Shania Twain is well known to millions of listeners for songs such as “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” (the clip for the song on YouTube alone has collected 365 million views since it was added to the platform in 2010), “That Don’t Impress Me Much” , “Forever And For Always” or “You’re Still The One”. In 2023, her songs gather 17,325,170 listeners per month on Spotify alone. Shania Twain has sold over 100 million copies of her albums, won five Grammy Awards, 27 BMI Awards and 12 Juno Awards. Her third solo album “Come On Over” broke the record for the highest sales in the country music category.
She had four siblings and lived in extreme poverty. She started singing to support her family
Shania Twain was born on August 28, 1965 in the Canadian province of Ontario. Her real name is Eilleen Regina Edwards and her parents separated when she was two years old. Later, her mother became involved with Jerry Twain (he was a Native American Ojibwa) – then she also began to use his surname. Shania has four siblings: sisters Jill and Carrie Ann (from her mother’s first marriage), and brothers Mark and Jerry (he was Jerry’s nephew, the family adopted him when he died). There was no spillage in the house. There was often no money even for basic needs and food. The singer told about her difficult biography in the documentary
Shania was supposed to sing in local bars at the age of eight – for low pay and late hours. In this way, she contributed to the household budget and although those were difficult times, she now believes that it was then that she realized that she loves music and that is what she wants to do in life. Twain has cut herself off from her biological father, and considers her stepfather to be her real father, although he had serious problems with aggression. In 2019, in one of the interviews, she emphasized:
My father Jerry gave his best to raise three daughters who weren’t really his. I would hurt him terribly if I had to take another man as my father – especially one who didn’t fight every day to get food on our table. We are Family. Stepfather, stepbrothers – we never used those words in our house – if I were to call him stepfather, it would be the worst blow.
Extreme poverty, however, affected their daily lives. Jerry used various forms of violence against his wife and children. “He had problems. At that time, I saw him as a person who was not himself. It was as if two people lived in him,” Shania Twain told the “60 Minutes” program. There was terrible violence between her parents – “Sometimes I was involved in mum and dad’s fights. Sometimes I thought that one day he would just kill her,” she described. She told more about difficult experiences – physical, mental and sexual abuse in her memoirs “From This Moment On”, published in 2001. She described e.g. the day Jerry banged her mother’s head on the toilet bowl until she passed out and nearly drowned.
Shania Twain starred on the CBC’s “Tommy Hunter Show” at the age of 13 and studied singing at summer school. As a teenager, she became the vocalist of the local band Longshot, which recorded covers of the greatest hits. In 1983, she went on tour with the band Flirt and constantly tried to perform on stage. She successfully attracted attention in the industry – there were texts about her praising her voice, ambitions and approach to her career. Shania was making more and more promising progress, but she gave it all up when tragedy struck.
On November 1, 1987, Shania Twain’s mother and her stepfather died in a tragic car accident 50 km from Wawa, Ontario. Shania moved into her family home without hesitation to take care of her younger siblings. They all moved to Hunstville together, and she supported the family by performing at the Deerhurst Resort. After a few years, the younger brothers and sisters were already independent and moved out on their own – then the singer recorded a few songs for a demo and sent them to various record labels. It was during this period in the early 1990s that she changed her name from Eilleen to Shania – which means “On Her Way” in the Ojibwa language.
She released her debut album in 1993 and already then attracted the attention of listeners outside of Canada. The second album met with even more interest – “The Woman in Me” brought the singer a Grammy Award for Best Country Album. In 1997, the album “Come On Over” was released on the market. The album turned out to be a huge success – Shania Twain successfully crossed the genre differences between country and rock, and the album itself hit the Billboard Hot 100 list, and then it reached the second place on the Billboard 200 – in this listing it remained for two years. The album sold 40 million copies worldwide, which brought Twain a record – no other female singer to that time managed to achieve such commercial success.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
