We, at New England Country Music, are continuing our series spotlighting women in country music. While the acronym WCW, standing for ‘Women Crush Wednesday,’ is often used for physical attraction, that is not the case here. This series will feature talented women who are crushing the country music scene.

This week, we are featuring Eilleen Edwards, also known as Shania Twain! If you watched the 2019 American Music Awards last Sunday, 11/24, you caught an incredible performance. Twain hadn’t been on that stage in sixteen years, but she knocked it out of the park with some covers including Post Malone’s ‘Rockstar,’ Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off,’ and Drake’s ‘God’s Plan.’ Of course, she sang some her own hits as well: ‘Any Man of Mine,’ ‘Don’t Impress Me Much,’ and ‘Man! I Feel Like A Woman.’

This Canadian born singer/songwriter has sold over one million records. Dubbed the “Queen of Country Pop,” she is one of the best-selling female country music artists. Twain grew up as Eilleen Regina Edwards with two sisters in Ontario, Canada. After a divorce, her mother remarried Jerry Twain, a full-blooded Ojibwa. Mr. Twain adopted all of the Edwards children. The family was quite poor and Shania started singing at local bars at the young age of eight to help her family pay the bills. She wrote her first song when she was ten. Her interest in music continued throughout high school where she played in the band ‘Longshot.’ After high school, she joined the band ‘Flirt’ and took singing lessons. When she was twenty-two, tragedy hit the Twain household. Both her mom and step-dad died in a car crash and she took on the responsibility of raising her siblings. When her siblings were grown and moved out of the house, Twain returned to her passion – music. She recorded a demo tape that was picked up by Mercury Nashville Records and they signed her shortly thereafter. In 1993, Eilleen changed her name to Shania, meaning “I’m on my way” in Ojibwa. She dropped her debut, self-titled album, this same year. Twain went on to release four more albums: ‘The Woman in Me,’ ‘Come On Over,’ ‘Up!,’ and ‘Now.’ Over her career, this WCW has headlined four tours.

Shania Twain was the first non-US citizen to win a CMA Award. In 1999 she took home the CMA Award and ACM Award for Entertainer of the Year. She was inducted into the Canadian Music all of Fame in 2011. And she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. From 2017-2018 Shania Twain had her own exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

We can’t wait to see where this WCW goes from here.

Hopefully you were lucky to see Shania Twain in June of 2018, as she stopped at the TD Garden in Boston then. She will be filling up 2020 by playing ‘Let’s Go! – The Las Vegas Residency’ starting in December.

Be sure to download some of her earlier songs including ‘Any Man of Mine’ and ‘Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?’ from ‘The Woman In Me’ on Apple Music here.

You can stay connected with Shania Twain by following her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Stay tuned for our next installment of WCW in country music. It is set to hit our page on Wednesday December 4th.