Month: May 2025

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Shania Twain, exploring the crossover between country and pop music

Since the 1950s, there are musicians, who want to enrich country & western music by building bridges to other types of music (‘so-called crossovers’), such as European pop, rhythm & blue sand rock. From the late 20ste century, the popularity of crossovers seems to have surpassed that of traditional country & western. A person that has contributed to this is Shania Twain who thus paved the way for Taylor Swift among others. To get acquainted with Shania , listen to her rendition of ‘Man, I feel like a woman’, a song from her third album.

Back to the beginning. Eilleen Regina Edwards was born on 28 August 1965 near Ontario.  She never knew her father. She was raised by mother and her stepfather, whose name she also took. He was an Oibwa, a Canadian First Nation and from his language would also come the name Shania, which she started using as a stage name around the age of 20. From the age of eight, she worked alongside her school to help earn a living for the family.  She cleaned in pubs and worked with her father in forestry.  Later, she became a singer in several bands with which she gained much appreciation.

Here is a clip from that time of otherwise poor quality on which she sings the song ‘What Made You Say That’, a song she did not write herself.

The lyrics of this song are here

Her Cinderella days were yet to come to an end. At her 22the, she took up caring for her younger brother and sister when her parents were killed in a car accident. 

She managed to get the attention of a record company, Nashville-based Mercury, and on her 28the , she released her first album: ‘Shania Twain’. It also contained the song ‘What Made You Say That’. The record company produced a rather explicit music video with it for the time, which you can hear here.

The album was not a commercial success, but it did attract the attention of producer Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange, whom she married soon after and who was a key support on the three albums she released between 1995 and 2002.

The woman in me

The first of these (her second album) ‘The woman in me’ (1995) sold 20 million copies. Her husband had an unerring sense of marketing and replaced the country ‘flavor’ in this album for sales outside the US with ‘pop’ elements, for instance swapping violins for synthesisers. Market segmentation would continue in subsequent albums. 

The two most successful songs were ‘(If you are not in for love) I ‘am outta here’ and ‘Any man of mine’, a clear example of a ‘crossover’.  One of the rare pure country & western songs is ‘Whose bed have your boots been under?’, which is accompanied by a funny music video.  You can listen and watch it here.

‘I’m outta here’ is the first of the two recordings from this album. This song also has a humorous video, that also has several versions.  You can watch the somewhat absurdist ‘Mutt Lange pop remix’ here. In this video, drums play an important role. This was also the case in her concert tour.  This song was usually closing number (before encores) and she was always accompanied on stage by a local drum band in the process. Watch and listen here:

The lyrics of this song are here

The second song from ‘The woman in meโ€, that you can listen to and watch here is ‘Any man of mineโ€™

Read the lyrics here

With this song, Twain reached No 1 on the country charts in the US for the first time. You can watch a live performance filmed in Dallas. The widely viewed music video (watch here) undoubtedly boosted Shania’s acceptance as a country singer. 

From the songs in this album, I picked a couple of good recordings:ย Come Over Here,ย Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love) andย From This Moment On.

Critics were generally positive, praising the way Shania adapted country & western music to the inevitable influence of rock and pop. Others felt that the album had nothing or little to do with country & western anymore. Still others felt that Twain did not need her superficial flirtation with country & western at all to excel as a singer. Critics looking back on this album a decade later believe that she has definitively put ‘country pop’ on the map as its own genre. Taylor Weatherby of Billboard speaks of a ‘brilliant fusion of country, pop and rock’.

Up

Shania’s fourth album ‘Up’ (2002), which sold 20 million copies, plays even further into the differences between outlets. Here  is the title track ‘Up’, live in Chicago. 

Three different CDs were released, a green CD that has a predominantly country & western character and also contains some acoustic songs, a red CD, on which pop and rock dominate and a blue CD with a dance and South American character. Using the links above, you can compare the three genres using the three official music videos of the title track ‘Up’. I think the differences are very small.

Again, comments were mostly positive. Something for all tastes, surely seems to be increasingly becoming Twain’s (or Lange’s) trademark, but it was also noted that ‘Up’ is “too generic and emotionless for that level of diversity”.

You can now watch two other songs. The first is “Thank You Baby (For Makin’ Someday Come So Soon)”. The music video was shot at a gallery in Vancouver and released only in Europe. 

You can watch and listen to this video here.

Read the lyrics here

Next, watch and listen to ‘She’s Not Just a Pretty Face’, live from Chicago. Billboard’s comments did not lie: The song is an “ultra-lightweight country-girl power anthem” but also “exquisite country pop”.

The lyrics are here

Her next new studio album came just 15 years after “Up”. Lyme disease significantly weakened her voice and she endured open throat surgery to strengthen her vocal cords. Moreover, she divorced in 2008, after Lange got into a relationship with her best friend. She remarried in 2011 with Frรฉdรฉric Thiรฉbaud,  ceo of the Neslรฉ group[1]. She did not perform again for the first time until 2012.

Now

For this album ‘Now (2017) and for the subsequent ‘Queen of me’ (2023), Shania Twain not only wrote all the songs, but she also took responsibility over the production, something her former husband did for the previous albums. Listen to from ‘Now’: ‘Life’s About to Get Good’.

You will find lyrics here

The song, which is about coming out on top after a difficult time, was well received.  Billboard’s Andrew Unterberger called it ‘Come on over’-worthy (her third and best-reviewed album, 20 years earlier)

Queen of me

Netflix made a documentary of Shania Twain’s life in 2022. It was called ‘Not just a girl’, after a 2022 song that is also on ‘Queen of me’.  I am showing the ‘unofficial’ music video of this song, which consists of a collage of photos and videos covering her entire life as a singer. Those who want to hear ‘Not just a girl ‘live’ listen to the (mediocre) recording in Las Vegas here.   

Lastly, listen to a song from ‘Forever and for Always’ (album ‘Up’), recorded during the ‘Queen of me’ tour in September 2023.  The song is about friendships that last a lifetime. I noticed for the first time that her voice was lower than before. You (finally) start to see the age (58!).                                      

read the lyrics here

Music critics generally hold her songs, her vocal performances and her stage performances in high regard. That appreciation applies to a slightly lesser extent to her two latest albums. ‘Queen of me’ contains mostly unadulterated electro-pop. One critic notes that Twain “tries so hard to capture current trends that it already sounds behind the times”.

My next post is about one of the singers for whom Shania paved the way, Taylor Swift, whose artistry will be explored in the next two post.

[1] His name came up in another blog post of mine ear a few years members after this company was accredited as a ‘benefit corporation’, expressing that social considerations, consumer interests and nature carry equal weight with shareholder value.

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From ‘rock & roll to ‘rock’

From ethnical to age group based division of musical preferences

in the second half of the 1950s rock & roll was a previously unprecedentedly popular type of music. But ‘rock & roll’ was played in the black community in the US much earlier and was simply called ‘rhythm and blues’, boogie-woogie or jazz. Examples include: “Roll ’em Pete” by Big Joe Turner and pianist Pete Johnson (1939), “Rocking this house” by Memphis Slim and the House Rockers (1946), “Rock and Roll” by Wild Bill Moore (1948), “Rock the joint” by Jimmy Preston (1949), “Saturday night fish fry” by Louis Jorden (1949) and “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston.

The following short film (15 minutes) shows many artists who can be retrospectively classified under the ‘rock & roll’ label. The influence of Afro-American roots, boogie-woogie in particular, is clearly audible.

While the term โ€˜rock and rollโ€™ was well known, it did not refer to a type of music in the beginning. It was the name of the movement of a ship on the waves (‘rocking and rolling’) and later took on an explicitly sexual meaning when, among others, Trixie Smith sings ‘My (man) rocks me with one steady roll’ in 1922 or Billy Ward ‘I rock ’em roll ’em all night long’ in 1951.

Disk jockey Alan Feed was the first who used the term in 1951 as a designation for a type of music. His radio show was listened to by both white and black American youths. โ€˜Rock and rollโ€™ has been said to be the first style of music to appeal to a specific age group and not an ethnic group as had been the case in the US until then. With that, the term is also linked to the development of a youth culture, with its own clothing, style of going out and dancing. The twist is inextricably linked to rock and roll. 

The genre’s breakthrough was caused by white musicians – or perhaps better their record labels – such as Bill Haley and his Commets with “Rock the joint“(1952), which had previously been sung by Jimmy Preston, “Rock around the clock” (1954), and “Shake, rattle and roll” previously sung by Big Joe Turner. 

The song “Rock around the clock” only became a world hit in 1955 thanks to the film ‘Blackboard Jungle’, a film in which later icon Sidney Poitier debuted. For the first time, riots broke out with fans wanting to attend a performance by the group. You can see Bill Haley and his Comets (and his audience) at work here

Bill Haley’s other hits included “See you later alligator” ,” Rock-a-beatin’ boogie“, “Rip it up“, “Hot dog buddy buddy” and more….

Bill Haley’s fame declined rapidly; when Elvis Presley appeared on the scene and appeared to have much greater sex appeal, his fans turned their backs on him. But first and foremost, he had a fantastic voice. Bill Haley was giant on whose shoulders, Elvis could glory. Here you can watch “Ready Teddy” (1957) on the Ed Sullivan Show. Usually only his upper body is in view, as people found the jerky movements with his lower body offensive to viewers.

In an earlier post, I  have explored his songs.

Rockability: Cross-over between rock and roll and hillbilly music

Others who rode the wave of rock & roll were Johnny Cash with “Folsom prison Blues” and, of course, Buddy Holly, whose career ended by a plane crash (1959). Buddy Holly gained great fame with songs “Peggy Sue“, “Oh boy” and “That will be the day“. Here you can listen to Peggy Sue during a performance on the Ed Sullivan show (1957).

Incidentally, some black artists did gain recognition as rock & roll artists, such as Little Richard, here with “Long tall Sally“(1955, with Bill Haley in the audience), Chuck Berry with “Johnny B. Goode“(1958) and Fats Domino. In 1957, the latter said: ‘What they call rock ‘n’ roll now is rhythm and blues. I’ve been playing it for 15 years in New Orleans’.

The now next song “Jambalaya” was certainly not meant to be rock and roll, but the musicians didnโ€™t care about that and the audience even less. The musicians are none others than Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles, Ron Wood (now Rolling Stones) and Paul Shaffer. The totally revved-up audience provides the background ‘vocals’ (well, background….).

Elvis Presley was well acquainted with and greatly admire ‘black’ rock & roll artists.  When he was called ‘King of rock & roll’ he held it off by referring to Fats Domino, in his opinion (rightly) the only singer to whom this title was appropriate. 

The record industry, which was responsible for landing Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, later thought it would do well to launch a somewhat more polished version of rock & roll that was accessible to a wider audience and therefore more commercial. Partly as a result, artists like Ricky Nelson, here with “Hello Mary-Lou“(1959), and Del Shannon with “Runaway‘ (1959). 

This ‘new’ type of music was named ‘rockabilly’, a word that refers to the crossover of rock and country & western (‘hillbilly’ music). This is an example of how whites left their mark on historiography. Rock & roll music, as you have heard, was played from as early as the 1940s and has African-American roots.

Rather, whites, some of whom were country singers until then, were adopting the musical style of their black colleagues. 

Provider of a British rock and roll version was Harry Webb, who later adopted the stage name Cliff Richard, and his band ‘The Shadows’, previously called ‘the Drifters’. Their songs and instrumental numbers became world famous. They were widely imitated, especially in the rest of Europe.

Here, Cliff Richard sings with the Shadows “Move it” (1958), which was considered the first authentically British rock and roll song. 

The record company pushed Cliff Richard to impersonate Elvis, to dress as much as possible. It looks a bit forced, but he does his best. Here you can also see him in “Do you wanna dance“(1958).

It is fun to compare this performance of “Move it” from a performance by the same Cliff, now with Hank Marvin, one of the former Shadows in 1995. They perform at London’s Dominion Theatre with ‘The Queen’ in the front row. You can see it here.

But Great Britain had another answer….  

By the late 1950s, ‘skiffle’ music had gained high popularity. In essence, skiffle has the same roots as American country music, which in turn emerged from European folk music.  This can be well heard on a recording of Lonnie Donegan’s “Putting on thes tyle”(1957). 

The rise of skiffle was in response to the growing commercialization of mainstream pop music. The thousands of skiffle groups that sprang up all over the UK used simple instruments like guitar, mandolin and washboard or drums. For many, Lonnie Donegan was the role model. For ‘The Quarryman’ too.

Over time, ‘The Quarrymen’ developed their own sound, by adding a bit more ‘beat’ to their songs. They changed their name and with it music history. You can see their first gig at ‘The Cavern’ here (1962)

With their new name, ‘The Beatles’ conquered the world, at least musically, the ‘British Invasion’. Countless other English ‘beat groups’, such as Freddie and the Dreamers, Herman Hermits, Dave Clark Five traveled to the States. This list could also include the Rolling Stones, the Animals and the Yardbirds, but their music, especially in the early days, was more strongly inspired by the ‘rhythm & blues’ genre. All recordings date from the early 1960s.

The second half of the 1960s saw the emergence of many new styles of music, generally referred to by the term ‘rock’.  Within rock, a division tok place between ‘hard rock’, sometimes also referred to as ‘metal’, and ‘soft rock’, sometimes called ‘folk rock’.  Famous exponents of the former include Steppenwolf with, for example, “Born to be wild” and of the latter the Eagles with “Hotel California. From the turn of the century, the boundaries between pop and rock blurred and we also saw the rise of electronic (dance) music, with all its variations.   Of course, I will come back to all this later.

However, there are also musicians who keep the spirit of rock and roll alive. Some of them have recently formed the group “The Barnstones” and they made a brilliant album. This  super formation is featuring Jimmy Barnes, Slim Jim Phantom, Chris Cheney , Kevin Shirley and Jools Holland’, whose piano is unmistakably present.  Here you listen to the song ‘Johnny’s Gone โ€˜from this album, accompanied by a fast-paced cartoon. The best rock & roll ever from 2023….