Mercury NashvilleShania Twain’s first album in 15 years, NOW, is new in stores and online today.
The icon admits it’s a time she once thought would never come, after her split from longtime musical partner and former husband, Mutt Lange. Vocal problems only reinforced her belief.
“I took the long, long, long, long, long way around. I really didn’t think that I would ever make another album without Mutt…” Shania reveals. “It was a huge loss in my life… to lose Mutt. I just thought, well starting over in life is hard enough… You know, music, forget that. I didn’t have my voice back yet, and I never thought I would sing again anyway, and I just didn’t think it was anything I would ever do again.”
All the while, Shania continued to write, even though she says she’d accepted the fact that it would now be others singing her songs. Gradually, a series of events changed her mind: She wrote her autobiography, shot a docu-series for OWN and eventually returned to the stage for a Vegas residency, paving the way for a tour — one she then believed would be her last.
“Everything was leading up to making the album, but without the courage yet still,” she recalls. “They were all… courage-builders, till I finally realized, ‘Wow, I really think that I can record again. There’s something still there… and I can write it on my own… I’m just gonna do this myself.’”
“The whole journey,” Shania continues, “that was the most courageous time for me, you know, saying, ‘You’re gonna take all the weight yourself and all the risks yourself, and if it doesn’t work, the accomplishment was taking on the challenge.’”
The Canadian superstar will set out on the Shania Now Tour starting in May.
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