And the Hello and welcome to So the Jaker on songwriting. I'm Brian, here as always with Simon, the Statler to my Waldorf, and joining us for

episode 245 is a Grammy-winning Canadian singer and songwriter, not to mention the best-selling female

artist in the history of country music

and one of the biggest selling artists of all time with over a hundred million records sold.

She's a member of both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and as this episode drops in early February 2023

she's just released their sixth studio album the veritably poptastic Queen of

Me via Republic Records. We're thrilled to welcome the glorious Shania Twain to the show.

Shania was born Eileen Regina Edwards in 1965 in Windsor, Ontario, one of five kids and grew up in the Canadian mining town of Timmons.

Thanks to her parents, she heard a lot of all-time country and folk growing up,

particularly artists like Dolly Parton, Wayland Jennings, Gordon Lightfoot and Jim Croce. Later,

her listening gravitated towards Bluegrass and vocal harmony groups like the

BGs and the carpenters. Her mom picked up on her daughter's musicality when she

was only three years old.

The young Eileen loved to sing and appeared to have a natural ear for harmony.

At her mother's behest she began singing in local bars at the tender age of eight, but not until

they'd stop serving alcohol at midnight.

Although that of course meant her audiences tended to be extremely well lubricated.

It's a pretty scary environment for a young kid isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

After a couple of years on the local bar circuit, she was apparently given special permit to go on earlier.

Well, that was nice of them.

At one live engagement, our guest encountered pioneering Canadian country singer Mary Bailey who

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