Independent and Proud of it, This Country Star
Calls the Shots When it Comes to Her Career—
and Puts Family First
by
M.B. Roberts
Photography by Ronald C. Modra
Huge money. Power. Influence over projects. All of that is sitting at McBride's doorstep if she'll just play ball. But she won't, which leaves the music industry's elite wondering: is McBride shortsighted, or is she the smartest person in the room? The evidence at hand seems to suggest the latter. She's been happily married for 13 years. She's the proud mother of two daughters. And with her size-two figure and flashing blue eyes, she's the definition of gorgeous. On top of that, the 34-year-old Country star has fashioned a melodiously smooth career track since her debut in 1992, making excellent musical decisions and crafting winners like last year's No. 1 hit "I Love You" in between strolls to the award podium to accept honors such as the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year. "She shines with enough wattage that anyone would notice her," says Neil Pond, whose Country Music Media Group publishes Country Weekly and Country Music magazines. "She has the persona, the talent and the camera-friendly good looks. Plus people identify with her songs' strong messages." The way things are stacking up for her, it's easy to suspect what comes next: a series of Revlon commercials and Super Bowl performances, a la Faith Hill and Shania Twain. The only problem with that scenario is that Martina McBride isn't buying into it. And she made that point perfectly clear last year the day she quit touring. "I don't want that big old famous life," she says during a break from the cover shoot for Cowboys & Indians. "My decision comes on a real personal level. I don't want that big of a life. I'm happy." Come again? 
"I think when you have your priorities straight, it's really easy,"
she says. "For me, it's my kids and my family. Everything else has
to work around that. Then you're not pushed and pulled in any direction.
I think what makes people crazy is they don't have that priority set
and they kind of want to do it all without clearly making something
the most important thing in their life. Whether it's your faith, your
kids, your standards, or your job, whatever it is. Just figure out
what is the most important thing and everything has no choice but
to follow around that. It just gets easier."And there you have the beautifully simple logic that is McBride, a logic which led her to make a decision last year that could have spelled disaster for just about any other Country star. When her oldest daughter, Delaney, 6, got ready to go to kindergarten, Martina decided to quit touring. For the school year, anyway. "To me, the most common-sense thing is to tour during the summer and stay home when she's in school," she says with a serenely matter-of-fact tone, even as you know that somewhere in Nashville there is an agent flopping around on the floor of his office at the thought of a top earner like McBride coming off the road. Her other daughter, Emma, 3, stays at home, too. "You don't need to tour all year. I think as an industry we've always had that thing that you go out and tour 300 days a year. But hopefully, it's changing." Maybe, maybe not. Most record companies want their stars on the road, in front of the record-buying public. And most performers are afraid to stay offstage for more than a month or two for fear they'll be forgotten. But not McBride. She started her "nine-months-off" policy last year at precisely the point at which others would hit the touring trail. Her fifth album, Emotion, had just been released, debuting on the Soundscan Country Charts impressively at No. 2. The album's first single, "I Love You," became a crossover hit that zoomed to No. 1 after being snapped up for the soundtrack of Runaway Bride starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. And, on top of that success, Martina was the reigning Female Vocalist of the Year. But once Delaney's school year began, it was time to shelve her awards and put her recording career on the back burner while she concentrated on the fun things she could do as a room mother. "This year has been wonderful," she says, a look of contentment on her face. "It's a lot more like how I grew up."  For
Martina Schiff, growing up meant the big booming metropolis of Sharon,
Kansas (population 200). To say the Schiffs had a musical household
is a bit of an understatement; the family had their own band, the
Schiffters, with her father, Daryl, leading the band, her mother,
Jeanne, working the soundboard, and her little brother, Marty, on
guitar. That left the vocals to Martina."I don't know if I necessarily sang any better than any three- or four-year-old," Martina admits, "but my parents thought I did. They really nurtured that. Almost to the detriment of any other talent. I was never nurtured for any kind of artistic ability, sports, anything like that. Singing was my thing. So I didn't work at anything else. That's why I felt like that's what I was put here to do. When you're a kid, if there was something you could do that no one else could, that's a pretty empowering thing." Most gigs for the Schiffters were along the lines of wedding receptions and supper clubs. Martina admits that her preferences were already well-established. "As a kid, my music was Country," she says. "I didn't know there was anything else until I got old enough to change the radio dial." After Martina graduated from high school in 1984 (in a class of 10), she enrolled at a local junior college. "My parents were a little disappointed when I said I was going to college," she says. "But I only went for a semester so it didn't really count. I was singing in a band at the time and decided I couldn't really devote myself to it [college]." By this time Martina's play list included Pat Benatar, Heart, and Whitney Houston. Proof of her band's hip take came when they decided on their name, The Penetrators. "I was so naïve," she laughs. "I thought, 'That sounds like a good name!'" The Penetrators basically made no money. They drove from gig to gig in a decrepit van whose floorboard was pockmarked with holes. Martina's next touring vehicle was straight out of Ghostbusters—a converted ambulance. Despite the many miles and little cash, a bright spot emerged: The group leased rehearsal space from a Wichita sound engineer by the name of John McBride. Martina and John ended up marrying in 1988. "We're great partners," Martina says. "We're really married in the deepest way. We respect each other's talents." When the newlyweds moved to Nashville in 1990, both were looking to advance their careers. Her husband John scored first. The fickle finger of fate singled him out not just as a soundman but as Garth Brooks' soundman. Martina continued to work as a waitress while she recorded demos. She even got a promotionóselling T-shirts at Brooks' concerts. Although it comes across as corny, Martina readily admits that her decision to hawk Beefy Ts at crowded concerts was based on the same priorities that led her to curtail her touring career last year.  "Anything
to be near my husband," she says.The irony of course is that after RCA Records offered her a contract and she cut her first album, The Time Has Come, Martina McBride got bumped up from Garth Brooks' T-shirt salesman to his opening act. Today John McBride's company still stages sound production for Brooks, as well as Sheryl Crow, Trisha Yearwood, Dwight Yoakam, and the Backstreet Boys. But his most important client is his wife. "John always travels with me, which is a sacrifice for him because he's president of a company," Martina says. "But I want him out here, and I want our girls to have him around. I respect him as a technician and an engineer. I have peace of mind every night when I step up to the microphone." It's difficult to imagine someone who sings as confidently as Martina McBride needing peace of mind on stage. Her voice embodies boldness and power, and her vocals are the envy of other singers. Faith Hill, during her acceptance speech for CMA Female Vocalist of the Year in 1999, looked directly at McBride and practically apologized for winning: "Martina, you're my favorite singer, girl!" Hill's husband, Tim McGraw, calls McBride "a singer's singer." McBride friend and mentor Reba McEntire also lauds her voice: "She has one of the purest and most powerful and most soulful voices." But besides her voice, it's Martina McBride's song choices that slam her powerhouse image home. McBride's signature song is her 1994 hit, "Independence Day," written by Gretchen Peters. It's the story of an abused wife who refuses to take it anymore and burns down the family homeócontroversial to say the least. Many radio stations wouldn't play it. "Independence Day" won the CMA Video of the Year Award and sent her career soaring. Pro-woman anthems have become a McBride signature. "A Broken Wing," a hit from 1997's Evolution, is about a battered woman who escapes to follow her dreams. The most recent hit from her 1999's Emotion, "It's My Time," finds another heroine putting miles between herself and a guy who has wasted her time. Another track, "Love's The Only House," celebrates a woman trying to hold a family together in hard times on a shoestring budget. The lyrics of "This Uncivil War" echo this stand-alone sensibility: "You can stay and take your chances or you can run to save your life." Martina says she doesn't consciously seek out songs with such themes; instead she feels compelled to make them hers. "I pick songs that really move me the first time I hear them," she says. "It's just an instinct. It wouldn't make much sense to me to sing songs that tear women down. That's not who I am. But I don't specifically look for a 'domestic violence song' or an 'issue song.'" Not all of McBride's songs feature the singer standing with a clenched fist. Her first top-10 hit was the light, lovable "My Baby Loves Me." Her first No. 1 was the fun, celebratory "Wild Angels." There was "Happy Girl," "Valentine," and her biggest hit to date, last year's breathy, catchy No. 1 song, "I Love You," which got enormous air time on both Country and pop radio stations. Which brings us to the crossover question. "I don't understand why there's so much focus on this now," Martina says. "There's always been Country music that has crossed over. Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Ronnie Milsap, Johnny Cash, it goes on and on. I think what Faith [Hill] and Shania [Twain] are doing is fantastic. I'm proud of them. Why can't they do what they want? Crossover is not a bad word in my vocabulary. But it's not what I'm doing. The goal is to get as many people as possible to hear your music. The same would be true if you were making a movie." Undoubtedly one reason why she is constantly quizzed about her crossover quotient is her looks. Martina McBride has a simple, elegant onstage style that appeals to fans of all persuasions. "I love fashion," she says. "I think people think Country music people walk around with straw hanging out of their mouth and a corncob pipe. But we've got Versace, too." Even though she says she loves couture, McBride mostly keeps it simple on and off the stage. "At home, I literally just throw on whatever I grab, which is usually jeans and a T-shirt. Even if I go to the grocery store. I don't ever really dress with any kind of thought to it unless I'm going on stage or going out. When I'm on stage I like to wear stuff that makes me feel strong and comfortable, like my leather pants. I also like stuff with a little bit of sparkle."  At
every photo shoot, McBride brings some of her own things to wear,
such as her favorite pair of modern boot-cut jeans from the Gap. "I
love them because they're flattering and I can wear my boots with
them," she says. She also brings some of her own jewelry. "One of
my best friends just gave me a Tiffany bracelet for being an attendant
in her wedding," she says. "It has my initials on it. I'd always admired
this in their catalog. It's great because it's chunky but still feminine.
It's really easy to wear. But I don't really have any pieces of anything
that I'm really attached to. Just my rings. Most of the time I forget
to put jewelry on!"Although she's hit the big times, Martina says she's still a practical Midwesterner at heart. Once she decides to buy a piece of clothing, she ends up wearing it "to death." Sounds like something a mom would say. McBride will be forced to shift out of her T-shirt-and-jeans "mom mode" when she resumes touring this summer. She did play the White House last year for Bill and Hillary ("He didn't make a pass at me," she jokes), but she's looking forward to getting back on stage in front of her real fans as well as teaming up with Reba McEntire on some tour dates (subject to Reba's availability from Annie Get Your Gun on Broadway). And there are plans to release a "Greatest Hits" album including several new songs later in 2001. It will be her seventh album for RCA and certainly push her overall sales well over the eight-million mark. The bright lights of big time success are hard to ignore. But to plucky Martina McBride, the glamorous wardrobe and high-tech stage shows have become secondary attractions for her. "My girls will be with me, so that's the best part," she says, adding, "I don't know if I have it all, but I have everything I want." |
©2001 Cowboys & Indians