Shania in a chair with a guitar By ANIKA VAN WYK
Canadian country superstar Shania Twain is taking a break from recording and preparing for her 1997 tour to appear at the Canadian Country Music Association's award show, to be held Monday at the Jubilee Auditorium. "I always look forward to getting back to Canada and seeing everyone," Twain tells the Sun in a phone interview.
Twain -- who has five CCMA nominations -- will sing No One Needs to Know at the Jubilee Auditorium to close the show, which will be televised live on CTV. As for what this singer -- whose midriff is nearly as famous as her tunes -- will wear, she's not sure yet. "I bought a very simple dress to wear throughout the night but I don't know what I'll wear to perform in. It's always a last-minute thing. I'm pretty casual about that. I don't put a lot of thought into what I wear."
What is on her mind is the upcoming release of a Christmas single and her new album. "We've developed God Bless the Child into a full song. It's a gospelly version for Christmas," she says of the song she wrote after her parents were killed in a car accident in 1987.
The release will be used to raise money for hungry children. Twain's next full-length CD is due out this spring. She and husband/producer/co-writer Robert John (Mutt) Lange are now in pre-production. How on earth does the Timmins, Ont., native shake the pressure to surpass the success of her last album, The Woman In Me, which has soldnearly nine million copies?
"I don't feel that pressure. We've come such a long way as co-writers. We just know each other so much better," says Twain. "We were a little more compromising with each other before. We didn't push each other as much.
"With this album, we know each other so well that it's easier to challenge each other. We're not as intimidated with each other and that opens up a whole bunch of new creative doors, so that's fun."
"When we wrote (The Woman In Me), we weren't together romantically yet." To Twain, the making of her breakthrough sophomore album was more of a pressure-cooker experience than this time around. "We were taking a big risk being so different," she says of Woman, which had many of the hi-tech production techniques Lange used on his work with British rock group Def Leppard.
"Now, I'm seeing such a huge change in so many people's albums and it's not that different any more. "We've opened up our own way and I think a lot of people have taken advantage of it and that's great -- it helps everything expand so the next album won't be as much stress in that way."
The yet-untitled album will focus more on lyrics. "(The Woman In Me) was fun and satisfying on the entertainment level. The next album will have the same element but will be a lot more lyrical ... and we'll make the songs a little deeper. We are so much more confident of the direction we want to go.
"It'll be different than the first one and it will be different than what anyone else is doing, I can guarantee that!" Before helping Twain become a superstar, Lange also produced the likes of AC/DC, Foreigner and Bryan Adams. So is it difficult for this established music man to read stories that refer to him as Mr. Shania Twain? "Oh no. He gets a kick out of it. He doesn't take offense at much," says Twain.
(For the record: Twain finds it difficult to call her husband Mutt, so she refers to him as Love. He calls her Woody because her old hair style reminded him of Woody Woodpecker.)
Once her new album is released, Twain plans to embark on her first-ever headlining tour.
"I'm going to be so prepared," she says. "I don't know how much I'll rely on sets and stuff like that, but I'd like to be more innovative than that." One would think with all the anticipation that has built up around this tour, Twain would be a bit apprehensive.
"It's nerve-wracking now because I'm not on tour. I do a performance once a month on TV or something and to me that really puts me on the spot ... It's like asking someone to run the 100 metres once a month.
"I'm not as vocally in shape as I want to be. I'll be more comfortable once I'm on tour." Success has brought Twain many rewards, including the fulfilment of a life-long dream of owning horses. "I have five horses. I just got an Andalusian which is a Spanish horse. I have two spotted saddle walkers, a Palomino and a miniature.
"When I'm home (a 12,000-sq.-ft. house on a 3,000-acre spread in the rural community of Saranac Lake in upstate New York), I ride everyday." But home isn't where her relaxation is any more. "The worse thing about success is the demanding schedule. You never get time off. I haven't had a vacation in two years. Sometimes I just want to stay home, but it's impossible to relax. I'm too reachable."