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Biography |
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Biography
Tour
Dates
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 Martina
McBride was born as Martina Mariea Schiff, the daughter of Daryl and Jeanne
Schiff, on July 29, 1966 in Medicine Lodge, Kansas. She grew up in a little
town in Kansas called Sharon, population 200. She has one sister and two
brothers: Steve and Marty, who plays acoustic guitar in her band.Martina debuted on stage when she was seven, singing Jimmy Dickens song "I'm Little But I'm Loud" at a 4-H convention in Manhattan, Kansas. Her father accompanied her on the guitar. Martina's dad had a country band known as The Schiffters, that included her dad on fiat-top guitar, her kid brother Marty on pedal steel and her mom on the sound board. Martina played keyboards and sang the latest hits and the most popular standards by the hikes of Reba McEntire, Juice Newton, Patsy Chine and Linda Ronstadt; her dad handled the Ernest Tubb and Waylon Jennings numbers. “We'd rent out the old, abandoned high-school gym in Isabel, Kansas,” she remembers, “and throw a big wing-ding. They'd come from all over and just dance for four hours. We had them all - teenagers, little kids, grandparents.” Her dad taught her many country classics when she was little and she says she treassures that till today. She often laughs that she didn't know that there was any other kind of music besides country until she was in highschool. When she was in highschool, she used to play in many pop/rock groups but soon she realized that country is something that's in her heart and nothing else can compare. Here is what she says about her rock'n'roll roots: "Most of what I remember about those days was traveling around in a van with no money. We'd pool all our money as a band and buy a couple loaves of bread and some peanut butter and jelly. We'd live on that for about a week and I'd go into these little dives and scream my head off singing Pat Benatar." In Wichita, Kansas during one of the tours with her family band, she met John McBride, who was a sound manager. They fell in love and got married in May 1988. In 1990 the couple moved to Nashville. John landed a job as Garth Brooks' production manager and to be able to travel with him, Martina took job selling T-shirts on Garth's tour. All that time she was also trying to get a record deal, sending demo tapes to many record labels. Since the RCA records has a policy of not accepting unsolicited material, Martina sent her tape in a purple envelope marked "Reguested material". A few weeks later they called her and she got what she had dreamt of - her first real record deal. Her debut album, The Time Has Come, was released on May 1992 and her career has bloomed ever since. In 1993 she landed a job as an opening act for Garth Brooks. She says that was one of the biggest steps in her career. „He offered it to me out of the blue. I have no idea why.” The song that really put her on the map was "Independence Day" from 1993's The Way That I Am CD, even though it never broke into Top 10. "I never really thought, "Will this be a hit? Will this be a single?' I just recorded it because I wanted it to be part of my body of work. I take pride that I stood up for what I believe in, that i didn't necessarily play it safe." In November 1995, she was finally inducted (by Loretta Lynn) into the Opry. During nine-year-long carrer she released many great songs, of which many were #1 on Billboard Country charts. Finally, in 1999, the Country Music Association honored her with and award for Female Vocalist Of The Year. Martina and John have two daughters - Delaney Katherine born December 22, 1994 and Emma Justine born March 29, 1998. The family lives in Nashville.
HEIGHT: 5 feet 1/2
inches |