Born Eilleen Regina Edwards in Windsor, Ontario, in 1965, she moved to her mom’s hometown of Timmins as a child after her parents divorced. Her mother Sharon remarried, and a young Twain sang and performed around the community. By age 10 she was writing her own songs. As a teen, she would sometimes skip classes to work on her songwriting.
In the mid-1980s she headed south to Toronto where she worked a day job and performed nights. Tragedy struck when her parents were killed in a car accident. Twain returned to Timmins to raise her younger siblings, eventually moving her family to Huntsville, Ontario where she landed a job singing at the Deerhurst Resort. There she blossomed from a barroom singer to a theatrical performer. Nashville music executives saw her perform at the resort and offered her the chance to produce a demo, which led to her record deal with the Mercury Nashville label. Her first self-titled album was released in 1993.
When legendary music producer Robert “Mutt” Lange caught her video on Country Music Television Europe, he was hooked. Lange and Twain teamed up to write her second album The Woman in Me and fell in love along the way. The couple married in December 1993 and solidified one of the most successful songwriting partnerships in music today. With more than 34 million copies sold, Twain’s third album, Come on Over, is the biggest-selling country recording by any artist and is tied for the fifth best-selling record of all time.
Her awards are endless – and in 2011, Twain was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. In 2016, CMT honoured her as the “Artist of a Lifetime”, and was given a special award during the 2016 CMT Artists of the Year ceremony
