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Post Info TOPIC: Shania Twain rocks the country with her final tour - New interview


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Shania Twain rocks the country with her final tour - New interview


Shania Twain rocks the country with her final tour

By Glenn Gamboa | Newsday | June 26, 2015 5:31 PM

Shania Twain added an acoustic break in the middle of the shows she is doing on her "Rock This Country" tour, even though she wasn't sure about it.

"I was afraid to slow the show down," says Twain, calling from a tour stop in Ontario, Canada. "But I'm really glad I did. It's good to have that dynamic -- the rest of the show is so full-on."

In a way, Twain is ready for a similar change of pace in her life, as well as her career. The "Rock This Country" tour, which stops at Madison Square Garden Tuesday and Nassau Coliseum Wednesday, is Twain's first since 2004. She also says it will be her final one.

"I'm really enjoying myself," says Twain, who will turn 50 in August. "I know that this is coming to an end and I'm not anxious about it. I'm going to enjoy it."

Twain says she is eager to work on new music. She hopes to release her first album of new material since 2002's "Up!" later this year, with some help from Seaford singer-songwriter-producer Matthew Koma. "I miss making records," she says. "I'm dying to do it."

She is also eager to present her impressive catalog of hits -- from the traditional country of "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?" and "Any Man of Mine" to the pure pop of "You're Still the One"" and "From This Moment On" -- in a new way for her fans.

"It's been a lot of years since I wrote those songs -- life has changed dramatically," she says, alluding to her very public divorce from husband/musical collaborator Robert "Mutt" Lange and a health scare that threatened the complete loss of her voice. "Why I wrote some of those songs has changed. They affect me when in a different way when I'm singing them now for sure. Seeing how the audience reacts affects me as well. . . . I sing them as myself at that moment."

That said, Twain is definitely out to have fun on the tour. "I enjoy giving people the hits," she says. "We're doing them more rock-edged and adding the live spirit of the 'Rock This Country' theme. It's high-energy and it feels good."

Twain says she has been surprised at how excited fans have been about the shows. "During the planning process, it's all on paper and you don't know what is going to happen," she says. "But the reaction has been so much more than I expected."

Twain says her goals now have become very simple. No more concerns about hits and sales and all that.

"I just want to keep focusing on where I'm at," she says. "I'm going to focus on doing my best and hopefully that will make a difference in people's lives. I hope it does."

WHO Shania Twain

WHEN | WHERE 7:30 p.m. Tuesday Madison Square Garden, Manhattan; and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nassau Coliseum, 1255 Hempstead Tpke., Uniondale

INFO $49-$151; 800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com

-----------------------------

Matthew Koma is a surprise collaborator for Shania Twain

Shania Twain surprised many by proclaiming her love of Matthew Koma's music on Twitter -- including the Seaford singer-songwriter himself. Their mutual admiration turned into a collaboration and Koma is now working with Twain on music for her upcoming album.

"We met by total fluke," she says. "But I'm so glad that we did. We gel very well together."

Twain even took to telling people last year how her favorite song of the moment was Koma's song "Suitcase."

"I'm such a fan of his work," she said, "He's so great as a songwriter and as an artist. He has this whole musicality that really works."

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/shania-twain-rocks-the-country-with-her-final-tour-1.10583972



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Shania Twain talks farewell tour

By Alex Biese | Asbury Park Press | July 2, 2015 9:44 a.m. EDT

With her current Rock This Country Tour, pop-country superstar Shania Twain is simultaneously saying hello and goodbye.

It's been more than a decade since the last North American tour by Twain, one of the top-selling female artists in music history with over 75 million albums sold.

But this current run of dates — engagements include Tuesday, July 7, at the Prudential Center in Newark and July 22 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia — are reportedly part of Twain's final tour.

"It's certainly not my retirement from music," Twain said in a recent teleconference with members of the media. "I will be doing music, I'm sure, until the day I die. I love music too much. But the performance side of it, I feel, is a phase in my life, and I've been doing it for so long. I'm 50 this year, I've been on stage since I was 8 years old, and I've really put in my fair share of performance.

"And (I'm) feeling that the time is just right now to do other things, musically. I want to write more, I want to make lots more records. I miss making records, and I haven't made enough records in my life and in my career. I've done a lot more live performing than I have recording, so I want to do a lot more of that."

Twain said she'll be hard at work on a new album, her first since 2002's "Up!" while on the road, although it doesn't seem likely that any new material will make its way into her Rock This Country set list.

The focus of these dates, Twain said, is on her vast back catalog of hits.

"This tour is really all about the classics, and the reason for the tour is to say goodbye to the stage on a high with my friends, with my fans," she said.

Since releasing her self-titled debut album in 1993, Twain charted 17 Top 10 singles and had three consecutive albums (1995's "The Woman in Me," 1997's "Come on Over" and "Up!") earn the diamond certification of selling more than 10 million copies each in the United States.

From 2012 to 2014, Twain starred in a two-year residency, "Shania: Still The One" at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. She described her 67-date tour as a "reintroduction, of sorts" for herself and her fans.

"A lot has happened over the last decade since I've been off tour in all of our lives, my life and in their lives, and music is bringing us back together," she said. "And we're going to celebrate and reminisce to all of the hits that they know and that we've all lived with for all of these years now.

"And, in my case, a lot of the kids that were listening to the music years ago, that I would have seen on tour years ago, are going to be adults now and it's just exciting for me to be able to reunited with them. And I have to say that the most rewarding thing for me, and the thing I'm looking most forward to on this tour, is seeing the fans and being with them again and feeling their excitement and sharing mine with them."

SHANIA TWAIN

WHAT: Rock This Country Tour

WITH: Gavin DeGraw

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday

WHERE: Prudential Center, 25 Lafayette St., Newark

TICKETS: $50.50 to $151

ALSO

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. July 22

WHERE: Wells Fargo

Center, 3601 S. Broad St., Philadelphia

TICKETS: $29.50 to $79.50

INFO: www.shaniatwain.com

http://www.app.com/story/entertainment/music/2015/07/02/shania-twain-talks-farewell-tour/29611107/



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Preview: Country superstar Shania Twain returns with a farewell tour

By Scott Mervis | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | July 9, 2015

Like Garth Brooks, that other crossover country star who popped up earlier this year, Shania Twain did a masterful of job quitting while she was ahead, leaving people wanting more -- or whatever cliche you want to use.

Although the Canadian singer has four albums to her credit, her mega-stardom lasted for all of two records, 1997's "Come On Over" and 2002's "Up!," and the two tours that supported them.

With fans still waiting for the follow-up, the 49-year-old Twain now hits the road on the Rock This Country Tour, her first in 11 years, to say goodbye.

Sort of. Maybe.

"It's certainly not my retirement from music," she said in a teleconference. "I will be doing music, I'm sure, until the day I die. I love music too much. But the performance side of it, I feel, is a phase in my life, and I've been doing it for so long. I'm 50 this year, I've been on stage since I was 8 years old, and I've really put in my fair share of performance.

"And I'm feeling that the time is just right now to do other things, musically. I want to write more, I want to make lots more records. I miss making records, and I haven't made enough records in my life and in my career. I've done a lot more live performing than I have recording, so I want to do a lot more of that."

A few things got in the way of her recording more albums. Like a lot of performers, especially in the country genre, the Switzerland-based singer wanted to be a parent, to her son Eja, who was born in 2001. More problematic was her bout with vocal dysphonia, tension in her vocal cords that did not allow her sing.

And then there was the painful personal drama between her and the man who crafted her stardom, Robert "Mutt" Lange. The veteran writer/producer who made his name working with AC/DC, Def Leppard, Foreigner and The Cars married Ms. Twain in 1993 and was at the helm of her last three albums. In 2008, they separated after he had an affair with her best friend, Marie-Anne Thiebaud. They divorced in June 2010, and in a marital swap, she has since married Ms. Thiebaud's ex-husband.

She opened up about that, and her tragic childhood experiences growing up with poverty and abuse, in her 2011 autobiography "From This Moment On." It's the stuff of a juicy biopic and certainly experience that would fuel a songwriter.

"It's a very personalized songwriting and therapeutic process for me. I'm pouring my heart out in the music," Ms. Twain said.

"I think there are going to be a lot of unexpected elements to the music for sure because I am writing it all myself. Lyrically, I'm still doing the self-reflection and writing in that vein. I'm just different now and I've lived a lot of different things since then, so the stories and the themes will be obviously different and will reflect how I've evolved."

Ms. Twain, who has sold more than 75 million albums, created some of the glossiest sounding country-pop in the late '90s, early '00s with such hits as "Man, I Feel Like a Woman!," "You're Still the One" and "That Don't Impress Me Much."

With her next record, Shania is hoping for less sheen.

"I'm leaning towards wanting the music to sound more organic than my previous stuff. Less slick maybe in that sense -- a really live feel to things, and with a contemporary edge to everything."

Album No. 5 didn't come together in time to launch this tour, which follows her two-year residency in Las Vegas.

"The timing of the tour was decided on not leaving too much of a gap from when my residency finished in December," she said. "At the same time, I was hoping that my album would be further along by the time I finished my residency. It was just one of those things where the timing didn't work out very well."

But she's busy at work, recording demos while she's on tour.

"I'll have a very portable setup and I just sing and record my vocals. It's how I do my demos and you can be electronically connected with your producer wherever they are. And the producers will come out to me as well while I'm touring, and we'll just poke away at it like that. There's just various ways to do this now that is pretty efficient, very effective."

The timing problem, and the reason this might not really be her goodbye, is that she wants to be able to perform the songs from her comeback album.

"I'm dying to do it. If the album progresses quickly enough and the timing works out, then I might very well just put one or two songs in closer to the end of the tour. It would bum me out to not do some of those songs live."

For the moment, she just wants to connect with fans she left behind all these years.

"A lot has happened over the last decade since I've been off tour in all of our lives, my life and in their lives, and music is bringing us back together. And we're going to celebrate and reminisce to all of the hits that they know and that we've all lived with for all of these years now.

"And, in my case, a lot of the kids that were listening to the music years ago, that I would have seen on tour years ago, are going to be adults now, and it's just exciting for me to be able to be reunited with them. And I have to say that the most rewarding thing for me, and the thing I'm looking most forward to on this tour, is seeing the fans and being with them again and feeling their excitement and sharing mine with them."

Shania Twain

Where: Consol Energy Center, Downtown.

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday.

Tickets: $43-$129; www.ticketmaster.com.

http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/music/2015/07/09/Preview-Country-superstar-Shania-Twain-returns-with-a-farewell-tour/stories/201507090022



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Retiring from the road, Shania Twain says the music will keep coming

By Kellie B. Gormly | TribLIVE | July 8, 2015, 9:00 p.m.

Your final chance to see pop-country star Shania Twain in concert comes this week. But fans needn't grieve they are losing the artist altogether.

Twain says she is retiring from touring after the 60-plus-stop Rock This Country Tour, which kicked off June 5 in Seattle and comes to Consol Energy Center on July 10. But the Canadian singer and songwriter, known mostly for her multiplatinum success in the '90s, isn't giving up music. No, that's not going to happen, fans. You will, before too long, get a new Twain album. She loves music too much to let that go, so Twain, as one of her biggest hits says, is keeping it “Forever and For Always.”

“I will be doing music, I'm sure, until the day I die,” says Twain, who will turn 50 in August.

“The performance side of it, I feel, is a phase in my life,” she says. “I've been doing it so long. ... I've really put in my fair share of performance. I want to write more. I want to make lots more records.”

This will be Twain's first North American tour in more than 11 years, and it started soon after she completed a two-year residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Twain, who has sold more than 75 million albums worldwide and has had 17 Top 10 singles, wants to shift her focus back to writing and recording.

“My frame of mind is, I want to move on to different things,” Twain says. Writing songs “takes a lot of emotional energy and it's time-consuming. ... I've got a lot more to say and more to sing. ... I'm also very overdue for new music, not just for one album. I've got a bunch of albums that I still want to make that have been backed up in my own mind.”

Twain — known for her successful crossover into pop from country — hopes to write songs for other artists, too.

“I want to sit back and enjoy them having their moment on the stage, and being proud that I am a part of their success,” Twain says. “That's a whole other exciting phase for me that I look forward to. I see it as an evolution in my career, really.”

But despite the upcoming change, Twain says she is relishing every moment on tour, especially knowing it will be the last time.

Fans will hear some newer songs in Twain's set list, but they can count on a good supply of her beloved hits. Twain's best-known hits include “Up,” “Come On Over,” “Man! I Feel Like a Woman,” “You're Still the One,” “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?” and “(If You're Not in It for Love) I'm Outta Here.”

“A tour is all about bringing hits to everybody,” Twain says. “For me, this tour is about reuniting with the fans. I haven't done it in a long time. ... This tour's really all about the classics.”

Twain has survived many struggles during the past several years, including a highly publicized and dramatic divorce from husband Robert John “Mutt” Lange, who was her producer and co-writer.

Meanwhile, Twain suffered from dysphonia, an ailment where muscles squeeze the voice box, and it caused her to lose some of her voice. But with good physical care and practice, Twain says, she regained her famous voice, and she is enjoying sharing it with fans from the stage.

While in Las Vegas, Twain enjoyed the experience and the intimacy with the audience but yearned to experience touring and performing on arena stages one more time. In a way, Twain says she will be reintroducing herself to her fans after her long touring hiatus.

“For the last two years in Las Vegas, the fans have been coming to me,” Twain says. “I just feel pumped to get out there and go to their towns.

“It's a very exciting time for me,” she says. “The most rewarding thing for me ... is seeing the fans and being with them and sharing the excitement with them.”

Shania Twain history

Aug. 28, 1965: Eilleen Regina Edwards is born to Clarence and Sharon Edwards. Her parents divorce when she is 2. Her mother marries Jerry Twain, an Ojibwa Indian, who adopts Eilleen and her two sisters. She becomes Eilleen Twain at age 4 and grows up in the rural Canadian mining town of Timmins, Ontario. By age 8, Shania Twain is performing in clubs late at night.

1987: Twain's parents are killed in a head-on collision. At 22, Twain cares for her three teenage siblings and earns her living by singing at the upscale Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, Ontario. When the kids are grown, Twain heads to Nashville in the early '90s to pursue her dreams.

1993: Twain signs a record deal with Mercury Nashville, changing her name to Shania, an Ojibwa name meaning “I'm on my way,” and releases her self-titled debut album. She begins writing songs over the phone with London-based producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange. In June of 1993, Twain and Lange meet in person, fall in love and marry by the end of the year.

1995: Twain becomes a household name with the album “The Woman in Me,” for which she co-wrote 10 of 12 songs. The record sells 12 million copies. Twain receives four Grammy nominations for it and wins for Best Country Album. The album includes the hits “The Woman in Me (Needs the Man in You),” “If You're Not in It for Love (I'm Outta Here!)” and “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?”

1997: Twain's third album — “Come On Over,” featuring hits including “From This Moment On” and “You're Still the One” — comes out and sells 34 million copies worldwide. Twain gets the cover of Rolling Stone.

2001: Twain gives birth to her son Eja (pronounced Asia) while she and her husband are living in Switzerland.

2002: Twain puts out the album “Up!,” a double CD that has several versions of its 19 tracks, both pop and country.

2008: Lange and Twain split in May in a scandal allegedly involving him and Twain's best friend. Six months later, Twain makes her first public appearance since the split at the Country Music Association Awards, where she presents Kenny Chesney with the Entertainer of the Year Award. She couples up with her current husband, Frederic Thiebaud.

2010: Twain announces her television show on the Oprah Winfrey Network called “Why Not? With Shania Twain.”

2012: After an eight-year hiatus from the stage, Twain kicks off a two-year residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas with her “Still the One” show.

2015: Twain kicks off her Rock This Country Tour, which she says is her final hurrah.

http://triblive.com/aande/music/8370581-74/twain-says-shania



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Shania Twain talks about bidding fans farewell

By Donna Isbell Walker | Greenville News | July 13, 2015 3:11 p.m. EDT

Shania Twain has spent the past 21/2 years performing a residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and it's been more than a decade since she hit the road for a concert tour.

That all changed earlier this summer, when she embarked on "Rock This Country," which Twain said will be her final tour.

The tour has a dual purpose, to reacquaint herself with fans and to bid them farewell.

"It's like a reunion of sorts," Twain said in a conference call interview with journalists before the tour hit the road. "A lot has happened over the last decade, since I've been off tour, in all of our lives. In my life and in their lives. Music is bringing us back together, and we're going to celebrate and reminisce. ... It's just exciting for me to be reunited with them."

Twain, who performs at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena on July 18, has had a phenomenally successful career over the past 20 years, selling 48 million records, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, and hitting the charts with songs like "That Don't Impress Me Much" and "You're Still the One."

It's been nearly 13 years since her last album, "Up!" and she's working on the next album, even hoping to squeeze in some time to record it while she's on the road.

But in keeping with the old friends vibe of the tour, Twain probably won't play much new music during the tour.

"This tour is really all about the classics, and the reason for the tour is just to say goodbye to the stage on a high, with my friends, with my fans," she said.

She's clear, though, that her retirement from touring doesn't mean she's leaving the music business altogether.

"I will be doing music, I'm sure, until the day I die. I love music too much," Twain said. "The performance side of it, I feel is a phase in my life, and I've been doing it for so long. I (will be) 50 this year, I've been on stage since I was 8 years old, and I've really put in my fair share of performance. And feeling that the time is just right now to do other things musically. I want to write more, I want to make lots more records. ... So I just see it as an evolution in my career, really."

Twain said she enjoyed her residency in Las Vegas, but felt it was time for a change. But her experience of performing in one place for two years was part of the driving force in her desire to hit the road one last time.

"During the last part of the two-year period in Vegas, I realized that I'd missed being on the touring stage and missed going out to the public, as opposed to them coming to me. So I was thinking, 'Hey, it would be fun to go and visit people in their own hometowns and experience that excitement and atmosphere again.'"

And to a degree, her time at Caesars Palace also changed how Twain interacts with an audience. In Vegas, the crowd is much closer to the stage than the audience at an arena concert, she said.

"I love to see the people close-up, I like to touch the people and mingle with them. It was really cool to do so much of that there, having them so close to the stage in such a controlled room; it was a theater environment. And what I learned was, I want to do more of this," she said.

Twain opened her tour last month in Seattle; the final show takes place in October in her native Canada. The tour will showcase a whole new side of Twain as a performer, she said.

"The show is just full of great technology on the highest end possible. It's a very dynamic show, more dynamic than ever before. And no one's ever seen me in this light, ever before. It's going to be a whole new fresh look, a whole new fresh production, entirely different from Las Vegas. We've stripped everything down and started from scratch. ... I think it will be memorable."

YOU CAN GO

Who: Shania Twain with Gavin DeGraw

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Bon Secours Wellness Arena

How much: $64-$134

Tickets: www.ticketmaster.com

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/entertainment/2015/07/13/shania-twain-talks-bidding-fans-farewell/30093115/



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Country singer Shania Twain returns to tour after 10 years off

By Nick Sortal | Sun Sentinel | July 13, 2015 3:20 PM

You might scoff when you hear a singer younger than 50 in the midst of a "farewell" tour, but Shania Twain gives plenty of reasons for going into hiding.

"I've been on stage since I was 8 years old, and I have put in my share of performances," Twain said in a telephone news conference before launching her tour, which stops in Miami on Thursday. "I'm feeling less extroverted about a need to express my music and more content to just be creating it. I don't need to be in the spotlight...

"I want to write more and make more records."

But before that, she says she wants one more go-round with the fans. The glittery Canadian country-pop singer and songwriter started a 67-show tour on June 5, packed with favorites, such as "Any Man of Mine," "That Don't Impress Me Much" and "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?"

"I'm going to have the most fun I've ever had onstage, I'm more relaxed and savoring it, and in a farewell spirit," says Twain, who turns 50 on Aug. 28."We're going to celebrate and reminisce with all the hits [fans] know and we've all lived with," she adds. "I think the fans and I are going to be re-introduced to each other. A lot has happened in the last decade in all of our lives."

Twain topped the country charts from 1993-2002. She was sidelined by dysphonia, which causes spasms in speech and singing, but once recovered returned to performing in 2012-14 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

"During the last part of the two years in Las Vegas, I realized that I missed out on a phase, so I thought it'd be fun to go and visit people in their own hometown and atmosphere again," she says. "I enjoyed Vegas, but it was a motivation to experience going out into the arena setting."

She had hoped to have a new album to go with the tour, but it won't be ready until the fall, she says.

"The timing of the tour was based on not leaving a gap when my [Las Vegas] residency ended in December. I didn't want to shut down, but at the same time I was hoping my album would be further along," she says. "It didn't work out as planned, but I can't rush an album just for the sake of the tour."

And that further backs up her decision to worry less about big arenas and more about putting her thoughts on paper.

"My frame of mind is: I want to move on to do different things, and I need time to do it," she says. "I don't know about other songwriters, but it takes a lot of focus, a lot of emotional energy, and it's time-consuming.

"If I'm distracted all the time with all the facets of the tour and the touring itself, how much music am I ever going to write? I guess my focus has switched."

Shania Twain plays at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at AmericanAirlines Arena, 601 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. Tickets are $61 to $155.80 via Ticketmaster.com.

http://www.southflorida.com/music/sf-shania-twain-american-airlines-20150713-story.html



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Shania Twain Hits Miami for One Last Tour

By Liz Tracy | Miami New Times | July 15, 2015

Shania Twain may not be impressed by much, but just about everyone is impressed by this pop-country siren. She's the Denzel of females — all talent with a perfect visage. And just like that runaway train Mr. Washington spent a whole movie trying to slow down, she's proven to be almost unstoppable.

The singer of feminist anthems like "Man! I Feel Like a Woman" and wedding staples "You're Still the One" and "From This Moment On" has had her share of country-and-western heartache. She lands like a cat, though, always on her feet.

When Twain was a kid and her family was in need of money, she began singing at bars for extra dough. When her husband left her for her best friend, she retreated to heal, only to find love with that same friend's ex. When a lesion damaged her vocal cords, she retired to Switzerland, returning to the stage in Vegas for 2012's Still the One at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace. She has hit her stride again and again.

Twain is heading to 67 cities this summer and fall for her Rock This Country tour. It's been more than 11 years since she toured North America, and this is slated to be her final time on the road. The chanteuse says that after two years at one spot in Vegas, she realized she missed going out to where the people were rather than have them coming to her. "It's a very exciting time for me. For fans, we're going to be reintroduced to each other," Shania says. "Music is bringing us back together, and we're going to celebrate and reminisce with all of the hits."

Though Ms. Twain went Vegas, don't expect her set to look like the Bellagio. She claims it's a whole new look that no one has seen before. Oddly, though, she admits to bringing her horse on tour once to get some exercise and see some new landscapes. But this time, she's leaving the equine life at home. Instead of riding Mr. Ed, she'll record a new album during her breaks.

But, sadly, audiences on this tour will not hear songs off her upcoming release. "This tour is really all about the classics," she reveals, but also, "to say goodbye to the stage on a high." She says if the album moves ahead quickly, though, by the end of the tour some lucky buggers will catch her performing them in concert.

However, don't think Twain is leaving the game for good. "It's certainly not my retirement from music," she says. She'll be making music till she dies, but she's finished with the performance side of the biz. She'll turn 50 this August and has been onstage since she was 8. Forty-two years makes hers a pretty fantastic career. These days, she'd rather write for up-and-coming artists and spend time recording her own albums.

"I've evolved a lot over the years," she explains. "My life has changed so dramatically, and my point of view has changed in a lot of ways. The way I see my role onstage and what I mean to fans and what they mean to me, all of that is more valuable, and it's just another level of maturity and gratitude. I'm looking forward to just exchanging that and experiencing that with them."

Shania Twain with Gavin DeGraw. 7:30 p.m., Thursday, July 16, at American Airlines Arena, 601 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami; 786­777­1000; aaarena.com. Tickets cost $43 to $133 plus fees via Ticketmaster.com.

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/music/shania-twain-hits-miami-for-one-last-tour-7750657



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Shania Twain to perform at Bon Secours Arena in Greenville

By L. Kent Wolgamott | Spartanburg Herald-Journal | July 16, 2015

Shania Twain hadn't been on tour for more than a decade before she began her "Rock This Country" excursion this summer. And she doesn't plan to ever be back on the road again.

The '90s country star, who has sold more than 85 million albums, isn't quitting music altogether. But she says she's shutting down touring once her current "Rock This Country" trek wraps up in October.

"This is certainly not my retirement from music," Twain said in a telephone news conference. "I will be doing music, I'm sure, until the day I die. I love music too much. The performance side of it, I feel, is a phase in my life. I've been doing it for so long. I'm 50 this year. I've been on stage since I was 8 years old and I've really put in my fair share of performance. I'm feeling that the time is just right now to do other things musically.

"I want to write more. I want to make lots more records. I miss making records and I haven't made enough records in my life and my career," she said. "I also want to write songs for other artists that are coming up and I want to sit back and enjoy them having their moment on the stage and being proud that I'm being proud of their success. …. That's a whole exciting phase for me that I look forward to. I just see it as an evolution in my career really."

In fact, Twain has begun recording a new album — her first since 2002's "Up!" Generally artists wait until the record is completed before touring. But the timing didn't work for Twain, who is coming off a two-year residency at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

She isn't doing any new material on the tour yet — it's a possibility for later on the tour. She plans to sing new songs throughout the summer as she makes the new record while on the road utilizing a mobile recording setup.

"I'm going to try to squeeze in working on the album while I'm on the tour," Twain said. "There's going to be a little bit of tug-of-war for my time in getting this music finished. ... On my off days — and time when I'm not on stage and traveling — I'll be recording vocals or working on the songwriting and so on. I'm going to pretty much be working between the stage and the new album."

That means that Twain's show will be a retrospective affair, a last chance for fans to hear her sing songs including "Any Man of Mine," "You're Still the One" and "Man! I Feel Like a Woman."

"It's the classic stuff that everybody knows. That's what this tour is all about — bringing the hits to everybody, bringing them to their hometowns," she said. "For me, this tour is about reuniting with the fans. I haven't done it in a long time. The reason for the tour is to say goodbye to the stage on a high, with my friends, with my fans."

Those hits, which started in 1995 with her "The Woman in Me" album, were on the country charts. But Twain's music blurred the then-sharper distinctions between country, rock, and pop — foreshadowing the crossover that typifies the sound of country's current hitmakers.

Any kind of genre division has never been in Twain's mind.

"I never really felt it was necessary to box anything in," she said. "It was a lot more fun to watch things evolve and cross boundaries. That's what I ended up doing in my own career. I never saw myself as any one thing and I never labeled my own self specifically or wrote music for any one genre. It was a pleasant surprise when my music ended up a cross-genre thing."

Twain's string of hits ended just over a decade ago, about the same time she left the road. Initially, she took a hiatus from touring to concentrate on being a mom, raising her son who had just started school when her last tour ended.

That hiatus grew longer and in 2008 there was major upheaval when Twain discovered her then-husband, producer Robert "Mutt" Lange, was having an affair.

The couple divorced and, in a soap-opera-worthy turn, Twain began dating Frederic Thiebaud, whose former wife, Marie-Anne, was having the affair with Lange and had been Twain's best friend. Twain and Thiebaud married in 2011.

Then came another huge scare: Twain began to lose her voice, not just for singing, but even speaking.

"It was very, very scary. It went way beyond not being able to perform. It certainly went beyond concerns for my career and not having a career as a singer," Twain said. "It was a part of me that I was losing, like losing a hand or something. It was going through a grieving process. I really thought I lost my voice, the voice that I knew, the voice I once had. It was very scary and it was just something I was having a terrible time coming to terms with. Before I gave up on it completely, luckily, I found the courage to tackle it and take it on."

Lesions were found on Twain's vocal cords and she was diagnosed with dysphonia. Once treated, Twain was able to resume her singing career, opting first for the Vegas residency.

"During the last part of the two-year period in Vegas, I realized I've missed being out on the touring stage, missed going out to the public as opposed to them coming to me," Twain said, explaining why she's now on the road. "I enjoyed Vegas, but it was a motivation to one more time experience going out into the arena setting and being with people in their home towns."

Twain said she's taking one thing from her Vegas shows on the road. In the smaller, controlled room she was able to get up close and personal with the audience.

"I have to make sure I'm able to get out there in the audience and touch people and look people in the eye and be among them," she said. "There's a plan for that. It's something I'm going to take with me on the tour, even though it won't be as easy to do."

Twain promises the most dynamic show she's ever done with top-flight production as she wraps up her touring career with a bang.

"I think it will be memorable. It's going to rock," she said. "That's for sure. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm in a good spirit for it. I really feel pumped to get out there and go to their towns and bring them this whole new show, this big sign-off, this big farewell."

But she admits there's a tinge of sadness as well.

"I'm savoring it because it is my last tour," Twain said. "I'm in a farewell spirit, I'm in a reunion spirit. It will be very emotional for me. ... It's a bit of a bittersweet experience."

http://www.goupstate.com/article/20150716/ENT/150719796



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Shania Twain talks about her final tour, headed for Quad-Cities

By David Burke | Quad-City Times | July 17, 2015

IF YOU GO

WHO: Shania Twain, with Gavin DeGraw

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Sunday, July 26

WHERE: iWireless Center, 1201 River Drive, Davenport

HOW MUCH: $136, $86, $66 and $46

INFORMATION: 309-764-2001 or iWirelessCenter.com

ALSO ON THE WEB: ShaniaTwain.com

There have been seismic shifts in the music landscape during the past dozen-or-so years, but Shania Twain says she's more than ready to return to it.

The Canadian singer is out on her "Rock This Country" tour, her first tour since 2003-'04 and working on her first studio album since "Up!" in 2002.

The tour brings her back next weekend to the iWireless Center in Moline, where she last appeared in May 2004. She'll be writing and recording when not on stage during the four-month tour.

Since that appearance, Twain has divorced her music producer-husband and gotten remarried, raised a son who turns 14 next month and suffered and recovered from a nearly career-ending vocal injuries.

She also spent two years in a residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, which she said spurred her to return to the road.

Twain, who turns 50 next month, talked candidly with reporters in a teleconference before the beginning of the tour. Here are some highlights:

APPROACHING THE TOUR: "We're going to be reintroduced to each other, is the best way I can put it. It's going to be a reunion of sorts. A lot has happened in the last decade in my life and their lives. Music has brought us back together and we're going to get together and reminisce."

DECLARING THIS AS HER FINAL TOUR: "It's certainly not my retirement from music. I will be doing music, I'm sure, till the day I die. I love music too much. The performance side of it, I feel, is a phase in my life. I've been doing it for so long — I turn 50 this year, and I've been on stage since I was 8 years old. I've really put in my fair share of performance and feeling that the time is just right to do other things musically. I want to write now, I want to make more records. I haven't made enough records in my life and my career."

THE CHANGING MUSIC LANDSCAPE: "The genres have gone in every possible direction I ever could have imagined. What falls into any specific genre has changed and evolved, and also new genres are coming out all the time. I think it's a moving target, and I always enjoyed following that.

"I enjoy seeing these boundaries being pushed and evolved and dissolved in some cases."

BACK ON THE ROAD: "During the last part of the two-year period in Vegas I realized that I'd missed being out on the touring stage and missed going out to the public as opposed to them coming to me. So I was thinking, gee, it'd be fun to go visit people in their own hometowns and witness that excitement and atmosphere again."

WHAT SHE LEARNED IN VEGAS: "The audiences there were very close to the stage, and it was one of the luxuries I enjoyed, because I love to see the people close-up and touch the people. It was really cool to do so much of that there, having them so close to the stage. ... What I learned was, I want to do more of this. I want to make sure when I go out on the road that I don't miss out on that. I want to touch people, look them in the eye and be among them. There's a plan for that."

TAKING A BREAK: "Those few years after the last tour were very deliberately to concentrate on my son and my home. At the end of that tour, my son was just starting school for the first time, so that was logical timing for me. That shorter sabbatical turned into a very long one, and the problems began compounding with the voice ... and it ended up being more than a decade."

LOSING HER VOICE: "It was very, very scary. It went way beyond not being able to perform. It went beyond concerns for my career, or not having a career as a singer. It was a part of me that I was losing, like losing a hand or something. I was going through a grieving process. I thought I had lost my voice, the voice that I knew and the voice that I once had. It was very scary and it was something I had trouble coming to terms with."

MUSICAL RECOVERY: "It was a lot of work. There was a lot of physical therapy, body exercises. A lot of vocalizing, vocal therapy. Just persistence, determination. Because like any physiotherapy, it's hard. It's tedious, it's repetitive, it's tiring, it's boring a lot of the time. It's similar to what an athlete would have to go through after an energy, start from scratch and build up to the best that it can be."

WRITING NEW MUSIC: "There won't be any new music from the new album on the set list, at least at this point. I don't want to pull it in too soon, because it'll be very difficult to know when the new album is ready. I don't want to bore people with songs they don't know, either. I know when I go to a concert I want to hear songs that I know and that I'm familiar with and that I have memories of. ... I'm dying to do it. I'd love to be able to do it."

CHANGES IN NEW MUSIC: "Stylistically, it's hard for me to explain it. It's different from what I've done in the past. The songs and the spirit of the songs are still very relatable. They're very communicative. I don't think they're obscure or anything like that. There's going to be a lot of unexpected elements. I'm going to be writing it myself. There's not going to be any influence from another writer or another producer affecting it. It's going to give it a very different spirit to the music."

TURNING 50: "Anybody in the second half of their 40s is considering what it means to be 50. For me, it's an inspiration and a motivator to be my best. I feel like if I don't push myself and bring myself to the best I can be now, it's only gonna get harder after that. I'm saying to myself, at this point in your life you've got to be the best you can be, the fittest you can be, the sharpest you can be, the most educated you can be, the happiest you can be. Now I just feel like it sets a positive, strong platform for myself to jump from. It sets the tone for the rest of my life, is how I see it."

http://qctimes.com/entertainment/shania-twain-talks-about-her-final-tour-headed-for-q/article_1d043720-4c41-501b-92fb-3cacea53cb3a.html



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Shania Twain still has a lot in store for music fans

By Ed Condran | Bucks County Courier Times | July 19, 2015 12:30am 

Shania Twain is walking away from live performance, but the best-selling female recording artist in the history of country music will still write and record songs after her “Rock This Country” tour ends.

“This is certainly not my retirement from music,” she says during a conference call with reporters. “I want to make lots more records. I miss making records and I haven’t made enough records in my life and career.”

However, Twain, 49, has sold enough albums for a number of careers. The Canadian diva’s sales have topped the 75 million-album mark, thanks to an array of catchy country-pop tunes.

“You’re Still the One,” “From This Moment On” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” are just some of the smashes she co-wrote and recorded with Mutt Lange, her former husband and producer.

Each of those songs are from her 1997 high-water mark “Come On Over,” which yielded six singles that reached the Billboard Top 40 singles charts. It became the biggest-selling album released by a female artist, due to the magic wielded by Twain and Lange.

“If Mutt is in the studio, you know what you’re making will be catchy,” Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen said recently. “He was incredible with us and we saw what he did with Shania. He helped her make some great pop songs.”

Lange and Twain have long since split, but the latter is making her first album since 2002’s “Up” while she’s on tour. Twain, who will perform Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Center, might preview tracks at some point during the jaunt.

“If the album progresses quickly enough and the timing works out, then I might very well just put one or two songs in closer to the end of the tour,” she says. “It would bum me out to not do some of those songs live.”

If Twain does deliver new material in South Philadelphia, expect a different sound than what established her during the ’90s.

“I’m leaning toward wanting the music to sound more organic than my previous stuff — less slick, maybe,” she says. “I just want to direct it that way, that it’s all my favorite instruments in there and a really live feel to things and with a contemporary edge to everything.

“It will just sound different. I think my voice will be very recognizable. ... I’m just different now and I’ve lived a lot of different things since (‘Up!’ was released), so the stories and themes will be different and will reflect how I’ve evolved.”

Twain has morphed, but she insists her “Rock This Country” tour will find her reaching back to the hits.

“It’s a celebration tour,” she says. “I’m reuniting with the fans out there in their home towns — which I have not done in a decade. It is a goodbye to the stage. It’s full of great technology, the highest end possible. It’s a very dynamic show, more dynamic than ever before, and no one’s seen me in this light before. It’s gonna rock, that’s for sure. It’ll be something nobody’s ever seen before from me.”

Well, ardent fans who traveled to Las Vegas to catch Twain’s two-year residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, which concluded in December, have experienced the superstar at midlife.

“I’ve really enjoyed performing live and I’ll have fun with this tour, but I have to move on to the next thing,” she says.

The next phase is writing, according to Twain, who says she would like to pen songs for other recording artists, as well as for her future albums.

Count on her moving to another sonic plane since she’s not working with Lange.

It will be all Twain.

“I think there are going to be a lot of unexpected elements to the music because I’m writing it all myself,” she says.

“Lyrically, I’m still doing the self-reflection and writing in that vein. I’m just different now and I’ve lived a lot of different things since then. It’s a therapeutic process for me.”

Shania Twain appears Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Center, Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, Philadelphia. Show time: 8 p.m. Tickets: $46.50, $72, $92 and $147. Information: 215-336-3600.

http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/life-style/local-entertainment/music/shania-twain-still-has-a-lot-in-store-for-music/article_112c4ccb-5fe4-5489-8e17-04b3b641b68b.html



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Shania Twain’s ‘Rock This Country’ tour a farewell reunion with fans

By Eric Althoff | The Washington Times | July 19, 2015

Shania Twain firmly states that her current “Rock This Country” tour will be her last, but the country/pop icon quickly adds, “It’s certainly not my retirement from music. I will be doing music until the day I die. I love music too much.”

The news is mixed comfort for fans of Miss Twain. The Canadian songstress, who achieved superstardom in the late 1990s as a country artist who crossed into the mainstream, shied away from the limelight for nearly a dozen years amid a messy — and very public — divorce and health problems that affected her voice.

But after a triumphal two-year residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Miss Twain knew she wanted to go out and see her fans on one final excursion before hanging up the mic.

“I think the fans [and I] are going to be reintroduced to each other,” said Miss Twain, who will perform Tuesday at the District’s Verizon Center. “It’s like a reunion of sorts. Music is bringing us back together.”

In 2011, the singer of such hits as “Man! I Feel Like a Woman,” “You’re Still the One” and “That Don’t Impress Me Much” was told she suffered from dysphonia, a condition that hindered her ability to accurately reproduce pitches — a veritable death knell for someone in Miss Twain’s profession.

“It was very, very scary. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to sing again,” she said of her diagnosis. “It was a part of me that I was losing, like losing a hand or something.”

Nevertheless, while undergoing extensive therapy to restore her vocal chords’ prowess, Miss Twain kept her pen busy, continuing to write material — for herself or, potentially, for other artists to record.

“I was writing the music, but I didn’t know what to do with it,” she said. “Why I didn’t record anything is primarily because my voice just wasn’t there.”

She likened her recuperation to an athlete convalescing from an injury, a process that required extensive physical and vocal work, which she said required not only patience but also “persistence [and] determination, because, like any physiotherapy, it’s hard, it’s tedious, it’s repetitive, it’s boring, it’s tiring, it’s painful.”

With intensive therapy and retraining, Miss Twain again found her voice, albeit with a sound altered from the one that made her famous.

“There was the process of learning to live with the voice that was now slightly different, because you’re never exactly the same again,” she said. “Now warming up for the show takes an hour and a half [for] physical and vocal therapy.”

In addition to dealing with her personal and vocal woes, Miss Twain took the time away from the spotlight to raise her son, Eja Lange, who is now 13. All told, she didn’t sing publicly for more than a decade — and the music industry had changed dramatically since her last album, “Up,” hit record stores in 2002.

While she isn’t promoting a new album on the “Rock This Country” tour, Miss Twain is hard at work on fresh material, some of which she may unveil onstage as the tour nears its close this year.

“It’s different from what I’ve done in the past, stylistically,” she said. “I’ve matured and evolved, and I have different things to say or express that weren’t true about me 10, 15, 20 years ago. That, I think, is just a natural evolution that I don’t think is going to surprise anybody.”

Miss Twain, who is remarried, is channeling the hardships of her life — as a poor, rootless young woman losing her parents in a car crash, as well as her divorce and loss of her voice — into her new works.

“It’s just a very therapeutic process,” she said.

Miss Twain, who will turn 50 next month, has performed publicly since the age of 8. She feels she has “put in my fair share” of performances and the time is right to leave the stage behind. Looking ahead, she said she would be content — perhaps even fulfilled — writing music for other artists.

“My frame of mind is I want to move on to do different things, and I need time to do it,” she said. “It takes a lot of focus to write meaningful songs. If I’m distracted with all the facets of a tour, how much am I really going to write and how many albums am I really going to make?

“I’ve got a lot more to say, I’ve got a lot more to sing, and that’s what’s behind that decision” to no longer tour, she said. “I can’t do both at the same time. I want to sit back and … watch my music as the observer from the audience.”

She is even considering writing songs in French, which is not only the second official language of her homeland but also of her Swiss husband, Frederic Thiebaud.

“I haven’t written any songs in French yet, but it’s a great idea,” Miss Twain told The Washington Times. With a laugh, she added: “My husband would have to help me with certain elements of it, but I could certainly attempt that, and I think it would be a lot of fun.”

Miss Twain’s ex-husband and former manager, Robert “Mutt” Lange, left her for her former best friend, Marie-Anne Thiebaud, who is the ex-wife of her current husband, Mr. Thiebaud — no doubt all of which will provide ample material for her forthcoming compositions.

In the meantime, Miss Twain is enjoying going out and seeing her fans one final time. Without the burden of a new album to promote, she feels she can sing the songs her fans want to hear for an evening that is a celebration and a farewell.

“The last two years in Las Vegas, the fans came to me. I just feel pumped to get out there and bring them this whole new show,” she said. “This tour is really about the classics. The reason is to say goodbye to the stage on a high and just be with my friends, with my fans.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/19/shania-twains-rock-country-tour-farewell-reunion-f/



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Still The One: Farewell tour doesn’t mean goodbye for Shania Twain

By Gary Graff | The Morning Sun | 7/20/15, 2:00 PM EDT

If you go

• Shania Twain and Gavin DeGraw

• 7:30 pm. Saturday, July 25.

• The Palace, Lapeer Road at I-75, Auburn Hills.

• Tickets are $46-$136.

• Call 248-377-0100 or visit palacenet.com.

Shania Twain is saying goodbye to the road.

And she swears she’s not kidding.

The country and pop hitmaker — who’s sold more than 85 million records, scored 16 Top 10 country singles and won five Grammy Awards — says her current Rock This Country Tour, which kicked off June 5 in Seattle, will be her last major road trip. But she’s quick to explain it has nothing to do with age, infirmity or fatigue.

It’s actually because Twain wants to make more music.

“This is certainly not my retirement from music,” Twain, 49 — born Eilleen Regina Edwards in Windsor, Ont. — says by phone while vacationing in the Bahamas. “I will be doing music for sure until the day I die. But I’ve done a lot more live performing than I have recording, so I want to do a lot more (recording).”

Twain has, in fact, released just four albums during her 22-year career, though they made her the first female artist in history to release three consecutive Diamond-certified albums for sales of more than 10 million copies each.

“As much as I’m overdue for the touring, I’m overdue for new music,” continues Twain, whose last album, “Up!,” came out in 2002. “I want to write more. ... I’ve got a bunch of albums I want to make that have been backed up in my own mind. I’ve got to get them out of my system and that could take a while.

“I’m 50 this year (on Aug. 28). I’ve been on stage since I was 8 years old, and I’ve really put in my fair share of performance. So I see this as an evolution in my career, really.”

Twain’s resolve is also part of a comeback that began in 2012, when she opened a Las Vegas show called Still The One at Caesar’s Palace, ending a “short sabbatical” to raise her now 12-year-old son, Eja, that turned into an eight-year hiatus. It was a dramatic period for Twain, too. She divorced from husband Robert “Mutt” Lange — who also produced her albums and co-wrote her songs — in 2010 after he reportedly had an affair with the singer’s best friend.

Twain also battled vocal issues that surfaced during that time, which she says genuinely threatened her potential for making music.

“It was very, very scary. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to sing again,” recalls Twain, who remarried, to Nestlé executive Frederic Thiebaud — ironically the ex-husband of that former best friend — in 2011. “It went way beyond not being able to perform or concerns for my career. It was part of me that I was losing, like losing a hand or something. I was going through a grieving process and was having a terrible time coming to terms with it. It was incredibly depressing.”

Through “a lot of work” she describes as “boring, tiring and painful”— including voice therapy, physiotherapy and exercise — Twain regained her pipes. “It’s very similar to what an athlete would go through if they had an injury,” Twain explains. “You start from scratch and build back to where it could be, the best it could be to do its job.

“For me there was the process of learning to live with a voice that was slightly different, ’cause you’re never the same again. So I had to go through that very long process. A lot of therapies. And warming up for the show now takes an hour and a half of vocal warm-up and physical warm-up.”

The return in Vegas was triumphant, and Twain wants the Rock This Country Tour to take one last swing through the provinces. “It’s just a celebration tour,” says Twain, who will be on the road until early October and may take a swing through Europe. “I’m reuniting with the fans out there in their hometowns, which I have not done in a decade.

“I’m in a good spirit for it. For the last two years in Las Vegas, the fans have been coming to me, so I just feel real pumped to get out there and go to their towns and bring them this whole new show and I guess, this big sign-off, this big farewell.”

Twain is at work on her fifth album, which she hoped to have out before the tour — and, with “a very little portable set-up” for recording on the road with her, she’s not ruling out a new song or two before she’s finished.

“The biggest difference is going to be stylistically,” Twain says of the album. “I think my voice will be very recognizable; I’m assuming that, anyway. But I’m leaning toward wanting the music to sound more organic than my previous stuff, less slick, maybe. I just want to direct it that way, that it’s all my favorite instruments in there and a really live feel to things and with a contemporary edge to everything. It will just sound different.”

Lyrically, Twain adds, “I’m still doing the self-reflection and writing in that vein. I’m just different now and I’ve lived a lot of different things since (‘Up!’), so the stories and the themes will be obviously different and will reflect how I’ve evolved.”

That evolution may even lead Twain away from her own career, she says.

“I want to write songs for other artists that are coming up,” Twain notes. “I want to sit back and enjoy them having their moment on the stage and being proud that I’m part of their success and watching my music as the observer from the audience. I could be the creator of things and other people could be the performers of my creations and I would be fulfilled. I don’t need to be the one performing what I create.

“So that’s a whole other exciting phase for me that I look forward to.”

http://www.themorningsun.com/arts-and-entertainment/20150720/still-the-one-farewell-tour-doesnt-mean-goodbye-for-shania-twain



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Country/pop queen Shania Twain talks comeback tour, vocal problems, new music

After vocal and personal problems, country/pop queen Shania Twain is back on tour, headed to Target Center on Tuesday.

By Jon Bream | Star Tribune | July 22, 2015 — 11:19am

Shania Twain
Opening: Gavin DeGraw.
When: 7:30 p.m. July 28 & Sept. 26.
Where: Target Center, 600 1st Av. N., Minneapolis.
Tickets: $46-$136, axs.com.

Like Garth Brooks, Shania Twain was massive in the 1990s and then — surprise — took a break. A long break.

Like Garth, Twain staged a comeback in the ’10s by performing a residency in Las Vegas and then recently returning to the road, with concerts set for Target Center on Tuesday and another on Sept. 26.

His hiatus was to raise his three daughters. Hers is harder to explain.

Twain, the only female artist to record three albums that each topped 10 million in U.S. sales, ran into voice problems and marital problems. Her husband/producer/co-writer cheated on her (with Twain’s best friend, no less), and single parenthood ensued until she remarried (her ex-best friend’s ex-husband, no less). We’ll leave the discussion of the drama — it’s a bit old news — to TMZ.

As for her voice issues, Twain suffered from dysphonia, a disorder, sometimes induced by stress (see aforementioned drama), in which the vocal cords seize up when one is trying to speak or sing. She needed therapy to find her voice again, which was chronicled on her docu-series “Why Not? With Shania Twain” on Oprah’s OWN network a few years ago.

“It was a lot of work, a lot of physiotherapy and vocal therapy,” Twain said in a recent phone interview. “Persistence, determination, because like any physiotherapy, it’s hard, it’s tedious, it’s repetitive, it’s boring, it’s painful a lot of the time — very similar to how an athlete would have to go through it if they had an injury. I need an hour and a half of physical and vocal warm-up now before shows.”

After serving as a judge on “American Idol” in 2010 and publishing her sometimes unsettling memoir “From This Moment On” in 2011, Twain returned to the stage three years ago at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, where Celine Dion, Elton John and Bette Midler also have done residencies. It was an elaborate, glitzy show titled “Shania: Still the One,” featuring her riding a horse onstage and gliding on a motorcycle over the stage.

“The audiences there were very close to the stage — it was one of the luxuries I enjoyed,” Twain said. “I like to see the people close up and touch the people.”

Two years of Vegas performances convinced her to figuratively declare, “Man, I feel like touring.”

So she put together the 67-concert Rock This Country Tour for North America, a show that’s completely different from her Vegas production.

“It’s like a reunion of sorts with the fans,” she explained. “A lot has happened in the last decade in all of our lives. Music is bringing us back together and we’re going to celebrate and reminisce to all of the hits that they know. In my case, a lot of the kids I would have seen on tour years ago are going to be adults now.”

No new album yet

But the best intentions don’t always go as planned. The country/pop queen had hoped to release a new album this year — her first since 2002’s “Up,” her third consecutive blockbuster. But she’s not even close to being finished. In fact, she doesn’t anticipate performing any new tunes on the current tour. “I don’t want to bore people with songs they don’t know,” said the singer who disappeared after her 2004 hits collection.

Twain plans to write and record songs during the tour, working with various producers whom she declined to name. Rest assured one of them won’t be Mutt Lange, her ex-husband, who guided her to those three albums that sold a combined 43 million copies in just the United States.

From the road, she’ll Skype with her producers, she says, on songs whose style is hard for her to explain.

“It’s different from what I’ve done in the past. I’m writing it myself so there is no influence from outside. I’ve evolved and have different things to say and express that weren’t true about me 10 to 15 years ago. It’s been a very therapeutic process for me. I’m pouring my heart out in the music, whether it’s in the lyrics or the melodies and chord progressions.”

Her enthusiasm was palpable over the telephone. “I could just do that, write music, and be very satisfied — and I’m learning that about myself,” she proclaimed.

Farewell tour

While Twain is vague about her next album, she’s clear about one thing: This will be her last concert tour.

“I’m going to have a lot of fun with this tour,” she said before the trek started on June 5. “I’m more relaxed in a lot of ways. I’m savoring it because it is my last tour. I’m in a farewell spirit. That will be emotional to me. I’m putting my best foot forward in every way — technologically, psychologically. It’s a bit of a bittersweet experience.”

There’s another big change coming in the life of the Canadian-born Eileen Edwards (her stepfather’s surname was Twain, and she adopted Shania, Ojibwe for “on the move,” when she moved to Nashville in 1993).

On Aug. 28, she will turn 50. It doesn’t depress her much.

“I think it’s an inspiration and a motivator to be my best,” she acknowledged. “I sort of feel if I don’t push myself and bring myself to be the best that I can be now, it’s only going to get harder after that. You’ve got to be the fittest you can be, the most educated you can be, the happiest you can be. And I feel it sets a positive, strong platform for myself to jump from. And it sets the tone for the rest of my life is how I see it.”

Twain might leave the stage behind after her Rock This Country Tour plays Toronto in October but she’s not saying “I’m outta here.”

“It’s certainly not my retirement from music,” she said without missing a beat. “I’ll be doing that until the day I die. The performance side of it, I feel, is a phase in my life. I’ve been on stage since I was 8 years old. I really put in my fair share of performance.

“I want to write more. I want to make a lot more records. I miss making records, and I haven’t made enough records in my life. I also want to write songs for other artists who are coming up and enjoy them having their moment on the stage.”

http://www.startribune.com/country-pop-queen-shania-twain-talks-comeback-tour-vocal-problems-new-music/318138141/



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Shania will ‘Rock This Country’ one last time

By Jeffrey Lee Puckett | Louisville Courier-Journal | July 28, 2015 9:25 a.m. EDT

Shania Twain has largely been out of the spotlight for the last dozen years, at least by her unprecedented standards. For a while, it seemed as if the spotlight existed solely for her.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, she was arguably the most popular entertainer on the planet with two albums that sold a combined 60 million copies and a pair of thoroughly sold out tours. Twain was the gold standard for success across all genres, not just country.

But a planned short sabbatical lasted eight years, a lifetime in popular music, and most of the reasons weren’t good. Throat issues kept her out of the studio and off the stage for several years, and a painful divorce from her producer and cowriter, Robert “Mutt” Lange, followed.

Twain eased back into the life with a two-year residency in Las Vegas and returns to touring with “Rock This Country,” which comes to the KFC Yum! Center Monday night. See her while you can: Her fourth tour will also be her last.

“It’s certainly not my retirement from music,” she said during a conference-call interview. “I will be doing music, I’m sure, until the day I die. ... The performance side of it I feel is a phase in my life and I’ve been doing it for so long. I’m 50 this year, I’ve been on stage since I was 8-years-old, and I’ve really put in my fair share of performance.

“The time is just right now to do other things musically. I want to write more. I want to make lots more records. I miss making records and I haven’t made enough records in my life and in my career.”

She has made them count, however. 1995’s “The Woman in Me” has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide while 1998’s “Come On Over,” at more than 40 million, remains history’s best-selling album by a female performer — and is the best-selling country album of all time.

Twain hasn’t released any music since 2002’s “Up!” but remains a draw. Her Las Vegas residency, aptly called “Still the One,” sold nearly 350,000 tickets but Twain said that she missed taking her show to the fans.

“It’s a very exciting time for me,” she said of the farewell tour. “I think the fans are going to be reintroduced to each other, is the best way I can put it, and that in itself is very exciting. It’s like a reunion of sorts.

“A lot has happened over the last decade since I’ve been off tour in all of our lives, my life and in their lives, and music is bringing us back together .... The most rewarding thing for me, and the thing I’m most looking forward to on this tour, is seeing the fans and being with them again and feeling their excitement and sharing mine with them.”

Twain certainly didn’t invent the idea of blending country and pop music — that’s happening since the 1960s — but she and Lange teamed to essentially create the template for modern country. The line between country, pop and rock was blurred so completely by Twain that it was almost pointless trying to find it.

“I never saw myself as any one thing and I never labeled (myself) specifically or wrote music specifically for a genre,” she said. “What falls into any specific genre has changed and evolved and also there are new genres coming out all of the time. I think it’s a moving target and I enjoy that.”

Twain said that her new music will sound different stylistically but didn’t give any details. She did say that it’s highly unlikely she’ll perform anything new on tour but will instead concentrate on her biggest hits in a 19-song set.

“I don’t want to bore people with songs they don’t know,” she said. “I know, myself, when I go to a concert I want to hear the songs I know and that I’m familiar with, that I already have memories to.”

Shania Twain

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Monday

WHERE: KFC Yum! Center

COST: $136, $86, $66, $46, available at the venue and www.ticketmaster.com

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/entertainment/music/2015/07/28/shania-twain-louisville/30773155/



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Shania Twain talks touring, turning 50 and making new music

By Melissa Ruggieri | Atlanta Journal-Constitution | July 30, 2015

In early June, Shania Twain stepped onto a stage in Seattle and launched her first tour in more than a decade.

It’s also, she insists, her final tour.

Well, who can blame her, then, for lightening her famous chestnut mane to engage in some blondes-have-more-fun revelry?

Twain is still the biggest-selling female in the history of country music with more than 85 million records sold. In 2012, she returned to performing live with a two-year residency in Las Vegas in a show jammed with hits (and some horses).

A few weeks before the kickoff of her five-month “Rock This Country” outing, Twain chatted with reporters about her plans for the future — expect to hear new, self-penned music — as well as the production and set list for the show, which lands at Philips Arena on Saturday.

No, the horses aren’t coming.

What fans can expect from her live production:

“The tour is called ‘Rock This Country’ and it’s a celebration tour for a lot of reasons. I’m reuniting with the fans in their hometowns. It is a goodbye to the stage, so the show is full of great technology. It’s a very dynamic show. It’s a whole new fresh production, entirely different from Vegas. It’s going to rock and it will be a lot of fun.”

How she chooses her set list:

“There won’t be any new music from the new album on the set list at this point, (but) maybe closer to the end of the tour, I might be able to pull some of that music in. I don’t want to bore people with songs they don’t know. When I go to a concert, I want to hear the songs that I’m familiar with. … This tour is really about the classics. The point is to say goodbye to the stage on a high with my friends, with my fans.”

What is it like during a typical day on tour?

“It’s pretty much strictly work. On one of my tours, I took my horse with me. That was very unique. It took a bit of planning, but it was my way of getting exercise and getting out and seeing the landscape and I love my horses. This tour will be a little more focused on making my new record. When I’m not onstage or traveling, I will be recording vocals or working on the songwriting, so I’m not going to be able to get out much on this tour.”

How she feels going back on the road:

“I’m going to have a lot of fun with this tour. I’m more relaxed in a lot of ways. I’m savoring it because it is my last tour. I’m in a farewell spirit, but I’m in a reunion spirit to get back together with the fans again and that will be emotional to me. I’m putting my best foot forward in every way, technologically, psychologically; it’s a bit of a bittersweet experience.”

What she learned during her residency in Las Vegas:

“It’s certainly the reason I decided to go out on the tour. During the last part of the two-year period in Vegas, I realized that I’d missed being out on the touring stage and missed going out to the public as opposed to them coming to me. I figured it would be fun for me to go and visit other towns and experience that excitement. … There were a lot of things to learn in Vegas, that’s for sure! The audiences there were very close to the stage. It was one of the luxuries I enjoyed. I like to see the people close up and touch the people.”

The sound of her new music:

“Stylistically, it’s hard for me to explain; it’s different from what I’ve done in the past. The songs and the spirit of the songs are still very relatable. I think it’s going to be a lot of unexpected elements to the music. I’m writing it myself so there is no influence from outside, so it will naturally give a different spirit to the music. I’ve evolved and have different things to say and express that weren’t true about me 10 or 15 years ago. It’s very personalized songwriting. It’s been a very therapeutic process for me. I’m pouring my heart out in the music, whether it’s in the lyrics or the melodies and chord progressions. It’s been a really great experience. I could just do that, write music, and be very satisfied and I’m learning that about myself.”

How she got her voice back (prior to her Vegas stint, Twain had vocal problems and feared she would never sing again):

“It was a lot of work, a lot of physiotherapy and vocal therapy. Persistence, determination, because like any physiotherapy, it’s hard, it’s tedious, it’s repetitive, it’s boring, it’s painful a lot of the time, very similar to how an athlete would have to go through it if they had an injury. I need an hour and a half of physical and vocal warmup now before shows.”

On turning 50 (she hits the milestone on Aug. 28):

“I think anybody in the second half of their 40s is already considering what it’s going to mean to be 50, and for me, I think it’s an inspiration and a motivator to be my best. I sort of feel if I don’t push myself and bring myself to be the best that I can be now, it’s only going to get harder after that. You’ve got to be the fittest you can be, the most educated you can be, the happiest you can be and I feel it sets a positive, strong platform for myself to jump from, and it sets the tone for the rest of my life, is how I see it.”

So, is this the end?

“It’s certainly not my retirement from music. I’ll be doing that until the day I die. But the performance side of it I feel is a phase in my life. I’ve been on stage since I was 8 years old. I really put in my fair share of performances. I want to write more, I want to make a lot more records. I miss making records and I haven’t made enough records in my life and in my career. I also want to write songs for other artists who are coming up and enjoy them having their moment on the stage.”

------------------------

CONCERT PREVIEW

Shania Twain

With Gavin DeGraw. 7:30 p.m. Aug. 1. $46-$136. Philips Arena, 1 Philips Drive, Atlanta. 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com.

http://music.blog.ajc.com/2015/07/30/shania-twain-talks-touring-turning-50-and-making-new-music/



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Shania Twain says farewell to touring with show coming to Scottrade Center

By Kevin C. Johnson | St. Louis Post-Dispatch | July 30, 2015

Country-pop star Shania Twain is back on the touring scene, if only to say goodbye.

Her “Rock This Country” tour comes to Scottrade Center Tuesday night, and it’s no secret that her comeback is also her farewell. She’s retiring from touring, though not from music.

“I will be doing music until the day I die,” says the Grammy-winning Twain in a Q&A with reporters. She — along with Garth Brooks — paved the way for younger generations including Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Lady Antebellum.

The Canadian artist (born Eilleen Regina Edwards) is known for her pop-leaning hits that include “You’re Still the One” and “Man! I Feel like a Woman.”

“I love music so much,” Twain says. “But the performance side of it I feel is a phase in my life. I’ve been doing it for so long. I’ll be 50 this year, and been onstage since I was 8 years old, and I’ve put my fair share into performance. The timing is right to do other things musically.”

Twain says writing remains her passion, and she wants to make more records without worrying about the rigors of touring.

“I miss making records, and I haven’t made enough records in my life and career,” says Twain. Surprisingly, she has only released four albums, beginning with a self-titled album in 1993. Her most recent is 2002’s “Up!”

“If I’m distracted by all facets of the tour, how much music am I really going to be able to write and how many albums am I going to be able to make?” she says. “I can’t do them both at the same time.

“I’ve done a lot more live performing than I’ve done recording. I want to do a lot more recording and I want to write songs for other artists that are coming up. I want to sit back and enjoy them and be proud that I’m part of their success. That’s a whole exciting phase for me I’m looking forward to — seeing that evolution in my career.”

Twain is working on a new album. Typically, artists go on tour with new material following an album, but Twain hasn’t planned that.

 

Instead, if some songs are completed in time, Twain says she’ll introduce one or two of them into her current tour’s set list.

But she feels even that is something she’ll need to do carefully.

“I don’t want to bore people with songs they don’t know,” she says. “I know when I go to a concert, I wanna hear the songs I know and I’m familiar with and have memories of.”

It’s often difficult to tell when an artist’s “final tour” is really a final tour. Twain is at least a generation younger than many artists on farewell tours, making her exit look premature.

“My frame of mind is I want to go on and do different things, and I need more time to do it,” she says. “It takes a lot of focus to write meaningful songs, a lot of emotional energy and it’s time consuming.”

Going on tour again makes this a very exciting time for her — a reunion of sorts between her and her fans. A lot has happened over the past decade, and she feels music is bringing everyone back together.

“We’re going to celebrate and reminisce to all the hits they know and have lived with for all those years,” she says. “The most rewarding thing for me is seeing the fans and feeling their excitement and sharing mine with them.”

Since those fans last saw her on the road, she says she’s having a lot more fun, and she’s more relaxed and savoring every moment as if it’s her last.

“I’m in a farewell spirit and a reunion spirit,” Twain says. “It’s emotional for me, and I’m putting my best foot forward in every way. It’s a bit of a bittersweet experience.”

She promises the “Rock This Country” tour comes with high-end technology and a fresh look and feel. And she promises it’ll be different from “Shania: Still the One,” her two-year residency in Las Vegas that closed in December.

She says she started from scratch.

One thing she took away from Vegas was the feeling that comes from having the audience close to her.

“That’s one of the luxuries I enjoyed,” Twain says. “I like to see people close up, touch the people, mingle with them. Having them so close to the stage in such a controlled room, I learned I have to do more of this. I decided I wanted to do this when I go out on tour.”

In Vegas, she realized how much she missed the touring stage and figured it would “be fun to visit people in their hometowns and experience that again.”

The fact that Twain is even singing is something of a miracle.

During a decade-long hiatus that began in 2004, in addition to her decision to take time to be with her young son, she feared she’d lost her voice. Twain suffers from dysphonia, an impairment of the vocal cords.

“It was very, very scary,” she says. “It went way beyond not being able to perform. It went beyond my concerns for my career. It was like I was losing a hand. There was a grieving process feeling like I’d lost the voice I knew and the voice I wanted to have.”

Getting her voice back involved much vocal therapy along with persistence and determination. “It was tedious, repetitive, tiring, boring, similar to what an athlete has to go through if they had an injury. You have to start from scratch. And then there was the process of learning to live with the voice that is slightly different because you’re never exactly the same again.”

She’s working steadily on the new album while touring, using a portable setup that has been allowing her to record her vocals and produce demos.

“I can be electronically connected to producers wherever they are, and the producers will come out to me as well while I’m touring, and I’ll poke away at it like that. They can send me sessions, we can Skype — there’s various ways to do this that are pretty effective.”

The new songs are stylistically hard for her to explain and different from earlier work, while still being relatable, she says.

“I don’t think the songs are obscure or anything, though there are going to be a lot of unexpected elements. I’ve matured, evolved. I have different things to express that weren’t true of me 15 years ago.”

-----------------------------

What Shania Twain’s “Rock This Country” tour • When 7:30 p.m. Tuesday • Where Scottrade Center, 1401 Clark Avenue • How much $43-$133 • More info Ticketmaster.com

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/music/kevin-johnson/shania-twain-says-farewell-to-touring-with-show-coming-to/article_a7f84b0a-cc39-5095-adde-c857c8876fbf.html



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Shania Twain returns to Dallas to say goodbye

By Preston Jones | Fort Worth Star-Telegram | August 5, 2015

Shania Twain

7:30 p.m. Monday

American Airlines Center, Dallas

$46-$136 ticketmaster.com

The last time Shania Twain toured the country, way back in 2003, she dominated the music industry, earning the title “queen of country pop.”

The Canadian native was just a couple years removed from winning three Grammys, and on her way to selling 85 million albums worldwide, making her the best-selling female artist in country music history.

Then, in 2004, Twain released her greatest hits album, and disappeared to Switzerland for the better part of the decade.

Her personal life disintegrated: Twain divorced producer Mutt Lange in 2010, amid allegations of his infidelity, and remarried the following year.

If that turmoil wasn’t enough, Twain suffered a professional scare, with a diagnosis of lesions on her vocal cords. Through it all, Twain worked, fitfully, on the as-yet-unreleased follow-up to her last studio album, 2002’s Up!

But her public hiatus has fully ended after a successful two-year stint with a residency that began in 2012 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, as Twain has mounted “Rock This Country,” her first American tour in 11 years.

The success of that residency — “Shania: Still the One” reportedly grossed more than $40 million — and reconnecting with her passionate fans inspired Twain to return to the road.

“During the last part of the two-year period in Vegas, I realized I missed being out on the touring stage,” Twain told reporters during a May teleconference. “So I thought it would be fun to go out and visit [fans] in their own hometowns and enjoy that experience and atmosphere again.”

Twain will perform at Dallas’ American Airlines Center Monday, in her first North Texas appearance in 12 years.

“It’s a very exciting time for me,” Twain said. “A lot has happened over the last decade — in my life and [fans’] lives. Music is bringing us back together; we’re going to celebrate and reminisce with all the hits they know and have lived with all these years.”

The 49-year-old Twain (who turns 50 Aug. 28) has been up front about this current tour, which is scheduled to travel to Europe next summer, as being her final, large-scale outing.

“I will be doing music I'm sure until the day I die,” Twain said in May. “I love music too much. ... The time is right now to do other things. I want to write more; I miss making records. I haven’t made enough records in my life and my career. I’ve done a lot more live performance than recording. I just see it as an evolution in my career, really.”

While she freely discusses evolution and a desire to record more, Twain says set lists won’t feature too much, if any, new material. Twain is aiming to release a new record some time in the next year, but she’s keeping her “Rock This Country” shows focused squarely on the hits that catapulted her to superstardom.

“It’s difficult to know when the new album will be ready,” Twain said. “I don’t want to bore people either. I know when I go to concerts, I want to hear the songs I already know. If it’s close enough to when I want to release something, I may work in one or two [new songs].”

For all that’s different since Twain’s last trip through town — pre-YouTube; pre-iPhone — one unchanged aspect of the music industry is the insistence on boxing artists into specific genres. Twain was widely praised as a crossover artist, beginning as a notionally country act which also enjoyed staggering success on the pop charts.

“Ever since I started listening to radio as a small child, the genres have gone in every possible direction I could ever have imagined,” Twain said. “I think [genre is] a moving target and I enjoy that ... I never felt it was necessary to box things in. I never saw myself as any one thing, or labeled myself specifically. It was a pleasant surprise when my music ended up being a cross-genre thing, [by] just being myself and it landing wherever people decided it landed.”

All that time and so much transition — Twain is largely untouched by it all. Her voice has the same sleek power it did when her songs were in inescapably heavy rotation in the early aughts, and her buoyant, country-pop songs have aged rather well — an argument could be made for Twain anticipating Nashville’s pivot toward the bright and shiny a full decade before it actually happened.

Regardless, Twain won’t be thinking about such heady things when she steps on stage in Dallas.

“This tour is really all about the classics,” Twain said in May. “The reason for the tour is to say goodbye to the stage on a high and with my friends, my fans.”

http://www.dfw.com/2015/08/05/1018511/shania-twain-returns-to-say-goodbye.html



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Shania Twain returns to D.M. to impress fans

By Joe Lawler | The Des Moines Register | August 5, 2015 10:49 a.m. CDT

It’s been a long time since Shania Twain hit the road. Her Rock This Country is her first in 11 years.

In 2004 she more or less retired from performing due to lesions on her vocal cords. She was largely silent as a performer until 2012 when she started a residency in Las Vegas. Now she’s ready to get back out in front of fans across the country.

“I think the fans and I are going to be reintroduced to each other, is the best way I can put it,” Twain said during a recent roundtable phone interview with journalists. “That in itself is very exciting. It’s like a reunion of sorts. Music is bringing us back together and we’re going to celebrate and reminisce to all of the hits that they know and that we’ve all lived with for all these years now.”

Twain also talked about the performing, describing it more as a phase in her life, but said she will continue making music until the day she dies. But if you’re hoping to catch her live, opportunities might be limited.

“I’m 50 this year and I’ve been on stage since I was 8 years old. I’ve really put in my fair share of performance,” Twain said. “I’m feeling the time is right now to do other things musically. I want to write more, and I miss making records. I haven’t made enough records in my career. I’ve done a lot more performing than I have recording.”

She also wants to do more writing for other artists. So if any rising country acts are looking for their next hit, give Shania a call.

Twain was one of the first acts to start to break down the wall between pop and country, blazing a path for pretty much every country artist recording today. Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Lady Antebellum and many others got to stand on Shania’s shoulders.

“I just think it’s a moving target, and I’ve always enjoyed that,” Twain said. “I never really felt that it was necessary to box anything in. It’s a lot more fun for things to evolve and cross boundaries. I never saw myself as any one thing and I never labeled myself specifically or wrote music for a genre. It was a pleasant surprise when my music became a cross-genre thing.”

Twain is working on new music, but don’t expect to hear any on this tour. It’s focused on the hits everyone knows like “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under,” “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and, of course, “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”

“It’s the classic stuff that everybody knows, that’s what this tour is all about,” Twain said. “The reason for the tour is to say goodbye to the stage on a high with my friends and fans.”

Shania Twain

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday

Where: Wells Fargo Arena, 730 Third St.

Cost: $46-$136.

Info: iowaeventscenter.com

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/entertainment/music/2015/08/05/shania-twain-des-moines-wells-fargo-arena/31153251/



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Interview: Shania Twain makes a comeback with her farewell tour, playing Oklahoma City Wednesday

By Brandy McDonnell | The Oklahoman | August 7, 2015

The best thing about being a woman, Shania Twain once opined, is the prerogative to have a little fun.

Since the country-pop superstar's "Rock This Country" trek serves as both a reunion series and a farewell tour, she's seizing that prerogative.

“It’s just a celebration tour for a lot of reasons. I’m reuniting with the fans out in their own hometowns; that I have not done in a decade. It is a goodbye to the stage, so the show is just full of great technology, the highest-end possible. It’s a very dynamic show, more dynamic than ever before, and I just think no one has ever seen me in this light ever before,” Twain said in a May conference call before launching her first tour in 11 years.

“I think it will be memorable. It’s gonna rock, that’s for sure, and it’ll be a lot of fun. I’m in a good spirit for it and just trying to visit the fans’ hometowns and come to them. Because the last two years in Las Vegas, the fans have been coming to me, so I really feel pumped to get out there and go to their towns and bring them this whole new show, this big sign-off, this big farewell.”

One of the best-selling female recording artists in music history, Twain, who turns 50 on Aug. 28, will rock this part of the country Wednesday at Chesapeake Energy Arena. Since it’s the music that’s bringing her back together with her fans, the Canadian country-rocker said her new shows focus on her humungous hits from the 1990s and early 2000s -- "Any Man of Mine,”  "That Don't Impress Me Much,” “You’re Still the One,” "Man, I Feel Like a Woman,” "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?" and more -- gilded with plenty of lasers, pyrotechnics and sexy sequined outfits.

Back the saddle

During the shows, Twain has been literally getting back in the saddle -- a fringed one attached to a telescopic lift that boosts her up and closer to the audience. She told me coming a little closer was a goal for the tour after her two-year residency at Sin City’s legendary Caesars Palace.

“The audiences there were very close to the stage, so it was one of the luxuries that I enjoyed because I love to see the people close up. I love to touch the people and mingle with them, and so it was really cool to do so much of that then,” she told me during the teleconference.

“What I learned was, I have to do more of this, I want to do more of this, and I want to make sure that when I go out on the road and we do this tour, that I don’t miss out on that. I have to make sure that I’m able to get out there into the audience and touch people and look at them in the eye and be among them. … So, that’s been part of the plan and that’s been built into the production.”

The influential “Queen of Country Pop” said the connection to the fans was what she missed most as a planned short sabbatical stretched into a decade-long break from show business. Twain is the only artist to have three consecutive albums sell more than 10 million copies in the United States -- 1995’s “The Woman In Me,” 1997’s “Come On Over” and 2002’s “Up!” -- and “Come On Over” was a bona fide global phenomenon, becoming the best-selling country album of all time and the best-selling album ever released by a female artist. 

“Initially, why I had slowed down after the last tour was more just for the break and to be a mom, and those few years after the last tour were very deliberately to concentrate on my son and my home because at the end of that tour my son was just starting school for the first time. … Then the problems started compounding with the voice and so on and so forth,” she said.

“I’ve evolved a lot over the years. My life has changed so dramatically and my point of view has changed in a lot of ways, the way I see my role on stage and what I mean to fans and what they mean to me, all of that is more valuable and just another level of maturity that I have now -- and gratitude.”

Along with a painful divorce from her husband, producer and co-writer Robert “Mutt” Lange, Twain also struggled with lesions on her vocal cords and a vocal impairment called dysphonia. She said she went through a long, painful rehabilitation process similar to one an athlete would undertake for a major injury. She now requires 90 minutes of physical and vocal warmups before a show.

“It went way beyond not being able to perform or concerns for my career … it was a part of me I was losing, like losing a hand or something. I was going through a grieving process. I really thought that I lost my voice, the voice that I knew and the voice that I once had. It was very scary, and it was just something I was having a terrible time coming to terms with,” she said. “It was a lot of work. … It’s tedious. It’s repetitive. It’s boring. It’s tiring. It’s painful a lot of the time.” 

Farewell to the stage

Although her North American comeback tour has already been expanded into late October -- and according to Billboard, an international trek is likely -- the singer-songwriter said she intends it to be her last.

“It’s certainly not my retirement from music. I will be doing music, I’m sure, until the day I die,” she said with a laugh. “I love music too much. The performance side of it, I feel, is a phase in my life and I’ve been doing it for so long. I’m 50 this year, I’ve been on stage since I was 8 years old, and I’ve really put in my fair share of performance. And (I'm) feeling that the time is just right now to do other things musically. I want to write more, I want to make lots more records. I miss making records, and I haven’t made enough records in my life and in my career.”

Even when she almost lost her voice, Twain said she never stopped writing songs. Known for breaking down boundaries between genres during her heyday, she has noticed that the lines between formats have blurred even more since she recorded “Up.” That makes it an exciting time to make a new album, and she shared her plans to use a portable recording setup to keep working on the new project during the tour.

“I don’t know really how it’s going to turn out stylistically. Right now, it’s just me and my guitar so that’s kind of blank as far as being able to pinpoint where it will really end up as a finished record, once it’s produced. But I want to take a very organic approach to it. I’m leaning towards wanting the music to sound more organic than my previous stuff,” she said.

“But lyrically I’m still doing the self-reflection and kind of writing in that vein. I’m just different now, and I’ve lived a lot of different things since then. So, the stories and the themes will be obviously different and will reflect how I’ve evolved.”

IN CONCERT

Shania Twain

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Where: Chesapeake Energy Arena, 100 W Reno.

Information: (800) 745-3000 or www.chesapeakearena.com.

http://newsok.com/interview-shania-twain-makes-a-comeback-with-her-farewell-tour-playing-oklahoma-city-wednesday/article/5438042



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Shania Twain returns to touring in the midst of reimagining her music

By Peter Blackstock | Austin American-Statesman | August 6, 2015

When Shania Twain arrives at the Erwin Center on Sunday as part of her first concert tour in more than a decade, she’ll be packing a set list full of hits from the 1990s albums that sold in the tens of millions and made her one of the most successful country-pop crossover acts ever. What she won’t have, to her own mild chagrin, is a long-awaited album of new material.

The lone new song Twain has released in recent years, “Today Is Your Day” — issued in 2011 to coincide with her autobiography and a reality show that aired on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN cable network — was an auspicious hint of how Twain might reinvent herself. In the wake of the singer’s much-publicized 2008 split from husband/producer/co-writer Mutt Lange, her new song sounded refreshingly straightforward, shedding the bombast of her megastar years in favor of a more humble yet confident tone.

Shortly after the song’s release, Twain returned to the stage, spending 2013 and 2014 performing a show titled “Still the One” in Las Vegas. That got her geared up to go back on the road, and she’s been playing “Today Is Your Day” acoustically on her current “Rock This Country” tour. But although the Vegas shows resulted in the CD “Still the One: Live in Vegas” earlier this year, newer material will have to wait, for now.

“I was hoping that my album would be further along by the time I finished my residency in December in Vegas. So the timing was just not ideal,” she said in a recent telephone call with a handful of journalists. “I would love to be able to do it. But I’m not sure I would want that myself if I was going to see my favorite artist and I wanted to hear their hit songs.”

Asked about the nature and style of her new material, Twain says she expects the sound to be familiar to her fans in some respects, but decidedly different from her work with Lange. “It’s going to be a lot of unexpected elements for the music for sure, because I’m writing it all myself,” she says. “So there’s no influence from outside, and there’s no other writer or no producer directing it.

“This is just naturally going to give a different spirit to the music. And then, of course, I’ve matured, I’ve evolved, I have different things to say. I have different things to express that weren’t true about me 10, 15, 20 years ago.”

She added that it’s too early to tell exactly what the record will sound like, noting that she plans to continue working on it with a mobile recording setup while on tour this summer and fall. “I don’t know really how it’s going to turn out stylistically. Right now it’s just me and my guitar, so that’s kind of blank, as far as being able to pinpoint where it will end up as a finished record once it’s produced. But I do want to take a very organic approach to it. I’m leaning toward wanting the music to sound more organic than my previous stuff — less slick maybe in that sense.”

The shift toward a different style may also partly be due to her recent struggles with dysphonia, a vocal condition that required years of physiotherapy. “It went beyond concerns for my career or not having a career as a singer,” she said. “I really thought that I had lost my voice, the one that I knew and the voice that I once had. It was very scary and it was just something I was having a terrible time coming to terms with.

“Before I gave up on it completely, luckily I found the courage to tackle it and take it on. But the period where I believed that I would never sing again was incredibly depressing. … I was really grieving the loss of the voice that I knew.”

Though she recovered enough to resume performing, Twain, who turns 50 later this month, is less sure about continuing to do so indefinitely. She’s made statements indicating that her current tour will be her last, though it’s probably far too early to take her at her word on that, even if she thinks she means it now.

Still, it’s clear that she’s developed a new set of priorities in which performing takes a back seat to other musically creative activities. “I’m feeling that the time is just right now to do other things musically,” she says. “I want to write more, and I want to make lots more records. I miss making records, and I haven’t made enough records in my life and in my career. I’ve done a lot more live performing than I have recording. So I want to do a lot more of that, and I also want to write songs for other artists.”

Shania Twain

When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Erwin Center, 1701 Red River St.

Cost: $44-$134

Information: www.uterwincenter.com

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/entertainment/music/shania-twain-returns-to-touring-in-the-midst-of-re/nm9Wg/#fefe1965.3724335.735816



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Shania Twain brings final tour to Salt Lake on Saturday

By L. Kent Wolgamott | Salt Lake City Daily Herald | August 11, 2015

If You Go

SHANIA TWAIN

When: Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Energy Solutions Arena, 301 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City

Support act: Gavin DeGraw

Tickets: $43-$133, available at the box office or through Smith’s Tix (800-888-TIXX, smithstix.com) locations

Info: (801) 325-SEAT, energysolutionsarena.com, smithstix.com

Shania Twain hadn’t been on tour for more than a decade before she began her “Rock This Country” excursion this summer. And she doesn’t plan to ever be back on the road again.

The '90s country star, who has sold more than 85 million albums, isn’t quitting music altogether. But she says she’s shutting down touring once her current “Rock This Country” trek wraps up in October. She brings the tour to Salt Lake City on Saturday, with a show at EnergySolutions Arena.

“This is certainly not my retirement from music,” Twain said in a pre-tour telephone news conference. “I will be doing music, I’m sure, until the day I die. I love music too much. The performance side of it, I feel is a phase in my life. I’ve been doing it for so long. I’m 50 this year. I’ve been on stage since I was 8 years old, and I’ve really put in my fair share of performance. I’m feeling that the time is just right now to do other things musically.

“I want to write more. I want to make lots more records. I miss making records, and I haven’t made enough records in my life and my career,” she said. “I also want to write songs for other artists that are coming up and I want to sit back and enjoy them having their moment on the stage and being proud that I’m being proud of their success. ... That’s a whole exciting phase for me that I look forward to. I just see it as an evolution in my career really.”

In fact, Twain has begun recording a new album -- her first since 2002’s “Up!” Generally artists wait until the record is completed before touring. But the timing didn’t work for Twain, who is coming off a two-year residency at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

She isn’t doing any new material on yet -- it’s a possibility for later in the tour. But she’s going to be singing new songs throughout the summer as she makes the new record while on the road utilizing a mobile recording setup.

“I’m going to try to squeeze in working on the album while I’m on the tour,” Twain said. “There’s going to be a little bit of tug of war for my time in getting this music finished. ... On my off days and time when I’m not on stage and traveling, I’ll be recording vocals or working on the songwriting and so on. I’m going to pretty much be working between the stage and the new album.”

That means that Twain’s show will be a retrospective affair, a last chance for fans to hear her sing songs like “Any Man of Mine,” “You’re Still the One” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman.”

“It’s the classic stuff that everybody knows. That’s what this tour is all about -- bringing the hits to everybody, bringing them to their hometowns,” she said. “For me, this tour is about reuniting with the fans, I haven’t done it in a long time. The reason for the tour is to say goodbye to the stage on a high, with my friends, with my fans.”

Those hits, which started in 1995 with her “The Woman in Me” album, were on the country charts. But Twain’s music blurred the then-sharper distinctions between country, rock and pop -- foreshadowing the crossover that typifies the sound of country’s current hitmakers.

Any kind of genre division has never been in Twain’s mind.

“I never really felt it was necessary to box anything in,” she said. “It was a lot more fun to watch things evolve and cross boundaries. That’s what I ended up doing in my own career. I never saw myself as any one thing and I never labeled my own self specifically or wrote music for any one genre. It was a pleasant surprise when my music ended up a cross-genre thing.”

Twain’s string of hits ended just over a decade ago, about the same time she left road. Initially, she took a hiatus from touring to concentrate on being a mom, raising her son who had just started school when her last tour ended.

That hiatus grew longer, and along the way there was major upheaval when, in 2008, Twain discovered her then-husband, producer Robert “Mutt” Lange was having an affair. The couple divorced, and in a soap opera-worthy turn, Twain began dating and, in 2011, married Frederic Thiebaud, whose former wife, Marie-Anne, was having the affair with Lange and had been Twain’s best friend.

Then came another huge scare, as Twain began to lose her voice, not just for singing, but even speaking.

“It was very, very scary,” Twain said. “It went way beyond not being able to perform. It certainly went beyond concerns for my career and not having a career as a singer. It was a part of me that I was losing, like losing a hand or something. It was going through a grieving process. I really thought I lost my voice, the voice that I knew, the voice I once had. It was very scary and it was just something I was having a terrible time coming to terms with. Before I gave up on it completely, luckily, I found the courage to tackle it and take it on.”

Lesions were found on Twain’s vocal cords and she was diagnosed with dysphonia. Once treated, Twain was able to resume her singing career, opting first for the Vegas residency.

“During the last part of the two-year period in Vegas, I realized I’ve missed being out on the touring stage, missed going out to the public as opposed to them coming to me,” Twain said, explaining why she’s now on the road. “I enjoyed Vegas, but it was a motivation to one more time experience going out into the arena setting and being with people in their home towns.”

Twain said she’s taking one thing from her Vegas shows on the road. In the smaller, controlled room she was able to get up close and personal with the audience.

“I have to make sure I’m able to get out there in the audience and touch people and look people in the eye and be among them,” she said. “There’s a plan for that. It’s something I’m going to take with me on the tour, even though it won’t be as easy to do.”

Twain promises the most dynamic show she’s ever done with top-flight production as she wraps up her touring career with a bang.

“I think it will be memorable. It’s going to rock,” she said. “That’s for sure. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m in a good spirit for it. I really feel pumped to get out there and go to their towns and bring them this whole new show, this big sign-off, this big farewell.”

But she admits there’s a tinge of sadness as well.

“I’m savoring it because it is my last tour,” Twain said. “I’m in a farewell spirit, I’m in a reunion spirit. It will be very emotional for me. ... It’s a bit of a bittersweet experience.”

http://www.heraldextra.com/entertainment/music/shania-twain-brings-final-tour-to-salt-lake-on-saturday/article_e515eaaa-7b3d-5b8b-9566-cb78e74bd608.html



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Robin Leach @Robin_Leach
Host of VegasDeluxe.com for 24/7 breaking news of everything hot and happening in Las Vegas

I'll meet up with Shania Twain Saturday in San Diego when she says 'so long,' but not goodbye

10:49 AM ET - 20 Aug 15

http://twitter.com/Robin_Leach

---------------------------------

Shania Twain says 'so long,' but not goodbye

The country-rocking superstar discusses her future and ongoing farewell tour, which stops in San Diego Saturday.

By George Varga | The San Diego Union-Tribune | August 20, 2015

Shania Twain has no plans to sing “Hello, Goodbye” during her Saturday concert at Valley View Casino Center. But the title of that 1967 Beatles classic — which was recorded two years after Twain’s birth — aptly captures the “Welcome back/So long!” duality of her ongoing Rock This Country tour.

The five-month concert trek marks the first time the pioneering country-pop superstar has toured North America in more than 11 years. It’s also her farewell to the road.

Twain recently completed a two-year concert residency in Las Vegas at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. As of next year, she vows, she’ll focus on recording, not touring. But first comes Rock This Country.

“It’s just a celebration tour for a lot of reasons,” Twain said, speaking from the Bahamas during a May teleconference.

“I’m reuniting with the fans out in their own hometowns, (which) I have not done in a decade. It is a goodbye to the stage, so the show is just full of great technology, the highest-end possible. It’s a very dynamic show, more dynamic than ever before, and I just think no one has ever seen me in this light ever before. It’s a whole new fresh production, entirely different from Vegas.”

Staging aside, what can fans expect onstage from one of the biggest-selling female singers of the past 25 years in any genre?

“It’s gonna rock, that’s for sure, and it’ll be a lot of fun,” Twain said. “I’m in a good spirit for it and just trying to visit the fans’ hometowns and come to them. Because, the last two years in Las Vegas, the fans have been coming to me. So I really feel pumped to get out there and go to their towns and bring them this whole new show, this big sign-off, this big farewell.”

Playing up her hits

Accordingly, Twain’s repertoire for the tour focuses heavily on the very big crossover hits that made her perhaps the single most successful country-pop star of the 1990s.

Her set list is packed with such fan favorites as “Any Man of Mine,” “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” “Come On Over,” “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?,” “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” and “Honey, I’m Home,” perhaps the first song by a major female country-music artist to reference PMS in its lyrics.

Twain’s albums have sold more than 75 million copies worldwide. She is now at work on a new collection of songs, which she is recording backstage and in hotel rooms.

Even so, she said, it’s unlikely she’ll preview new material on her tour.

“There won’t be any new music from the new album on the set list at this point,” she said. “Maybe closer to the end of the tour, I might be able to pull some of that music in. I don’t want to bore people with songs they don’t know. When I go to a concert, I want to hear the songs that I’m familiar with. …

“This tour is really about the classics. The point is to say goodbye to the stage, on a high, with my friends, with my fans.”

Many of her hits in the 1990s were co-written with her now ex-husband, famed producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange, whose other credits include overseeing albums by Def Leppard, AC/DC and Maroon 5. Now, as then, Twain maintains that she prefers writing songs to performing them onstage.

“I pursued it — I wanted to be a success, but if I had achieved it without my songwriting, I wouldn’t have wanted that,” she said in a 1997 Union-Tribune interview. “The goal has never been to be famous, it’s been to be musical, and musically successful.”

Overcoming dysphonia

And now, with her Rock This Country farewell tour?

“It’s certainly not my retirement from music. I’ll be doing that until the day I die,” Twain said. “But the performance side of it, I feel, is a phase in my life. I’ve been onstage since I was 8 years old. I really put in my fair share of performances. I want to write more.”

That Twain is singing now, let alone on tour, is not something she takes for granted.

In 2003, she was one of the halftime show performers at Super Bowl XXXVII at Qualcomm Stadium. No Doubt and Sting also performed. In 2004, she stopped touring to concentrate on being a new mother. Twain subsequently developed dysphonia, an affliction of the voice box, which threatened her ability to sing and speak.

“I wasn’t sure I was ever going to sing again,” she said. “Initially, (the sabbatical was) just for the break and to be a mom. The first few years after the (last) tour were deliberately to concentrate on my son and my home. The shorter sabbatical became a long one, and the problem with my voice compounded.

“It was very, very scary. It went way beyond not being able to perform, beyond concerns for my career as a singer. It was a part of me I was losing, like losing a hand. I really thought I had lost the voice that I knew. It was something I was having a terrible time coming to terms with. Before I gave up completely, I found the courage to tackle it and take it on. For a period, I believed I would never sing again, and it was incredibly depressing.”

‘Happiest you can be’

Twain, who turns 50 on Aug. 28, is a native of Windsor, Ontario. Born Eileen Regina Edwards, she cut her teeth singing in bars and clubs in her native Canada, fronting a band called Long Shot.

Now, the woman who put sexy back into country music, more than a decade before Justin Timberlake topped the charts with his hit “SexyBack,” is ready to work behind the scenes. She wants to be heard, but not seen, at least not onstage.

“I want to make a lot more records,” Twain affirmed. “I miss making records, and I haven’t made enough in my life and in my career. I also want to write songs for other artists who are coming up and enjoy them having their moment on the stage.”

Her pending retirement from touring may also have been inspired by age.

“I think anybody in the second half of their 40s is already considering what it’s going to mean to be 50,” Twain said. “And, for me, I think it’s an inspiration and a motivator to be my best. I sort of feel if I don’t push myself and bring myself to be the best that I can be now, it’s only going to get harder after that.

“You’ve got to be the fittest you can be, the most educated you can be, the happiest you can be. And I feel it sets a positive, strong platform for myself to jump from, and it sets the tone for the rest of my life, is how I see it.”

Shania Twain, with Gavin DeGraw

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Valley View Casino Center, 3500 Sports Arena Blvd., Midway District

Tickets: $66-$136

Phone: (888) 929-7849

Online: axs.com

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/aug/20/shania-twain-farewell-tour-interview/



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Shania Twain’s ready to leave the stage, focus on music

By Joshua Tehee | The Fresno Bee | August 20, 2015

Highlights
- Singer’s ‘Rock this Country’ tour stops at Save Mart Center Aug. 23
- The tour is her first since 2004
- In the future, she plans to focus on writing music

Shania Twain’s “Rock this Country” tour is a reunion and retirement.

The tour, which lands Sunday, Aug. 23, at the Save Mart Center, is a reintroduction to fans, who haven’t seen the country singer in more than a decade. Twain’s last last tour was in 2004.

It promises to be unlike anything she has done before. It’s bigger, better and with more dynamic high-tech production. Already, the tour has nearly sold out in 70 cities and is ranked as a top 10 global concert tour by Fresno-based trade publication Pollstar.

It also promises to be the singer’s last, ending a performance career that started at 8 years old and earned her a spot as country music’s seminal crossover star.

“This is the end,” Twain says in a teleconference interview. “I’m going to have the most fun I’ve had on stage.”

In the mid-1990s, Shania Twain was arguably the most popular country music artist in the world. Her music took contemporary country-pop and gave it the kind of rock production normally applied to bands like AC/DC or Def Leppard. Her 1997 record “Come on Over” became the best-selling country album of all time and made Twain an MTV sensation. She was the face of empowered female pop in the years before Britney Spears. She was also the face of Revlon.

Since her last tour, Twain has been mostly absent from the music world. She took a break to raise her son, then had a messy (and much publicized) split from her husband record producer Mutt Lange and suffered vocal cord damage that made her question whether she would sing again.

Those struggles went far beyond career concerns, Twain says, and were only overcome with massive amount of physio- and vocal therapy and adjusting to the fact that her voice had changed and would never be quite the same.

The effects on her voice still linger. Her nightly warm ups are now an hour-and-a-half process of body and vocal exercises.

Twain reemerged in 2012 with a much publicized residency at The Colosseum at Ceasars Palace in Las Vegas. The show ran for two years, got rave reviews and convinced the singer she needed to go back on the road one last time.

For two years, the fans came to her. She was ready to go to the fans, to meet them in their hometowns.

“I realized I missed being out on the touring stage,” she says.

This tour is informed by her Vegas experience in other ways, too. Those shows were in a controlled environment, she says. She played the same venue every night to audiences that were close to the stage. She performed among them. The trick of this tour was finding a way to translate that intimacy into an arena atmosphere.

She has. The production includes giant video screens and a mechanical saddle that puts Twain right out and above the crowds.

While she loves the interaction of being on stage, Twain has realized that the performing part of her career was a phase. She’s become less extroverted in her creative pursuits.

And those creative pursuits take focus and time, two thing that can be in short supply while on the road, she says. In fact, this tour is a tug-of-war between playing the hits every night and working on her new album. She’s writing songs and recording vocals in mobile studios in between stops. The album will likely be done just as the tour is completed.

Writing music is enough, she says. Twain would be fine leaving the performing to someone else entirely. She hopes to do as much in the future. Post-tour, she’ll devote more time to writing songs for other artists.

Twain devoted a large part of her career to performing. Perhaps too large.

“I haven’t made enough records in my life,” she says. “I’ve got a whole bunch of album that I still want to make.”

Shania Twain

Concert preview

http://www.fresnobee.com/entertainment/music-news-reviews/article31464056.html



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She's still the one: Why Shania Twain's comeback matters

By David Greenwald | The Oregonian/OregonLive | September 9, 2015 at 5:00 AM

Taylor Swift's first single was called "Tim McGraw." Maybe it should've been "Shania Twain."

But by the time country's new darling released her debut album in 2006, Twain's "Up!" was already four years old, and Twain -- the most successful woman in country music history -- had all but vanished from the industry. She still hasn't released a new album, leaving a teenage gap in the career that proved there was a place in pop for country singers.

Now, she's giving the world a chance to remember. Her first arena tour in over a decade is underway, with strong early reviews and a date at the Moda Center on Sunday, Sept. 13. The "Rock This Country Tour" was supposed to be a last hurrah, a final thank-you, but Twain's changed her mind: "I'm not ready to stop," she told the Las Vegas Sun in August.

She shouldn't.

Few artists have reached the heights Twain scaled on just four studio albums. Her self-titled debut was a modest success, but it was her second effort, 1995's "The Woman in Me," that set the stage for her superstardom. That album began a professional and romantic partnership with "Mutt" Lange, a producer known for a career with AC/DC, Def Leppard and other bombastic rockers. The sophomore set showed hints of an edgier sound, with the rest not far from the example set by Garth Brooks, the man who spent the early '90s widening country's boundaries with his own million-selling sets. "The Woman in Me" sold over 10 million copies, but then came "Come On Over," the album that helped reset what country music was capable of.

"Come On Over" was a different kind of record: it has fiddles, sure, but mostly it's backbeats and electric guitar riffs, rock songs that happened to be made in Nashville with a touch of twang. If that seems familiar, it's because Twain tracks -- especially album cuts such as "Black Eyes, Blue Tears" and "When" -- set the tone for early Swift hits such as "Fearless" and "Love Story," not to mention the rock gloss of Luke Bryan and other modern stars.

The album's greatest hit was "You're Still the One," a ballad that peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, halted by a four-week run at No. 1 by Next's "Too Close." The song didn't just storm radio: though not youthful enough for MTV's "Total Request Live," it was a regular on VH1's daily video countdown, where it shared airtime with 1998 pop and rock hits including Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" and Matchbox Twenty's "3 a.m." Country-pop was now a category, and LeAnn Rimes' "How Do I Live," Faith Hill's "This Kiss" and other songs made their way up both the pop and country charts.

Like its predecessor, "Come On Over" sold 10 million copies -- a rare diamond certification. Then it sold another 10. It was an unprecedented success for a country album. Even Brooks, the current best-selling artist ever, had never done that.

Twain has always been uniquely removed from Nashville: she was born in Windsor, Ontario, lived for a time in Switzerland and wrote many of her hits from tropical climes, rather than from within a songwriters' circle on Music Row. So perhaps an attempt to escape country's limits entirely was inevitable, and it came with 2002's "Up!"

The album came in three versions: country, pop and international, marked by the CD color. These weren't remixes, but re-imaginings of the songs for different radio formats and audiences. Unlike Swift's all-out pop transformation on last year's "1989," "Up!" wanted to have its cake, eat it, and throw the rest in the fridge for later.

No song from the album rose as high as "Come On Over," and the 19-track set -- in any rendition -- threw itself against the wall without enough singles sticking. It would be wrong to call it a flop: the album still sold millions, but the alternate versions may have splintered its audience. Its numbers were surely wounded by the industry-wide sales crash that came in the wake of file-sharing and the bubblegum pop that blew *NSYNC up to a 2.4 million first week in 2000.

Yet "Up!" still awaits a sequel. In the years since, Twain struggled with a "giant, long-term" vocal problem, as she told Entertainment Weekly this year, and a tabloid-chronicled cheating scandal that left her divorcing Lange.

That's all history now. She stepped back into the public eye with "Why Not? With Shania Twain," a reality show on OWN, and in 2012, she rode a horse into Las Vegas to launch the Caesars Palace residency that led her back to touring. She's released a pair of new singles, including a duet with Lionel Richie, and promised an album's in the works.

"I don't feel like I've made enough records in my life," she told Entertainment Weekly. "A lot of artists make a new album every year, and I just have such a sparse amount of recordings, and I've got a lot more to say and to sing in that sense."

It's hard to say what'll come next, but her music will arrive to a world that Twain helped shape. The path she cleared was so wide, a number of her pop contemporaries, from Hootie and the Blowfish's Darius Rucker to Sheryl Crow, have followed it the opposite way, back to Nashville's country sound. And then there's Swift, who's released three albums in a row with a platinum opening week. Not bad -- but Twain's diamonds are forever.

Shania Twain, Moda Center, Sept. 13, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $46-$136.

http://www.oregonlive.com/music/index.ssf/2015/09/shania_twain_tour_comeback.html



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Shania Twain plays Spokane Arena on final tour

By Nathan Weinbender | The Spokesman-Review | September 10, 2015

If you go

Shania Twain

With Gavin DeGraw When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Spokane Arena, 720 W. Mallon Ave.

Cost: $46-$136; tickets are available at all TicketsWest outlets.

In 2004, Shania Twain was one of the biggest performers in the world.

With hit songs like “Any Man of Mine,” “You’re Still the One,” “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!,” she was as dominant a presence on the country charts as the Top 40 charts, a feat few artists pre-Taylor Swift had pulled off. Her 1997 album “Come On Over” remains the highest-selling country record ever; it’s also sold more copies than any other album by a solo female artist.

But after seven No. 1 country singles and a 2003 tour supporting her fourth LP “Up!,” Twain seemed to go AWOL. She returned to the stage for a two-year residency at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas in 2012, but it was obvious that her recording career had slowed to a trickle.

Now the country superstar is back on the road for the first time in 11 years, and with it comes rumors of an upcoming album. Twain has announced that her ongoing “Rock This Country” tour, which makes a stop at the Spokane Arena on Saturday, is likely going to be her last.

“It’s certainly not my retirement from music,” Twain said during a conference call with The Spokesman-Review and others. “I’m 50 this year, I’ve been onstage since I was 8 years old, and I’ve put in my fair share of performances. … The time is just right now to do other things musically. I want to write more, I want to make lots more records. I haven’t made enough records in my life and in my career.”

Twain said her Vegas show, “Shania: Still the One,” reignited her interest in touring.

“During the last part of the two-year period in Vegas, I realized that I missed being out on the touring stage,” Twain said. “I enjoyed Vegas very much for a lot of reasons, but it was a motivation to one more time experience going out in the arena setting and be with people in their hometowns. … For the last two years, the fans have been coming to me. I feel pumped to get out there and go to their towns and bring them this whole new show.”

The Vegas show also informed the layout and pyrotechnics of the current tour. Twain says she was able to interact more directly with her Vegas audiences than in previous shows, and she wants to be in close proximity with her fans who are front and center.

“The audiences (in Vegas) were very close to the stage,” she said. “It was one of the luxuries I enjoy, because I like to see the people close up. … I have to make sure that I’m able to get out into the audience … so there’s a plan for that.”

Twain says that an album of all-new material is imminent, but she’s not sure exactly when it’s going to be done. The tour, though, is intended to be a celebration of her hits, even if the inclusion of a new track or two is still a possibility.

“This tour’s really all about the classics,” Twain said. “If it’s close enough to when I’m about to release something, I think it would be fair then to play one or two new songs off the new album. I’m dying to do it … but I’m not sure I’d want that myself if I was going to see my favorite artist and I wanted to hear their hit songs. But if the album progresses quickly enough and the timing works out, I might just put one or two new songs in.”

And now that she can officially stamp her touring career with an expiration date – her final show is next month in her native Canada – Twain says she’s focused on luxuriating in the experience.

“I’m having a lot more fun now,” she said. “I’m more relaxed in a lot of ways. I’m savoring it because it is my last tour. I’m in a farewell spirit. I’m in a reunion spirit to get back together with the fans after all these years. It’ll be very emotional for me.”

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/sep/10/shania-twain-plays-spokane-arena-on-final-tour/



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Country trailblazer Shania Twain set for Sioux Falls show

By Scott Hudson | The Argus Leader | September 16, 2015 1:27 p.m. CDT

What: Shania Twain with Gavin Degraw

When: Sept. 23

Where: Denny Sanford Premier Center

Tickets: $46-$136 through Ticketmaster

Who is country music’s biggest influence these days? The answer might surprise you.

When you ask the current crop of chart-toppers, they’ll all inevitably give the traditional answers: Johnny Cash. Merle Haggard. Hank Williams. Do you really hear any elements of these classic artists in the songs of Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line or Jason Aldean? Do any of Taylor Swift’s tunes remind you of Donna Fargo, Lynn Anderson or Dolly Parton?

Of course not.

Like it or not, it’s a new era in country music. Instead of straightforward morality tales bathed in acoustic and steel guitars, today’s country chart-toppers are as flashy as Motley Crue and Warrant. The guitar work is pure rock; the drum sounds wouldn’t feel out of place in a dance club.

If these artists aren’t the next generation of Merle and Dolly, then who did lay the groundwork for today’s sound? It would have to be Shania Twain.

Musically, there’s no question. Her then-husband, Robert “Mutt” Lange, produced Twain’s landmark ’90s albums, including 1997’s “Come on Over,” the biggest-selling album ever released by a female artist. Originally known for his production work with AC/DC and Def Leppard, Lange used the same types of recording tricks first heard on “Back In Black” and “Hysteria,” particularly on the drum sounds.

The influence isn’t just the rock-based backing tracks. Lyrically, Twain introduced a different type of country song. Instead of telling stories of heartache and hard lives, Twain’s biggest hits tend to rely more on big hooks and catchphrases. Songs such as “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” and “That Don’t Impress Me Much” certainly set the stage for most of today’s country-pop.

Twain also opened the door for Taylor Swift’s move from country to pop radio, as she was one of the first to remix her songs for pop radio. In fact, after the pop remix of “Still the One” topped the charts, a European-only version of “Come on Over” saw the entire album excised of country elements. Obviously it worked, as the album quickly sold more than 4 million copies in the U.K. alone.

Unfortunately for her fans, little new music has been heard in more than a decade. Her last full studio album, “Up,” was released in 2002. She divorced Lange a few years ago and has battled issues with her voice. After many years off the road, she recently completed a two-year residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

This current tour, her first in 11 years, is also reportedly her last. Having turned 50 earlier this year, she recently explained to the Wall Street Journal that she didn’t want her live performance career to end on the Vegas strip. “I felt it was a strange way to finish my performance career, not being able to get around to the people. I want to feel that again.”

In that same interview, she promised that a new record is coming in the near future, and she’s even been recording while on the road. “I’ll probably be doing vocals on down days during the tour. I’ll take a mic on the bus. My voice will be good on tour, because I’ll be singing every day.”

http://www.argusleader.com/story/blogs/scotthudson/2015/09/16/country-trailblazer-shania-twain/32493163/



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5 Spot: Key quotes from Shania Twain before her Fargodome concert

By Ryan Johnson | The InForum | September 18, 2015 at 1:49 a.m.

FARGO – The third time's the charm — and the last time we'll be able to see Shania Twain perform at the Fargodome.

The country-pop superstar's "Rock This World" tour, coming to Fargo on Monday with opening act Gavin DeGraw, is her farewell tour. It's also the first time in more than a decade that Twain has toured after a long hiatus and a two-year Las Vegas residency that ended last December.

She's played the Fargodome two other times, drawing a crowd of nearly 25,000 in 1998 and more than 18,000 in 2004.

Twain, 50, hasn't granted media interviews since launching her tour in June. But she opened up during a May conference call with reporters about her long break from music and her return to touring.

Here are five key quotes from that interview that shed some light on Twain's recent past and what's next after she's done performing.

On touring and seeing the fans again: "It's like a reunion of sorts. A lot has happened over the last decade since I've been off tour in all of our lives, my life and in their lives, and music is bringing us back together, and we're going to celebrate and reminisce to all of the hits that they know and that we've all lived with for all these years now."

On her plans to keep singing and recording music after she quits touring: "The performance side of it I feel is a phase in my life and I've been doing it for so long. I'm 50 this year, I've been on stage since I was 8 years old and I've really put in my fair share of performance and feeling that the time is just right now to do other things musically."

On kicking off her farewell tour: "It's a bit of a bittersweet experience. I'm almost afraid to start it because I think that once it starts, it's going to go by very quickly and then all of a sudden it will be done."

On songwriting and her hope to keep writing music after she's done touring: "I could just write music and be very satisfied, and I'm learning that about myself to be honest. I'm feeling less extrovert about the need to express my music and more content just creating it."

On years of vocal problems before rehabilitation helped her get back to singing: "Before I gave up on it completely, luckily I found the courage to tackle it and take it on. But the period where I believed that I would never sing again was incredibly depressing. It was, grief is the best way I can explain it. I was really grieving the loss of the voice that I knew and that I had."

http://www.inforum.com/variety/3841530-5-spot-key-quotes-shania-twain-her-fargodome-concert



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After a rough decade-plus, Shania Twain returns to Fargodome

By John Lamb | Grand Forks Herald | September 20, 2015 at 8:00 p.m.

FARGO, N.D. -- Shania Twain returns to the Fargodome Monday for her first show here in 11 years. Actually, this is the country singer's first tour in as long.

Between then and now she has suffered a messy divorce, survived a bout of dysphonia, leaving her temporarily unable to sing, and struggled to record the follow-up to 2002's blockbuster album, "Up!"

Despite not having a new album to promote on tour, Twain is on the road one last time for a farewell tour, though she's leaving open the possibility of a casino residency, like the one she did from 2012 to '14.

When the singer broke out with 1995's "The Woman in Me," she was an exciting new talent in Nashville with an energetic delivery and songs directed more toward the dance floors than dirt roads. By the time '97's "Come on Over" came out, Twain established herself as the biggest crossover artist at the time. The album would sell 40 million copies worldwide, 17 million in the United States alone, making it the biggest-selling country album ever and the sixth-best-selling album in America.

Artists often say numbers will grow and change with the performer. Since most of Monday's tunes will be at least 13 and some up to 20 years old, we wondered if the meanings of some songs have changed.

• "Rock this Country" -- The singer was a bit of a soothsayer, seemingly predicting the blurred lines between country and rock. Sure, Garth Brooks made country-pop crossover possible, but Twain's co-writer, producer and husband, Robert "Mutt" Lange, crafted hits with AC/DC and Def Leppard before they hooked up.

• "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under" -- This '95 hit, the first release from the Twain/Lange power couple, again was a strange bit of foreshadowing. In 2008, Twain announced they had split after discovering he'd had an affair with her best friend. To make things more like a soap opera, Twain later married her former best friend's now ex-husband.

• "I Ain't No Quitter" -- The title and the chorus would drive an English teacher crazy, and the song may be about the singer's dedication to a flawed man, but in light of all she's overcome, this track is more appropriate now than when she released it on her 2005 greatest hits record.

• "Up!" -- When she released the title track from her third album, it was hard to imagine things could possibly get better for the singer. It was hard to take the opening lines, "It's about as bad as it could be/Seems everybody's bugging me," seriously, but with fans and media constantly asking when her next album is coming out, the song seems timely.

• "Today is Your Day" -- The first and only song Twain released since splitting from Lange, and her first piece solely written by herself in 18 years. Released with her 2011 reality TV show, "Why Not? With Shania Twain," the song is basically a self-help motivator with lyrics like, "You got what it takes you can win/Today is your day to begin." As Twain seems to be struggling with her next album, this tune seems like a nightly musical affirmation.

• "You're Still the One" -- This one has to hurt to sing. After establishing themselves as a power couple, Twain and Lange heard people gossip about their marriage, like that she was using him to further her career and he was too old (16 years senior) for her. This song seemed aimed at answering the critics with the lines, "They said, 'I bet they'll never make it'/ But just look at us holding on/ We're still together, still going strong." Ouch. Always one to find a silver lining, since the divorce, Twain has said the song is a reminder of the love between her parents who died in a 1987 car accident.

• "That Don't Impress Me Much" -- A classic kiss-off song, this song should still have as much snap and glare as when it came out in '97.

• "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" -- Twain delivered the party anthem for every country girl's night out in '97 with this catchy ditty. "We don't need romance, we only want to dance." The tune will no doubt still serve as a shout-out to the ladies, but knowing that both Britney Spears and Carrie Underwood covered the song a decade ago, it might just make Twain feel like an older woman.

If you go

Who: Shania Twain

When: Opener Gavin DeGraw starts at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Monday

Where: Fargodome, 1800 N. University Drive

Info: Tickets range from $46-$136. For more information and tickets, visit www.fargodome.com

http://www.grandforksherald.com/accent/entertainment/3843362-after-rough-decade-plus-shania-twain-returns-fargodome



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Shania Twain to continue to 'Rock the Country'

By L. Kent Wolgamott | Lincoln Journal Star | September 17, 2015 11:45 pm

If you go

What: Shania Twain with Gavin DeGraw

Where: Pinnacle Bank Arena, 400 Pinnacle Arena Dr.

When: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 24

Tickets: $136, $86, $66, $45 plus applicable fees; available at the arena ticket office, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com and by phone at 800-745-3000

Shania Twain has changed her mind.

In May, just before she began her summer tour, the '90s country star said when she finished the “Rock the Country” tour in October, she was done performing.

“This is certainly not my retirement from music,” Twain said in a telephone news conference then. “I will be doing music, I’m sure, until the day I die. I love music too much. The performance side of it, I feel is a phase in my life. I’ve been doing it for so long. I’m 50 this year. I’ve been on stage since I was 8 years old, and I’ve really put in my fair share of performance. I’m feeling that the time is just right now to do other things musically.

“I want to write more. I want to make lots more records. I miss making records, and I haven’t made enough records in my life and my career… I also want to write songs for other artists that are coming up, and I want to sit back and enjoy them having their moment on the stage and being proud that I’m being proud of their success….That’s a whole exciting phase for me that I look forward to. I just see it as an evolution in my career really.”

Last month, however, Twain told the Las Vegas Sun that the response to the tour that began in early June has been so good that she will extend it.

“The tour is tiring, but I’m loving it,” Twain said to the Sun. “It’s becoming far more meaningful than I thought it would be. So many young people are turning out. We are getting an interesting cross-section of people in our audiences that makes it really great….It’s going so well that I’ve decided I’d like to extend it. I’m not ready to stop.”

Before she continues the tour, however, Twain said she was going to finish a new album that would be her first since 2002’s “Up.” Then she said she would like to take “Rock the Country” to Europe, Australia and New Zealand, then return to Las Vegas for another two-year residency like the one she recently wrapped up at Caesar’s Palace.

There won’t be any new material in Twain’s Pinnacle Bank Arena show Thursday. But she’s been singing new songs throughout the summer, as she’s cutting the new record while on the road, utilizing a mobile recording setup.

“There’s going to be a little bit of tug of war for my time in getting this music finished,” she said in the teleconference. “On my days off and time when I’m not on stage and traveling, I’ll be recording vocals or working on the songwriting and so on. I’m going to pretty much be working between the stage and the new album.”

That means that Twain’s show is a retrospective affair, a chance for fans to hear her sing songs like “Any Man of Mine,” “You’re Still the One” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman.”

“It’s the classic stuff that everybody knows. That’s what this tour is all about -- bringing the hits to everybody, bringing them to their hometowns,” she said. “For me, this tour is about reuniting with the fans, I haven’t done it in a long time. The reason for the tour is to say goodbye to the stage on a high, with my friends, with my fans.”

Those hits, which started in 1995 with her “The Woman in Me” album, were on the country charts. But Twain’s music blurred the then-sharper distinctions between country, rock and pop -- foreshadowing the crossover that typifies the sound of country’s hitmakers.

Any kind of genre division has never been in Twain’s mind.

“I never really felt it was necessary to box anything in,” she said. “It was a lot more fun to watch things evolve and cross boundaries. That’s what I ended up doing in my own career. I never saw myself as any one thing, and I never labeled my own self specifically or wrote music for any one genre. It was a pleasant surprise when my music ended up a cross-genre thing.”

Twain’s string of hits ended just over a decade ago, about the same time she left the road. Initially, she took a hiatus from touring to concentrate on being a mom, raising her son, who had just started school when her last tour ended.

The hiatus grew ever longer as Twain began to lose her voice, not just for singing.

“It was very, very scary,” she said. “It went way beyond not being able to perform. It certainly went beyond concerns for my career and not having a career as a singer. It was a part of me that I was losing, like losing a hand or something. I was going through a grieving process. I really thought I lost my voice, the voice that I knew, the voice I once had. It was very scary, and it was just something I was having a terrible time coming to terms with. Before I gave up on it completely, luckily, I found the courage to tackle it and take it on. 

Lesions were found on Twain’s vocal cords and she was diagnosed with dysphonia. Once treated, Twain was able to resume her singing career, opting first for the Vegas residency.

“During the last part of the two-year period in Vegas, I realized I’ve missed being out on the touring stage, missed going out to the public as opposed to them coming to me,” she said. “I enjoyed Vegas, but it was a motivation to one more time experience going out into the arena setting and being with people in their home towns.”

Twain said she’s taking one thing from her Vegas shows into arenas. In the smaller, controlled room she was able to get up close and personal with the audience.

“I have to make sure I’m able to get out there in the audience and touch people and look people in the eye and be among them,” she said. “There’s a plan for that. It’s something I’m going to take with me on the tour, even though it won’t be as easy to do.”

Twain promises the most dynamic show she’s ever done with top-flight production.

“I think it will be memorable. it’s going to rock,” she said back in May. “That’s for sure. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m in a good spirit for it. I really feel pumped to get out there and go to their towns and bring them this whole new show, this big sign-off, this big farewell.”

Except it may no longer be a farewell.

http://journalstar.com/entertainment/music/shania-twain-to-continue-to-rock-the-country/article_6f54d369-83ce-5608-b41d-43dee60380a9.html



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Rested voice, happy home have Shania Twain shining on tour

By Kevin Joy | The Columbus Dispatch | September 24, 2015 7:41 AM

Shania Twain

NATIONWIDE ARENA, 200 W. NATIONWIDE BLVD.

Contact: 1-800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com 

Opening act: Gavin DeGraw

Showtime: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Tickets: $46 to $136

Yep, she’s still the one.

Shania Twain, the Canadian country-pop queen who in the 1990s was as ubiquitous as Beanie Babies and flared jeans, has taken a break from retirement.

Not that her lively songs of love and empowerment weren’t on heavy rotation as customer-service hold music and in your minivan during the interim.

After almost a decade of silence — with Twain, now 50, retreating from the limelight to her Switzerland home in 2004 — the Man! I Feel Like a Woman! workhorse is back in the saddle (and a blonde now, to boot).

“This is a very, very special time for me,” the singer told Good Morning America earlier this year in announcing her 48-city tour, which on Wednesday will make a stop in Nationwide Arena.

“I’m going to make the most of it; let’s put it that way.”

That is because Twain’s ongoing “Rock This Country” dates — since expanded to accommodate 72 performances through Oct. 27 — will be her last.

A supersized stadium spectacle suggests a fitting sendoff for the record-breaking vocalist, whose 85-million-plus album sales have made her the best-selling female country artist in history. Of that figure, 40 million are tied to 1997’s Come on Over, the top-selling record of all time by a female of any genre.

As a performer, Twain has long maintained a personal touch that belies her celebrity.

A Dispatch reviewer called her “the Oprah Winfrey of pop-music stars” after a past central Ohio gig found the A-list artist chatting constantly with audience members and inviting others onstage for singalongs and a raffle.

But assuming the more physical demands of her old routine wasn’t easy.

Twain, after all, left the music business when dysphonia — an ailment in which the muscles squeeze the voice box — weakened her voice. Surgery wasn’t necessary, but significant rehabilitation was needed for her to recover.

The first big test was a two-year performance residency that launched in 2012 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

A critically acclaimed show that took audiences through the various stages of Twain’s blockbuster career, it grossed $43 million and sold more than 346,000 tickets.

Nonetheless, “It was such a challenge getting back up onstage, getting my voice in order, getting my confidence back up,” Twain told The Wall Street Journal in June. “The whole mountain was pretty high. I figured if I could accomplish that, then I’d be very happy and I’d end on a high.”

It wasn’t the end for the Up! diva, of course.

Twain has said she wanted another chance to crisscross North America in order to have yet another round of face time with listeners in their respective hometowns.

And while she is working on “very relatable” yet “unexpected” new material absent the guidance of a songwriting team, Twain sticks to the classics (Any Man of Mine, I’m Gonna Getcha Good!) in her latest live set lists.

“When I go to a concert, I want to hear the songs that I’m familiar with,” she told reporters on a conference call in May. “I’m in a farewell spirit, but I’m in a reunion spirit to get back together with the fans again, and that will be emotional to me.”

Her own path, likewise, has been fraught with emotion.

Born Eilleen Regina Edwards in Windsor, Ontario, the girl grew up in a poor household that struggled to pay bills and put food on the table. By age 8, she was singing in bars for money; two years later, she was writing her own material.

Although she toured with a cover band after high school and began to garner interest from record producers, the 1987 deaths of her mother and stepfather in a car crash took her back home to care for younger siblings.

She persevered, changing her first name to Shania (the Twain surname was her late stepfather’s) and, within time, broke into the music industry.

Among early admirers: producer Robert “Mutt” Lange, who became Twain’s husband and guided her ascent. They divorced in 2010 after Twain found out Lange had allegedly had an affair with her best friend.

In a surprise twist worthy of a country song, Twain married her former friend’s ex-spouse — a Swiss-born Nestle executive — a year later.

With the physical and emotional tumult behind her, Twain is happy to focus on the positive and revive her catalog to entertain and inspire.

The feeling is mutual.

“I look for the courage in others,” Twain told Good Morning America, “and I find mine.”

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2015/09/24/1-rested-voice-happy-home-have-twain-shining-on-tour.html



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Interviewing Shania Twain: On last tour, coming to Allentown's PPL Center, singer wants to prove she's 'Still The One'

By John J. Moser | The Morning Call | September 25, 2015, 4:59 PM

For someone who says she’s on the final tour of her career, Shania Twain, the second-best-selling female country singer of all time, sure sounds wistful about being on the road again.

She doesn’t sound like someone who’s ready to walk away from giving live performances of her 22 Top 20 country hits, seven of which hit No. 1. Or like someone who’s preparing to release her first studio album in more than a dozen years.

But that’s precisely what Twain says will happen.

After debuting with her self-titled platinum disc in 1993, Twain shot to superstardom. Her 1995 sophomore disc, “The Woman in Me,” sold a staggering 12 million copies. She topped that with 1997’s “Come On Over,” selling 20 million copies. And 2002’s “Up” sold 11 million more.

In just six years, Twain had six gold or platinum singles, including her biggest, the double-platinum “You’re Still The One.”

Most of her hits, including “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” also crossed over to the general music charts, as she was one of the first country artists to embrace a more pop-rock sound. She also won five Grammy Awards.

But by the end of her last tour in 2004, Twain says she decided to focus more on being a mother and largely stepped away from the music scene.

She then developed lesions on her vocal cords that she says not only left her unable to sing, but threatened her voice entirely.

Through therapy, Twain rehabilitated her voice and in 2012 returned to the concert stage with a Las Vegas stage show “Still The One.”

She also began working on a new album, with the intention of releasing it to coincide with the new tour, but the disc has taken far longer than expected. That means she’s working on it as she tours.

In a recent telephone all, Twain talked about her career, her vocal problems, her comeback and the future.

Here is an edited transcript of the call:

We’ll do the obvious question to start: It’s been a long time since you’ve been out on a full tour like that, and even in your press release you said you’ll have more to share as a performer now that you’re going back out on tour. I’m curious how you think fans will see a different Shania. What’s going to be different about who you are on stage, what you do, and what you’re capable of bringing to the show?

Well, it’s a very exciting time for me. I think the fans – I think we’re going to be re-introduced to each other is the best way I can put it. And that in itself is very exciting. It’s like a reunion of sorts. A lot has happened over the last decade, since I’ve been off tour, in all of our lives – my life and in their lives. And music is bringing us back together and we’re going to celebrate and reminisce with all of the hits that they know and that we’ve all lived with for all these years now.

“And in my case, it’s a lot of the kids that were listening to the music years ago, that I would have seen on tour years ago, that are going to be adults now. And it’s just exciting for me to be able to be reunited with them. And I have to say the most rewarding thing for me – and the thing I’m looking most forward to on this tour – is seeing the fans and being with them again and feeling their excitement and sharing mine with them.”

So there’s been a lot of talk about this tour being something that’s the last for you. Is this the last tour, or are you looking for retirement from music one day? Can you kind of clarify what it is that this is the end of?

“Well, it’s certainly not my retirement from music. I will be doing music, I’m sure, till the day I die [laughs]. I love music too much.

“Um, the performance side of it, I feel, is a phase in my life, and I’ve been doing it for so long. I’m 50 this year, I’ve been on stage since I was 8 years old, and I’ve really put in my fair share of performance. And feeling that the time is just right now to do other things musically. I want to write more. I want to make lots more records. I miss making records and I haven’t made enough records in my life and in my career. I’ve done a lot more live performing than I have recording, so I want to do a lot more of that.

“And I also want to write songs for other artists. Other artists who are coming up. And I want to sit back and enjoy them having their moment on the stage and being proud that I’m part of their success. And watching my music as the observer, from the audience.

“So that’s a while other exciting phase for me that I look forward to. So I just see it as an evolution in my career, really.”

It’s been more than a decade since your last North American tour, and the pop landscape has changed a lot since you first broke big. I mean, you were one of the first artists to really break down those walls between what’s traditionally considered country, rock and pop. How do you feel about the very, very mainstream pop push that country music has had in the last couple of years – and that being the kind of pop landscape that you’re setting out into with this tour?

“Well, you know, ever since I started listening to radio as a small child, the genres have gone in every possible direction I could have ever imagined. And what falls into any specific genre has changed and evolved. And then also new genres, you know, there’s new genres all the time coming out.

“So I just think it’s a moving target, and I’ve enjoyed that. I always enjoyed following that; I’ve enjoyed new things, new music, new styles, new artists, new ideas and concepts and I never really felt that it was necessary to box anything in. And that it was a lot more fun to watch … for things to evolve and to cross boundaries.

“And that’s what I ended up doing in my own career. I never saw myself as any one thing, and I never labeled my own self specifically or wrote music specifically for a genre. So it didn’t surprise me, or at least was a pleasant surprise, when my music ended up basically being a cross-genre thing. And I’ve enjoyed that. It’s been a big part of the fun for me. Just kind of being myself, and it lands wherever other people decide it should land.

“But I do like the whole moving target of that and just being myself. So I’ve enjoyed watching it all evolve and seeing everybody enjoy these boundaries being pushed and changed and even dissolved, in a lot of cases.”

How do you feel that you have evolved, personally, over the last 11 years and how will that affect the spirit of this tour?

“Well, I’m having a lot more fun now. I’m going to have a lot of fun with this tour. The most fun I’ve ever had on stage. I’m more relaxed in a lot of ways. I’m savoring it because it is my last tour. I’m in a farewell spirit. I’m in a reunion spirit to get back together with the fans again after all these years. You know, it will be emotional for me. The show will be very exciting; there’s a lot of dynamics in the show – I’m putting my best foot forward in every way, you know, technologically, psychologically. Just throwing myself into it.

“And, yeah, it’s a bit of a bittersweet experience, and, you know, I’m almost afraid to start it, ‘cause once it starts it’s going to go by very quickly, then all of a sudden it will be done.”

You’re just coming off the Las Vegas residency, and I’m just wondering if that long stay in one place has impacted the way that you approach touring and your shows and that kind of thing.

“Well it’s certainly the reason I decided to go out on the tour – ‘cause during the last part of the two-year period in Vegas, I realized that I missed being out on the touring stage and missed going out to the public as opposed to them coming to me.

“So I was thinking, ‘Gee, it would be fun to go and visit people in their own hometowns and experience that excitement and atmosphere again. So I enjoyed Vegas very much for a lot of reasons, but it did motivate me – it was a motivation to one more time experience one more time going out into the arena setting and being with people in their hometowns.”

You talked about what the set list might include, and I was wondering what the progress is on a new album, whether there’s going to be any new music on the set list.

“There won’t be any new music from the new album on the set list – at least at this point. Maybe closer to the end of the tour I will be able to pull some of that music in. I don’t want to pull it in too soon, ‘cause it’s very difficult to know when the new album’s going to be ready. I don’t want to bore people with songs they don’t know, either. I know myself, when I go to a concert, I want to hear the songs that I know, that I’m familiar with and that I already have memories to and so on.

“So I think if it’s close enough to when I’m about to release something, I think it would be fair, then, to play one or two new songs off the new album. I’m dying to do it; I would love to be able to do it [Laughs]. But I just feel that it would be … I don’t think I would want that myself if I was going to see my favorite artist and I wanted to go hear their hit songs. So I’m just sort of looking at it that way. But like I said, if the album progresses quickly enough and the timing works out, then I might very well just put one or two songs in closer to the end of the tour.”

Is part of the reason for doing the tour at this point simply that the major changes in the way recorded music is sold over the last 10 years have kind of dictated that it’s more important for, or more necessary for artists to perform live than to release records?

“Um, are you saying, is that why I’m going out on tour?”

Yeah, or is the fact that you’ve had 10 years when you didn’t have records out – was it partly motivated by the fact that the change to digital sales meant that it was just harder for musicians to do recorded music anymore?

“Oh, I see what you’re saying. Well, I mean, at this point for me it doesn’t really apply, ‘cause I don’t have new music yet [laughs]. So the music that I’m going out with is the music that’s always existed. It’s the classic stuff that everybody know and that’s what this tour’s all about – bringing the hits to everybody. Bringing the hits to their hometowns and out on tour.

“So I think, especially if you’re a new artist, it would be very difficult to not tour live. I understand what you’re saying because record sales have been dramatically affected by just the climate of the whole market and how it operates. And touring just becomes more important.

“But for me, this tour is about reuniting with the fans – I haven’t done it in a long time. I am just bring the music that I’ve already sold records for, so it doesn’t apply in that sense what you’re saying there. But I do hope, in talking about new music, that maybe near the end of the tour I’ll be able to introduce a couple of new songs from the new album that’s coming out.

“But it’s so hard to know when that’s going to be ready that it’s hard to say whether I’ll be able to do that or not. But this tour is really all about the classics, and the tour – the reason for the tour is just, you know, to say goodbye to the stage, um, on a high. And just with my friends – with my fans.”

What did you learn from your time in Las Vegas that you’re planning on taking out on the tour with you. If there were favorite parts of what you did in Vegas that you’re eager to take to our hometown.

“Hmm. Well, I mean, there were a lot of things to learn in Vegas, that’s for sure. I think what I learned there is the audiences there were very close to the stage. So it was one of the luxuries that I enjoyed, because I love to see the people close up; I like to touch the people and mingle with them. So it was really cool to do so much of that there – having them so close to the stage, and such a controlled room. It was a theater environment.

“And what I learned is I have to do more of this – I want to do more of this. And I want to make sure that when I go out on the road and we do this tour, that I don’t miss out on that. I have to make sure that I’m able to get out there in the audience and touch people and look at them in the eye and be among them. So there’s a plan for that [laughs].

“It was a good experience being able to be so close with the people in Las Vegas. It really did – it’s something that I’m going to take with me on the tour, even though it won’t be as easy to do because of the scales of the rooms and so on. But we’re going to do it. So that’s been part of the plan and been built in to the production for me to be able to do that.”

What’s it like for you on tour these days? Do you get out and sightsee in any of the cities?

“This tour will be a little bit more focused on making my new record. So on my days and time when I’m not on stage or traveling, I will be recording vocals or working on the songwriting and so on. So I’m not going to be able to get out much and do any sightseeing on this tour. I’m going to be pretty much working between the stage and the new album.

“I have a very little portable setup and I just sing and record my vocals. That’s how I do my songwriting now and how I do my demos. And you can be electronically connected with your producer wherever they are. And the producers will come out to me as well, when I’m touring and we’ll just poke away at it like that – work on the arrangements, work on the vocals and then they can send me sessions and I can Skype. There’s just various ways to do this now that are pretty efficient, pretty effective.”

In relation to the fact that this is your last tour: I was wondering if there was anything you had planned to do, maybe new or different, in terms of the stage show that maybe differs from the previous tours that you’ve done. So you can really assure that you go out on a bang with this one?

“[Laughs] Well, you know, the tour’s call Rock This Country, and it’s just a celebration tour for a lot of reasons. I’m reuniting with the fans out in their own hometowns, that I have not done in a decade. It is a goodbye to the stage, and so the show is just full of great technology, the highest-end possible. It’s a very dynamic show – more dynamic than ever before, and no one has ever seen me in this light ever before. It’s going to be a whole new fresh look – a whole new fresh production entirely different from Las Vegas. We’ve stripped everything down and started from scratch.

“So it will be something that no one’s ever seen before of me. And I think it’ll be memorable. It’s gonna rock, that’s for sure. And it’ll be a lot of fun. I’m in a good spirit for it, and just primed to visit the fans’ hometowns and come to them. ‘cause for the last two years in Las Vegas, the fans have been coming to me. So I really feel pumped to get out there and go to their towns and bring them this whole new show.

“And I guess this big sign-off, this big farewell.”

What have you missed most not being out on tour, and are there any parts that you’re not as excited about?

“Well what I’ve missed the most is the connection with the fans. I’ve evolved a lot over the years. My life has changed so dramatically and my point of view has changed in a lot of ways. The way I see my role on stage and what I mean to the fans and what they mean to me. All of that is more valuable, and there’s just another level of maturity that I have now. And gratitude. So I’m looking forward to just exchanging that and experiencing that with them. And just saying thank you and celebrating my farewell with them.

“And then what I’m not looking forward to – well, I mean there’s nothing, really. The timing of this tour – there’s a sort of inconvenience to the timing of the new music and the tour because I want to get the new music finished and I want to be able to tour with some of the new music. But the tour isn’t going to leave me any time to do that.

“So I’m going to try to squeeze in working on the album while I’m on the tour. So there’s going to be a little bit of tug-of-war for my time and getting this new music together and finished. So that is the biggest struggle, really. I’m anxious to do both, and I’m going to have to manage my time and I’m not going to be able to have it all – which will be a little frustration, ‘cause I’m a little anxious about the new record.

“So that’s really it. But there’s nothing I’m not looking forward to.”

You talked about your desire to write new music and record more albums. So why haven’t you written music or recorded albums in the past dozen years? And for that matter, why haven’t you toured?

“Right. Well, I’ve been writing for ... I never stopped writing. So I’ve been writing all the time. You know, it’s a creative outlet that I would do whether I was touring or not or recording or not. So that never stopped.

“Why I didn’t record anything is primarily because my voice just wasn’t there and I didn’t have – I wasn’t sure I was ever going to sing again. So I was writing the music, but I didn’t know what to do with it. And then the same thing goes for touring. I mean, touring even more so, for the vocal side of it because you’ve just got to get out there and you have to be able to deliver your thing and stuff.

“Initially why I had slowed down after the last tour, though, was more so just for the break and to be a mom. And those few years after the last tour were very deliberately to concentrate on my son and my home because at the end of that tour, my son was just starting school for the first time. So that was logical timing for me.

“And then that period, that shorter sabbatical, turned into rather a long one, and then the problems started compounding with the voice and so on and so forth, and that ended up being over a decade.”

Can you give us any idea what the new songs are like?

“Stylistically it’s hard for me to explain it. It’s different from what I’ve done in the past stylistically. I think the songs and the spirit of the songs are still very relatable. They’re communicative –I don’t think that they’re obscure or anything like that. But I think it’s going to be a lot of unexpected elements to the music, for sure. ‘Cause I’m writing it all myself, so there’s not influence from outside, and there’s no other writer or no producer directing it.

“And this is just naturally going to give it different spirit to the music. And of course I’m matured, I’ve evolved. I have a lot a more … I have different things to say. I have different things to express that weren’t true about me 10, 15, 20 years ago. So that I think is just a natural evolution. I don’t think that is going to surprise anybody.

“But stylistically, yeah, there’s a different direction behind the music, for sure. And I’m not terribly objective about it. So it’s hard for me to know really where it fits and how I would be able to describe it, for the sake of others really grasping it. So I’m not even going to try doing that.

“But I’m enjoying it and It’s a very personalized songwriting. It’s been just a very therapeutic process for me. I’m pouring my heart out in the music – whether it’s literally in the lyrics or just emotionally through the melody and the chord progressions and all of that. It’s been a really great experience, and I want to do more of it. I’ve indulged in it and really don’t want to stop. I want to just keep going.

“I could just do that. [Laughs]. I mean, I could write music and be very satisfied, and I’m learning that about myself to be honest. I’m feeling less extrovert about expressing – the need to express my music –and more content just creating it.”

Compare the sense of fulfillment you get out of performing verses what you want to do more of – the deep sense of fulfillment you get out of songwriting.

“Well, the fulfillment I get out of performing is just being with the fans. Being with the public, seeing their reaction, getting their reaction. Me giving my reaction to them. It’s the interaction, it’s not the performing itself why I do it. I don’t need to be in the spotlight. It’s never been a desire of mine to be in the spotlight. I enjoy the interaction that that platform brings me. If that makes sense; it’s hard to explain really. But the gift of being on the stage for me is the fact that I can communicate with all these people over something we both love so much.

“But the songwriting part of it is by far the bigger pleasure than perfuming it. I wouldn’t say that it’s a bigger pleasure over, you know, his cool relationship I can have with the public. ‘Cause that is, you know, is just so unique and great and inspiring.

“But the songwriting – I could just do songwriting, and I would be happy, I would be fulfilled. It’s fulfilling in so many ways. I’m a creative person, and being a performer doesn’t necessarily mean you’re creative. I couldn’t just be a performer. I need to be a creative person. That’s really where my heart is. And I could be the creator of things and other people could be the performers of my creations and I would be fulfilled.

“I don’t need to be the one performing what I create, in other words. And you know, I could be talking to thousands of people and not performing at all and still get the same thrill of being with the people. So you know, it’s not a matter of performing. It’s just being able to communicate with all these people and to relate to them. So that could be in any form. It doesn’t have to be in the form of being the live stage singer. I mean, Oprah probably gets a great thrill out of doing what she does and communicating with the public. Or even writing books – being able to communicate with people through books and writing books and writing stories. There are just so many ways to do it.

“I just like the connection with the masses, I guess is what I’m saying. And it’s not necessarily being the singer that gives me that. The stage gives me that. It’s hard to break it down. I hope I’m not sounding confusing, but it’s the best way I can sort of describe it.”

You’ve mentioned the years of not recording and not touring and mentioned a lot of it due to your voice, and I’ve certainly read a little bit about what you were kind of going through it. But I’d like you to talk just a little bit about that experience, ‘cause it really does sound like it had to be pretty traumatic to see your voice going to the point where I think you were even having problems just with your speaking voice. I’m curious how just going through that was, and just how much you feared you wouldn’t be able to get back to singing.

“It was very, very scary and it went way beyond not being able to perform. It went beyond concerns for my career or not having a career. As a singer, it was a part of me that I was losing – like losing a hand or something, I was going through a grieving process. I really thought that I lost my voice – the voice that I knew and the voice that I once had.

“It was just very scary and it was something I just was having a terrible time coming to terms with, And before I gave up on it completely, luckily I found the courage to tackle it and take it on. But the period that I believed that I would never sing again was incredible depressing, it was a grief, is the best way I can explain it. I was really grieving the loss of the voice that I knew and that I had – that I once had.”

You turned 50 last month. How did you approach that, and does part of you feel like your representing or helping define what the age of 50 is?

“[Laughs heartily] I’m trying to figure out what that is myself. I suppose I’ll have more answers, but I probably should have some idea already. I think anybody in the second half of their 40s is already considering what it’s going to mean to be 50. And, you know, for me I think it’s an inspiration and a motivator to be my best because I sort of feel like if I don’t push myself and bring myself to the best that I can be now, it’s only going to get harder after that.

“So I’m saying to myself, ‘OK, at this point in your life you’ve got to be the fittest you can be. You’ve got to be the best you can be, the sharpest you can be. You’ve got to be the most educated you can be, the happiest you can be. And then I just feel that it sets a positive, strong platform for myself to jump from. And it sets the tone for the rest of my life, is how I see it.”

If you put this record out and people love it – which they probably will – and they’re going to want to hear it live and you might want to play it live. So do you feel like maybe you’re boxing yourself in a little bit by saying this is your last tour? When you’re till petty young?

“It’s such a good question, and I’ve gone through it in my mind so many times. But when I decided to do the tour – the timing of the tour was decided on not leaving too much of a gap from when my residency finished in December. I didn’t want to shut everything down and then start all over from scratch again, you know, a year down the road or two years down the road.

“But at the same time, I was hoping that my album would be further along by the time I finished my residency in December in Vegas. So the timing was just not ideal, it didn’t work out as I planned. But I can’t rush the album and get it out just for the sake of the tour. So it was just one of those things where the timing didn’t work out very well.

“What I will do, though, is at the end of this tour, if the music is far enough along with the album that I’m able to introduce one or two songs live, then I’ll be able to do that. And I’m hoping that I can do that. But I just had to let go of the fact that the timing wasn’t ideal. You know, with tours and albums, you’ve got to plan way far in advance and it just doesn’t always work out the way that you want it. You know, some things get delayed, and there’s no guarantee that things will ever line up. So that’s kind of what happened.

“So I didn’t intentionally box myself in, but it’s sort of the way it played out.

“And yeah, it would bum me out to not be able to do those new songs live, but I also believe that records have their own life as well. They’re an entity in their own way, and yeah, I just have to cross each bridge as I get there. But I’m kind of disappointed that the timing didn’t work out. But I’m optimistic that there’ll be something before the end of this tour that I will be able to do a couple of highlights from it.”

Do you think it’s possible that you’ll enjoy this tour so much and the new album will do well, is it possible you’ll change your mind and come back out of retirement from touring. I know some artists are real adamant about it, and others, they leave the door a little bit open.

“I think it just depends on where you are – what your frame of mind is. And it is so individual. But my frame of mind is I want to move on to different things, and I need time to do it. I want to make more albums and I want to write more music. I don’t know about other songwriters, but it takes a lot of focus to write meaningful songs and it takes a lot of emotional energy and it’s time consuming. So if I’m distracted all the time by, you know, creating productions and all of the facets of the tour and then the touring itself, you know, how much music am I ever really going to be able to write? And how many records am I going to be able to make?

“So I guess my focus is switched. My focus has already been switched. And I’m going to a record-making mode when this tour is over, and that’s what I want to do. I want to do more of that. I want to bring more music out. And I’ve got a lot more to say, a lot more to sing and that’s been what’s behind this decision. I can’t do them both at the same time. “

SHANIA TWAIN, 7:30 p.m. Friday Oct. 2, PPL Center, 701 Hamilton St., Allentown. Tickets: $47-$133. www.PPLCenter.com, 610-347-TIXX

http://www.mcall.com/entertainment/lehigh-valley-music/mc-interviewing-shania-twain-on-last-tour-coming-to-allentowns-ppl-center-singer-wants-to-prove-shes-st-20150925-column.html



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Shania Twain embarks on final concert tour

By L. Kent Wolgamott | Troy Record | 09/29/15, 5:30 PM EDT

ALBANY - Shania Twain hadn’t been on tour for more than decade before she began her “Rock This Country” excursion this summer. And she doesn’t plan to ever be back on the road again.

The ‘90s country star, who has sold more than 85 million albums, isn’t quitting music altogether. But she says she’s shutting down touring shortly after her current “Rock This Country” trek plays the Times Union Center on Wednesday.

“This is certainly not my retirement from music,” Twain said in a telephone news conference. “I will be doing music, I’m sure, until the day I die. I love music too much. The performance side of it, I feel is a phase in my life. I’ve been doing it for so long. I’m 50 this year. I’ve been on stage since I was eight years old and I’ve really put in my fair share of performance. I’m feeling that the time is just right now to do other things musically.

“I want to write more. I want to make lots more records. I miss making records and I haven’t made enough records in my life and my career,” she said. “I also want to write songs for other artists that are coming up and I want to sit back and enjoy them having their moment on the stage and being proud that I’m being proud of their success. That’s a whole exciting phase for me that I look forward to. I just see it as an evolution in my career really.”

In fact, Twain has begun recording a new album – her first since 2002’s “Up!” Generally artists wait until the record is completed before touring. But the timing didn’t work for Twain, who is coming off a two-year residency at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

That means that Twain’s show will be a retrospective affair. “It’s the classic stuff that everybody knows. That’s what this tour is all about – bringing the hits to everybody, bringing them to their hometowns,” she said. “For me, this tour is about reuniting with the fans. The reason for the tour is to say goodbye to the stage on a high, with my friends, with my fans.”

Those hits, which started in 1995 with her “The Woman in Me” as Twain’s music blurred the then-sharper distinctions between country, rock and pop – foreshadowing the crossover that typifies the sound of country’s current hitmakers.

“I never really felt it was necessary to box anything in,” she said.

“It was a lot more fun to watch things evolve and cross boundaries. That’s what I ended up doing in my own career. I never saw myself as any one thing and I never labeled my own self specifically or wrote music for any one genre. It was a pleasant surprise when my music ended up a cross-genre thing.”

Twain’s string of hits ended just over a decade ago, about the same time she left road. Initially, she took a hiatus from touring to concentrate on being a mom, raising her son who had just started school when her last tour ended.

That hiatus grew longer, and along the way there was major upheaval when Twain discovered in 2008 her then-husband, producer Robert “Mutt” Lange was having an affair. The couple divorced, and in soap-opera-worthy turn, Twain began dating and in 2011 married Frederic Thiebaud, whose former wife, Marie-Anne, was having the affair with Lange and had been Twain’s best friend.

Then came another huge scare, as Twain began to lose her voice, not just for singing, but even speaking.

“It was very, very scary,” Twain said. “It went way beyond not being able to perform. It certainly went beyond concerns for my career and not having a career as a singer. It was a part of me that I was losing, like losing a hand or something. It was going through a grieving process. I really thought I lost my voice, the voice that I knew, the voice I once had. It was very scary and it was just something I was having a terrible time coming to terms with. Before I gave up on it completely, luckily, I found the courage to tackle it and take it on.”

Lesions were found on Twain’s vocal cords and she was diagnosed with dysphonia. Once treated, Twain was able to resume her singing career, opting first for a two year residency at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

Twain promises the most dynamic show she’s ever done with top-flight production as she wraps up her touring career with a bang.

“I think it will be memorable. It’s going to rock,” she said. “I’m in a good spirit for it. I really feel pumped to get out there and go to their towns and bring them this whole new show, this big sign-off, this big farewell.”

IF YOU GO

What: Shania Twain

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 7

Where: Times Union Center, Albany

Tickets: $46-$136. Call 800-745-3000.

http://www.troyrecord.com/arts-and-entertainment/20150929/shania-twain-embarks-on-final-concert-tour



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Tommy wrote:

Interviewing Shania Twain: On last tour, coming to Allentown's PPL Center, singer wants to prove she's 'Still The One'

http://www.mcall.com/entertainment/lehigh-valley-music/mc-interviewing-shania-twain-on-last-tour-coming-to-allentowns-ppl-center-singer-wants-to-prove-shes-st-20150925-column.html


 Seems like I've read it before but in a shortned version.



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For Shania Twain, goodbye doesn’t mean forever

By Tim O'Shei | The Buffalo News | October 2, 2015 10:23 AM

Concert Preview

Shania Twain with Gavin DeGraw

7:30 p.m. Saturday in the First Niagara Center. Tickets are $43.50 to $133.50 (box office, tickets.com). Call (888) 223-6000.

When country rock star Shania Twain announced her first tour in more than a decade earlier this year, she made it clear: Her “Rock This Country” Tour, which includes a show Saturday in First Niagara Center, would be her last.

“The reason for the tour is to say goodbye to the stage on a high,” she told reporters on a conference call last May.

During that call, which her publicists said would be Twain’s only availability to talk about the tour, the singer clarified that this isn’t her retirement from music. It’s simply the end of her performing career.

 “I will be doing music, I’m sure, till the day I die,” she said. “I love music too much. The performance side of it, I feel, is a phase of my life.”

Now it turns out that phase may be continuing.

Twain, 50, is having such a good time performing – and getting such positive reviews – that she is talking about a comeback before she’s even had a chance to leave.

“I’m having the time of my life,” she told interviewer Robin Leach last month. “I’m in good spirits and having so much fun.”

The Canadian-born singer broke out in the 1990s with hits like “Any Man of Mine,” “Honey I’m Home” and “That Don’t Impress Me Much.” In 2004, she stepped away from the stage to spend more time with her then-young son, Eja. What was intended to be a short sabbatical turned into a long hiatus as Twain struggled with vocal issues (they’ve since been addressed) and went through a divorce.

She returned to the public eye in 2012 with a two-year residency at Caesars Palace, and began her current tour last June.

Reviews for Twain’s tour show, which includes a seven-piece band, elaborate glass staging and pyrotechnics, have been overwhelmingly positive. And not just from the critics and the fans – Twain herself has apparently been feeling the love, so much so that she’s decided this isn’t the conclusion.

After a show in San Diego in last month, Twain spoke with Leach, the entertainment journalist famous for “Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous” and now a writer for the Las Vegas Sun. Twain told Leach, “The tour is tiring, but I’m loving it. It’s become far more meaningful than I thought it would be.”

Twain added that after she finishes her next album this fall, she plans to take the tour to Europe, and hopefully Asia, Australia and New Zealand, then circle back to Vegas for another residency.

Given how resolute Twain was about leaving the stage while talking in earlier interviews, that change of heart may seem surprising.

But maybe it shouldn’t.

During her pre-tour conference call, Twain talked about the sense of fulfillment she gets from performing.

“It’s the interaction,” she said. “It’s not the performing itself. It’s not why I do it. I don’t need to be in the spotlight. It’s never been a desire of mine to be in the spotlight. I enjoy the interaction that platform brings me, if that makes sense.”

Twain spent the next couple of minutes expanding on her thinking. She was intent on making it clear: She loves being creative, and songwriting is her outlet. And she loves being able to talk to masses of fans; in her words, it’s “this cool relationship that I can have with the public.”

“That could be in any form,” Twain said. “It doesn’t have to be in the form of being the live stage singer. Oprah probably gets a great thrill out of doing what she does and communicating with the public.”

But Twain isn’t Oprah; she’s Shania. She sings. Which helps explain why this Saturday may not be Buffalo’s last chance to see her do it.

http://buffalo.com/2015/10/02/featured/for-shania-twain-goodbye-doesnt-mean-forever/



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Shania Twain has her future mapped out

By Lynn Saxberg | The Regina Leader-Post | October 15, 2015

When Shania Twain appears on the stage at the Brandt Centre on Sunday night, she will be at the centre of an elaborate spectacle involving multiple costume changes, a seven-piece band, dazzling lighting and pyrotechnics, and even a flying saddle. Thousands of fans will cheer wildly and sing along to hits like Man! I Feel Like a Woman, That Don’t Impress Me Much and Any Man of Mine.

The fans won’t be the only ones having a blast. Twain says she’s having “great fun” on her Rock This Country excursion, her first concert tour in more than a decade, although she’s still calling it her final tour.

Part of the reason is that it’s such an ambitious production it would be difficult to repeat, Twain explained in a recent interview. Adding extra dates to the current tour is a possibility, but mounting another big adventure sometime in the future?

Not likely.

“I could see myself carrying this tour on longer,” said the 50-year-old pop-country superstar. “It might be hard to stop it, that’s for sure. But I just don’t see myself starting over again with it. To do this from the ground up, it’s just not where I see my future.”

Instead, Twain wants to focus on her songwriting. So far, she has two albums’ worth of new material ready to take into the studio, but not yet ready for the stage.

“I want to make more records, and the songwriting is a very important part to me,” she says. “I don’t think I can do both at the same time. I can only wear one hat at a time.

“It’s very distracting being on the road and the things that come with that. All the songwriting that I did for this album is done. I did it beforehand, and it’s just become very clear to me that when I’m performing, I’m not writing and when I’m not performing, I’m writing. I’m in a different zone. The performing artist is a different person than the writer. That’s a whole other part of my brain that just can’t have all that distraction. I have to isolate myself to make that happen.”

The only glitch in the tour of late is a nasty respiratory infection that resulted in Twain cancelling shows in Manchester, N.H., on Oct. 6 and Albany, N.Y., on Oct. 7. She returned to the stage on Oct. 11 at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre and appears ready for her shows on Sunday and Monday at the Brandt Centre.

With more than 75 million albums sold — including studio, compilation and live albums — the pride of Timmins, Ont., is considered the biggest-selling country female in history, and an artist who’s had an influence on a generation of younger stars, especially Taylor Swift. But she hasn’t released a new album since 2002’s Up!

No wonder there’s pressure to come up with new material. All eyes are on Twain to see if she can craft the hits without the help of her ex-husband, super-producer Robert ‘Mutt’ Lange, who was instrumental in co-writing, producing and shaping the multimillion-selling sound of her top three records, starting with 1995’s The Woman In Me.

(In one of music’s most complicated soap operas, he left Twain for her best friend about seven years ago, and then Twain later married the ex-friend’s ex-husband. Lange and Twain have a 13-year-old son who spends time with both parents.)

But the Canadian Music Hall of Famer is quick to point out that she’s done plenty of songwriting on her own.

“I wrote my whole life,” she says. “I’ve always written by myself, since I was a kid. Mutt was my first co-writing project. But as a recording artist, this will be my first independent writing project.”

As for new directions, the songs that are already written are some of the most personal she’s ever tackled.

“I think vocally it will be very identifiable,” she says. “I don’t think I’m that different there. Anybody who’s heard it so far says it’s very haunting, inspiring. It’ll be more soulful than anything I’ve ever done.”

Twain was initially hoping to release new music in time for the tour, but didn’t get it done during her two-year residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, which ended late last year. Then she opted to let the momentum of the Vegas show propel her into the tour.

“The hope was to get the album done sooner,” she says. “I really thought by the time I was in my second year, I would already have new music to play, and that didn’t happen. It’s just really hard to do both at the same time, but I decided to do the tour because the team was already together. I thought, ‘Oh, brother, if I shut it down now, I really don’t think it’s ever going to happen,’ so I’m glad I kept everybody together and we did get this tour together. But the new music didn’t happen so this is where the timing didn’t work out very well for me.”

When the tour was announced in the spring, Twain was hinting she’d have new tunes out by her 50th birthday on Aug. 29. She’s now extended that deadline: “I’d love to at least get the first single out by then.” If the rest of the album emerges before she turns 51, she’ll be happy.

The half-century mark feels like a milestone for Twain, at least partly because her mother and stepfather died in a car accident in Northern Ontario before they reached the same age. Fit and healthy, Twain says she’s probably more active now than she was 10 years ago.

“I don’t feel any age, to be honest,” she says, agreeing with the notion that 50 is the new 30.

Still, one thing that’s been widely discussed is Twain’s newly blond hair. Evidence of a mid-life crisis? Nope.

“I don’t mind playing around with colour a little bit,” she says. “In Vegas, my hair was quite red. I’ve got two blond sisters and I was always the only brunette, and my own son is blond so I figured ‘Hey, it’s in my genes, I’m going to play with it and have some fun with it.’ It’s just a fun thing to do.”

Whether blond, brunette or redhead, Twain will have her work cut out for her in cracking the male-dominated landscape of the modern country scene where bro-country is all the rage.

“I think it’s a phase,” she says. “I think music goes through those phases, all genres do. I think it’s just that time for country right now.”

Given the cyclical nature of the music business, things might work out in her favour in the end anyway.

“It could be great timing for me.”

Maybe it’s time to make way for women again.

“Maybe you’ll see me in a coffee house somewhere doing my new music.”

Shania Twain

Oct. 18 & 19

Brandt Centre

http://www.leaderpost.com/shania+twain+future+mapped/11438295/story.html



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Country legend Shania Twain gets ready to leave the stage

By Mike Devlin | Victoria Times Colonist | October 22, 2015 06:00 AM

What: Shania Twain with Wes Mack
When: Saturday and Sunday, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, 1925 Blanshard St.
Tickets: $160.50, $180.50 and $200.50 at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre box office, selectyourtickets.com or 250-220-7777

Even though she’s still the one for country music fans, Shania Twain’s first tour in more than a decade is expected to be her last.

Country music lovers will be sad to see her go — Twain is one of the most successful female acts of all time, and an individual whose triumph over adversity has won her a dedicated legion of fans.

But there’s a silver lining to the news of Twain’s retirement from the stage, especially where local audiences are concerned.

Twain, who turned 50 in August, is booked to play two shows in Victoria this weekend, the precursor to what is, at this point, one of her last live performances. Twain is expected to announce a European leg to the Rock This Country tour in 2016, but as it stands, the last date on her agenda is an appearance in Kelowna on Tuesday.

Could that be it for the most famous person ever to come from Timmins, Ont.? Perhaps. If so, her two nights in Victoria — the first of her career — are positioned to have extra emotional oomph.

Her current tour, which started June 5, almost never happened. After a hugely successful two-year residency at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, which grossed more than $43 million US between December 2012 and December 2014, Twain had expected to stay away from the stage for good.

“I initially thought Las Vegas would be my last,” Twain said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, prior to the launch of the Rock This Country tour.

“Not that I was saying that publicly, but it was what I was thinking in my head. It was such a challenge getting back up on stage, getting my voice in order, getting my confidence back up. The whole mountain was pretty high.

“I figured if I could accomplish that, then I’d be very happy and I’d end on a high. [But] I felt it was a strange way to finish my performance career, not being able to get around to the people. I want to feel that again.”

Twain was no doubt on a high following the release of her acclaimed fourth album, Up!, in 2002. However, the tour to support Up! ended in 2004 and soon after she began having problems with her voice. One year of respite became two, and when her marriage to her longtime producer and co-writer, Mutt Lange, dissolved in 2008 following his infidelity — her best friend being the other woman — Twain quit performing altogether.

The combination of physical and emotional stress sent her into hiding in Switzerland. It also resulted in the loss of her voice to a condition known as dysphonia, which impairs a person’s ability to produce voice sounds. Twain had physical therapy to fix the problem and mounted her Las Vegas residency in 2012 as her comeback vehicle.

“My voice was giving me a lot of problems,” Twain told The Wall Street Journal. “I was having a lot of problems projecting the sound. I didn’t have any problems with my vocal cords. I don’t have any surgical problems that are more typical for singers. The problem was more mysterious and took a lot of rehabilitation.”

She recently cancelled two dates on her current tour, which prompted speculation she was suffering from wear and tear to her voice. It turned out to be a respiratory infection.

The tour has continued and Twain has received some of the best reviews of her career.

If her current concerts (100 minutes in length and 18 songs deep) wind up being some of her last, fans will always have her music to see them through.

She is leaving no hit unturned on stage these days, from Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under? and You’re Still the One to That Don’t Impress Me Much, but Twain has indicated that she will have a new album for release next year. It will be her first in almost 14 years.

Given her past accomplishments, a new album from Twain will add further trophies and titles to a career that is well-populated with them.

She’s already one of the best-selling artists of all time and is the best-selling female artist in the history of country music. She is the only artist to have three consecutive recordings sell more than 10 million copies apiece.

Twain said in her chat with The Wall Street Journal that country music is in good hands when she leaves for good.

“There’s a lot of great guys out there now. There’s room for girls to come out strong again.”

http://www.timescolonist.com/entertainment/country-legend-shania-twain-gets-ready-to-leave-the-stage-1.2092293



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