Idol twang
Tara Merrin
Calgary Sun
August 20, 2006

Country music superstar Martina McBride doesn’t get nervous very often.




MARTINA McBRIDE


So it’s surprising to learn she had butterflies in her stomach when she met the Canadian Idol finalists in Nashville this week.

“I was a little nervous. I’d never done anything like this before and I really wanted to be able to contribute and say something helpful and constructive,” she says.

“I didn’t feel like it was the right thing to do to try and turn them into country music singers. I just wanted them to do it in their style, which I really think is important, and they did a great job.

“If I had to pick one, I couldn’t. They are all so unique.”

McBride was given about 15 minutes to work with each of Idol’s five remaining competitors as they prepared for tomorrow’s country music-themed show.

Among the country classics expected to be performed are songs from Gordon Lightfoot, Willie Nelson, Nancy Sinatra, Dwight Yoakam and Dolly Parton.

“They are all really talented. That was one of the things I was worried about — that I wouldn’t be able to find anything to tell them to improve on,” says McBride, who had seen a couple of episodes of Canadian Idol, which CTV sent her.

“What I saw in all of them was a real desire to take any information I gave — they’re like little sponges.”

On Tuesday night’s results show, McBride will join the Top 5 on the Idol stage in Toronto where they’ll perform Don Gibson’s I Can’t Stop Loving You.

The four-time Country Music Association female vocalist of the year will also sing Tammy Wynette’s ’Till I Can Make it On My Own from her album Timeless.

While this will mark the first time McBride will appear on Idol in any country, she is no stranger to the popular series.

During the 2005 season of American Idol, eventual winner Carrie Underwood declared McBride to be her favourite singer, performing several of her hits in the competition and putting Independence Day on her first single.

“I haven’t watched (Idol) — it’s not something I’ve ever followed, but I did watch the final show when Carrie won,” says McBride, adding shows like Canadian Idol give a big leg-up to aspiring singers.

“All of that experience is certainly helpful — that experience of being in front of an audience, figuring out what kind of artist you want to be, how to talk to a crowd and how to perform on stage.

“That’s really important, but the thing about it is, they have to hang on to it once they get out of there. That’s the real test — they are kind of paying their dues after the fact, which is really hard.”

McBride, who discovered country music through her father, the lead singer of a band called the Schifters, certainly knows what it’s like to pay her dues.

After moving to Nashville in 1990, she worked on the road selling T-shirts for Garth Brooks and touring with Tim McGraw as a back-up singer before signing a record deal in 1992.

Because McBride’s rise to fame did not happen overnight, she says she’d be hard-pressed to give the Idol finalists any advice on how to succeed in the music industry once the show is over.

“I don’t know how to hang on to instant fame because I certainly didn’t have instant fame — it’s been kind of a long haul for me,” she says.

“But I guess I’d tell them, it’s really important to treat people well and to learn how talk to an audience. You have to be able to make that connection with an audience in an intimate way or you’ll lose them.”

As for McBride, she’s working on a new album which should be out in the spring and is putting together a Canadian tour for next March.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve been up there to tour, so I think it’s time,” she says.

Canadian Idol airs Aug. 21 and 23 at 9 p.m. on CTV.