, "How I Feel", reached the Top 15. In Spring 2008, McBride released Martina McBride: Live In Concert, a CD/DVD set. It was taped in Moline, Illinois in September 2007.

In July 2007, The ABC Television Network announced a special program called Six Degrees of Martina McBride where individuals from around the country were challenged to find their way to McBride on their own connections and research using a maximum of six methods. The "winner" of this challenge eventually located a direct connection to McBride through her husband, John, who knew someone, who knew someone else.

McBride recorded an electronically produced duet with Elvis Presley, performing his song "Blue Christmas" as a duet with him on his latest compilation, The Elvis Presley Christmas Duets. A compilation collection, titled Playlist: The Very Best of Martina McBride, was released on December 16, 2008, as part of Sony BMG Playlist series. The album features 11 previously released tracks and three unreleased tracks.

McBride wrapped up production of her tenth studio album in late 2008. The first single, "Ride", was released to radio in October 2008 and debuted at No. No. 43 on the Hot Country Songs chart. It barely missed the Top 10 on the chart, peaking at number eleven in March 2009. 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...

Martina McBride's career continues to be documented by reputable media; the facts above are drawn from Wikipedia's biography and public records.

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