by Shania Twain
For a small-town talent like me, this was a big deal. My mother worked hard to get me on national TV as an amateur.
Just over an hour into my train trip to Toronto, I was settled in comfortably: homework out, guitar stowed above my seat, ticket in hand. My mother had arranged for a chaperone to pick me up in Toronto, and I felt confident that my first train ride all by myself was going to work out fine. What could go wrong?
Um, this:
The conductor glanced at my ticket, and his smile morphed into a frown. “Oh, this train isn’t going to Toronto, young lady,” he informed me. “You’re on the wrong train.” I remember feeling more annoyed than panicked, mainly because I didn’t really believe him! How could it be possible? All the planning, the time my parents had spent on the phone, the process at the station buying the ticket, and he’s telling me that this isn’t the right train? It had to be!
“I’m sorry,” he said with a disquieting certainty, “but this train is going to British Columbia.”
Not only was I going in the wrong direction, I was headed about as far in that direction as a traveler in Canada could possibly go.
“W-what?” I stammered. “It can’t be! I have to be in Toronto by eleven o’clock tomorrow morning for a TV show, and I can’t be late—I have to be there!” My tone of voice was very adamant, like I expected this poor conductor to be able to do something about this, and now. “You have to stop the train right now,” little eleven-year-old me demanded. Looking back, I’m surprised that he didn’t pick me up and toss me out the door while the train was still moving.
“Isn’t there another train going to Toronto I can get on somewhere along the way?” I knew that geographically the lines would run parallel for a while until they split to either continue south or turn east or west, and I figured it had to be possible for me to “switch” trains somehow.
The man thought for a moment, then said, “I will make a call; wait here,” and hurried up the aisle. Wait here? I thought to myself. Where can I go anyway? I felt trapped, and every second that flashed by, with mile after mile of dense, northern bush speeding along outside the passenger car window, was taking me farther away from where I needed to be. All I knew was that I was getting the heck off that train and definitely not missing my big show. I didn’t care if they let me off in the middle of nowhere and I had to walk to the nearest train station and find my own way. It amazes me now how I was so full of determination at that age. Nothing was going to prevent me from singing on national television. I scurried to pack up all my things and pulled down my guitar from the overhead rack. Just then the conductor returned with welcome news: sure enough, they were going to stop the train so that I could get off. But to do what, exactly?
“You wait by the side of the tracks,” he instructed, “and within the hour, another train will come by and pick you up.” I got off that BC-bound train—and it was in the middle of nowhere, as a matter of fact—and stood there in the bush with my backpack and guitar, looking just like a little hobo. All I needed were a walking stick and bandana, and the scene would have been complete.
There was no sign of civilization anywhere, but I was fine with this. I had the presence of mind to know that train tracks always ran along the outskirts of towns, so if worse came to worst, I could always start walking back along the tracks to the nearest town and find a pay phone. Being all alone in the bush did not really concern me; the only thing that I was afraid of was being late for the biggest break of my career so far.
I didn’t have a watch, so it was hard to gauge the supposed hour’s wait until the other train came by. If it came by; for all I knew, I’d still be standing here come the next morning. To help pass the time, which just crept along, I pulled out my guitar, sat on its case, and starting singing. I waited patiently for about ten minutes, beside the tracks, then started to wonder if maybe I should start following them to the nearest town to try to find another way to get to Toronto. Maybe there was a bus I could catch or someone already driving down that I could hop in with. After this long, ten-minute wait, I was sure the BC train had just washed its hands of me, knowing there wasn’t going to be another train to pick me up after all, knowing that once it was gone, there was no holding it responsible for abandoning me here. It was no longer their problem; I was on my own. Every ten minutes felt like an hour.
At last I heard a rumble in the distance. I hurriedly packed up the guitar and waited for the train to stop. Stop? It didn’t even slow down. My hopes flagged as the cars thundered past. I couldn’t believe it. Maybe it didn’t see me, I thought, half in shock. But how could the engineer not have seen someone standing beside the tracks? I strained my memory to see if I could work out how far back the last town was that I saw from the BC train on my way here to nowhere. I guessed it would take me way over an hour to walk it, but at least I’d get there while it was still daylight. This was now my new worry, to get somewhere civilized before dark. I had no matches, and the mosquitoes would be out soon. I really wasn’t looking forward to that, as a fire would at least help smoke them off and give me some warmth once it cooled down.
Just then I heard another rumble from down the tracks. Another train. This time it did start to slow down, much to my relief. As the train was coming to a stop, a man leaning out of a door asked, “Are you the little girl going to Toronto?” “Yep,” I replied brightly, and hopped on with my things. Once aboard, I asked him how I could have gotten on the wrong train to begin with. He explained that in order to have caught the Sudbury-to-Toronto train, I’d needed to have taken a bus connection from the station. My parents, not being experienced travelers, didn’t know that.
It must have been a hoot or, if not funny, at least an extraordinary event for the conductors on these trains to message each other about some little girl and her guitar with a determined attitude train hopping along the Canadian railway. It’s not like these were subway trains or streetcars, these were massive passenger-cargo trains crossing the vast, wild landscape of Canada. They couldn’t just stop anywhere, and they normally did so only at designated locations.
Amazingly, I made it to Toronto right on time. My chaperone was waiting for me as planned, totally oblivious that his young arrival could easily have been practically to Manitoba by then. At eleven o’clock, I was walking through the doors of the TV studio, ready to rehearse as if I’d had a perfectly restful trip. Just another page in the life of a child whose mother lovingly called her “my gypsy.”
I’d already appeared on TV before, but those were charity telethons on local television and were nothing like the lottery shows, each of which claimed a huge viewership all across the country. I eventually made my way onto The Tommy Hunter Show as well, in 1980. Tommy Hunter, known throughout Canada as “the Country Gentleman,” was a country music performer and radio-and-television personality. His TV show debuted in 1965 and would air for twenty-seven years, making it the longest-running weekly program of its kind in the world. I’d been a faithful viewer from the time I was about six years old, watching it on a black-and-white screen; in fact, I grew up watching Anne Murray and a long list of other big stars he’d presented.
The Tommy Hunter Show was the big time in Canada, with real dressing rooms, professional hairstylists and makeup artists, an elaborate set, producers, directors, and, of course, a celebrity host. I sang “Walk On By” by Leroy Van Dyke.
I felt quite legitimate and professional being led to the glam chair in the hair and makeup room to be fussed over like I’d seen in behind-the-scenes films of movie actors: with combs and brushes tugging and wafting hair, and faces being powdered and glossed, dabbed and blotted. I felt like a movie star.
The show’s house band was the slickest I’d ever played with, and I even had backup singers. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like a music princess with so much production behind me. It was daunting having to remember all my cues: when to enter, where to stand, when to walk, when to stop, which camera to face, and so forth. But I was excited by the buzz of the liv
e television experience, and the adrenaline was pumping. It’s too bad my mother couldn’t be with me. It was obviously a time when money was too tight for her to be able to make the trip, as I know she wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
My mother pushed everything to the limit in order to keep me developing musically. The more time, effort, and finances she devoted to my career, the greater the strain between her and my father. From most people’s point of view, music is little more than a side interest or a hobby. Not to my mom. She was determined for me to make it, and was entirely convinced that I would. This belief was deep in her soul, and there was no hurdle too high for her when it came to my music. My father, I should emphasize, was very supportive of my music, too, but he was always more practical about things.
Well, my mother wouldn’t listen to his common sense, and her fierce drive for my success often drove the whole family crazy. I almost felt that she wanted it more than I did. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that she needed it more than I did. I’ve noted how music was a great escape for me throughout my childhood, and I suppose that was true for her as well. It preoccupied her mind, helping to keep depression at bay, and it provided hope, which she clung to like a drowning person clutching a life preserver.
That was great, but I increasingly felt the pressure to fulfill the dreams that she was living vicariously through me—regardless of what real talent or potential I did or did not possess. Imagine what a burden that is for a young girl. I just wanted music, not necessarily a music career. But because I felt obligated by her dedication to me, her singer, I never had the heart to consider exploring anything else in life, even though I’d dreamed of maybe becoming a veterinarian. I also developed a passion for design and architecture that continues to this day. In fact, that’s probably what I would have pursued had my mother not been so forceful about music. She dismissed those and any other ideas that were outside of music as if they were silly things to consider as a career. Her perspective was the polar opposite of most parents’ point of view. What parent wouldn’t be thrilled for her child to show interest in a commitment that would require a university education? My mother was convinced that music was my destiny, and I was too young to argue.
I felt pushed into my music career as a child, but I don’t say all this feeling sorry for myself. I am happy that I was able to make my mother happy, and smile at the conviction she had that I would make it. She was right: I would make it. The road was not easy, but I have no regrets and am very grateful for her persistence and belief.
My mother had contacted Ian Garrett, a voice coach who’d been referred through Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, which I attended a few years earlier in Sudbury for guitar lessons. A fantastic classical singer and a kind, enthusiastic voice teacher, Ian would prove to be helpful more than once in my youth. My mom had dreamed of sending me for voice training at the conservatory, but we simply couldn’t afford it. How could we? But Ian generously offered to give me vocal lessons for free, so long as she could get me there. We’re talking a ten-hour drive, one way.
Yet my parents gladly took me out of school for several days and drove me to Toronto for vocal lessons with Ian. He had a large, elegantly appointed house and a new car, and was well dressed. Wow. I figured that even if my mother was wrong about me making it as a singer, maybe I could at least teach music for a living someday.
Ian had a beautiful black grand piano in the room where he gave lessons. There was always another student waiting in the hallway for the next lesson, and knowing that that person could hear me singing through the door made me a little self-conscious at first. Ian taught using all kinds of interesting and perplexing techniques, many of which required you to do these ridiculous-sounding, freaky voicings that reminded me of Jerry Lewis imitating a person in painful agony. Not Jerry Lee Lewis the rocker, Jerry Lewis the actor and comic. I was shy, so some of the exercises felt awkward to me, to say the least. One of the most embarrassing was a technique that teaches you how to control your exhalation of air by putting pressure on your diaphragm. That’s the dome-shaped muscle that acts as a bellows on the lungs.
Ian instructed me to stick out my stomach, then inhale as much air as I could without raising my shoulders, so the air went down and out. From behind, he would slip his arms under mine and wrap them around my abdomen—his ample belly pressing against my back—then lock his wrists and proceed to squeeze with an even, steady pressure against my rib cage.
All the while, I was instructed to purse my lips chicken-butt style, as I released as little air as possible, slooooowly but steadily. Ian would tell me to make a slight sound while doing this, so he could be sure that I wasn’t faking it. The idea was to continuously exhale while conserving and extending the breath for as long as possible until you eventually ran out of air, completely emptying the last bit with one last flex of the diaphragm muscle. Then you’d be ready to take in the next deep breath. At least if I felt faint, which I often did, he was ready to break my fall should I collapse from lack of oxygen. These exercises were a strenuous workout, but they helped train me to sustain and carry long notes with a solid, even flow of volume and projection. It was the resistance against the abdomen that built strength and control in the muscles—sort of like vocal Pilates. Strange position, but it worked.
This type of vocal training left little room for creative expression and had me bored within the first fifteen minutes of the lesson. I preferred to improvise. One exercise after the other, drill after drill of scales, breathing combinations, interval gymnastics, pronunciation repetition, and contorted mouth formations, and I was physically exhausted after every lesson. I wasn’t having fun with this, as I didn’t want to be a classical singer and therefore didn’t understand how it would help me. But my parents had sacrificed a lot for me to be there, and Ian was being generous to teach me, this self-taught child singer that the cat dragged in, which was how I saw myself. The other students were always well dressed, nicely groomed, and obviously not poor like me. They could surely afford to pay for their lessons, unlike me. I felt out of my league in regard to class. That was obvious.
I was not formally educated in music and had little theory; most of what I knew, I’d learned by ear. I was musical and could pick things up quickly but relied on feel. I had adequate sight-reading skills from the few prior guitar lessons I’d had, enough to work out melodies. With the help of Ian playing the piano, I’d follow along, straining my eyes on the sheet music while keeping my ears attuned to what he was playing. I faked it mostly, but managed. He never let on and spared me any embarrassment.
At the end of each lesson, Ian would relax the mood, I think sensing my itch to sing with less instruction and allow me a freestyle vocal exercise for which I could choose a song from a pile of his sheet music. It encompassed a variety of styles. I came across the music for Minnie Ripperton’s 1975 number one hit “Lovin’ You,” a dainty, almost childlike ballad that showcased her five-and-a-half-octave range. I liked this one and chose to sing it. I already knew the melody from the radio, so I would just read the words and sing along, pretending to be reading the notes, too. I loved the challenge of the range—especially that really, really high glass-shattering part at the end of the “la-la-la-la-la” chorus—and Ian always seemed impressed afterward. Maybe he was just being kind to make me feel good. I was happy with myself in any case, but figured that I could probably hit those notes because I was still a kid with the natural high register of a child, not something I’d earned from intense, technical training.
One of the lyrics went, “Making love to you is all I want to do.” The words meant nothing to me at that age, and I don’t remember Ian reacting at all. But I laugh now, wondering if it had been uncomfortable for him to hear those words sung by an eleven-year-old. I know when my son sings songs with mature themes that are beyond his level of understanding, I chuckle, but I try not to let on in order to spare myself from having to explain the meaning to him. I just wipe my brow and say, “All righty th
en!” I suppose Ian must have done the same.
My parents and I were able to make the ten-hour trip only a few times over the course of a year. Still, my lessons with Ian were worthwhile, and I am forever grateful for my parents’ sacrifice in making it happen. What a stress it must have been to go so out of their way, both financially and with their time, when they had four other kids at home. I don’t remember who stayed home with my siblings when we made these trips, but it was most likely my dad’s sister Karen, who was a few years younger than him, or even Kenny, as he was six years my senior and old enough to babysit.
My mother sent me to Toronto by myself a few times after that to meet with a manager she’d found for me who she thought could take me to the next level in my career. Kelly Kramer (already a pseudonym) was his name, and according to my mom, he would be able to promote me in all the right places and work up to getting me a recording contract. Kelly was a tall, imposing guy with long, black hair and long legs that clopped with every widely spaced step he took in his hard-soled boots and ankle-length fur coat. The first time I arrived at his house, I was so hungry from the trip that I devoured every last nut sitting in a dish on his coffee table. He asked his wife to get me something to eat, and she brought me a bowl of a very exotic, white, fleshy, oval-shaped fruit that I now know are called lychees. I didn’t want to eat them at first, but I was so hungry I bit into one. Delicious!
The next time I visited Kelly’s home, however, the wife was gone, replaced by a girlfriend. Undoubtedly, there was some cause and effect there. There were no canned lychees, either, although the girlfriend, assigned to be my guardian when Mr. Kramer was out, was the one who taught me, at age twelve, how to roll joints with a pencil. Worked pretty well, too, but I soon learned how to do it freehand. The funny thing is that I had no interest in smoking pot, not even out of curiosity. I understood that marijuana was illegal, and I worried about getting into trouble with the law. Also, I was very serious about being kind to my voice and knew that smoking of any kind can damage the vocal cords.
