 When Tim McGraw debuted in the early '90s, few would have predicted that he
would eventually take over
Garth Brooks' position as the most popular male singer in country music. Yet
that's exactly what he did, thanks to a string of multi-platinum albums, a
high-profile marriage to fellow superstar Faith Hill, and Brooks' own inevitable
decline. His sound epitomized the strain of commercial country that dominated
his era: updated honky tonk and Southern-fried country-rock on the uptempo
tunes, well-polished, adult contemporary-tinged pop on the ballads. Helped out
early in his career by several novelty items, Tim McGraw simply wound up
cranking out hookier hits on a more consistent basis than any of his peers. By
the late '90s, he was not only a superstar among country fans, but a mainstream
celebrity with a large female following.
Samuel Timothy McGraw was born in Delhi, LA, on May 1, 1967. Though he didn't
know it until years later, his father was baseball player Tug McGraw, a star
relief pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets who'd had a brief
affair with Tim McGraw's mother. He was raised mostly in the small town of
Start, LA, near Monroe, and grew up listening to a variety of music: country,
pop, rock, and R&B. He attended Northeast Louisiana University on a baseball
scholarship, studying sports medicine, and it was only then that he started
playing guitar to accompany his singing. He played the local club circuit and
dropped out of school in 1989, heading to Nashville on the same day his hero
Keith Whitley passed away. He sang in Nashville clubs for a couple of years
and landed a deal with Curb in 1992. His debut single, the minor hit "Welcome to
the Club," was released later that year, and his self-titled debut album
appeared in 1993 but failed to even make the charts.
Tim McGraw's fortunes changed with the lead single from his 1994 sophomore
effort, Not a Moment Too Soon. "Indian Outlaw" was embraced as a light-hearted,
old-fashioned novelty song by fans but was heavily criticized for what some
regarded as patronizing caricatures of Native Americans. Despite some radio
stations' refusal to air the song, it reached the country Top Ten and even
crossed over to the pop Top 20. All the publicity helped send Tim McGraw's next
single, the ballad "Don't Take the Girl," all the way to the top of the country
charts; it too made the pop Top 20. The album kept spinning off hits: "Down on
the Farm" hit number two, the title track went to number one in 1995, and the
novelty tune "Refried Dreams" also reached the Top Five. Not a Moment Too Soon
was a genuine blockbuster hit, eventually selling over five million copies and
topping both the country and pop album charts; it was also the best-selling
country album of the year.
Tim McGraw's follow-up, 1995's All I Want, immediately consolidated his
stardom with the number one smash "I Like It, I Love It." The album topped the
country charts, reached the pop Top Five, and sold over two million copies. Once
again, it functioned as a hit factory thanks to the number two "Can't Be Really
Gone," the number one "She Never Lets It Go to Her Heart," and the Top Five "All
I Want Is a Life" and "Maybe We Should Just Sleep on It." Over 1996, Tim McGraw
supported the album with an extensive tour, accompanied by opening act
Faith Hill. In October, after the tour was over, Tim McGraw and Hill
married, in a union of country star power that drew plenty of attention from
mainstream media. It doubtlessly helped Tim McGraw's next album, 1997's
Everywhere, become another crossover smash; it topped the country charts, fell
one spot short of doing the same on the pop side, and sold four million copies.
The lead single was a
McGraw-Hill duet called "It's Your Love," which not only hit number one
country, but made the pop Top Ten. Three more singles from the album --
"Everywhere," "Where the Green Grass Grows," and "Just to See You Smile" -- hit
number one, and two others -- "One of These Days" and "For a Little While" --
reached number two. Meanwhile, "Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me," another
husband-and-wife duet from Hill's 1998 album Faith, climbed into the Top Five.
With the multi-platinum success of Everywhere, Tim McGraw was poised to take
over
Brooks' throne as the king of contemporary country, a transition that only
accelerated when
Brooks confounded his fans with the Chris Gaines project. Tim McGraw,
meanwhile, just kept topping the charts. His next album, 1999's triple-platinum
A Place in the Sun, hit number one country and pop, and four of its singles also
hit number one: "Please Remember Me" (which featured
Patty Loveless), "Something Like That," "My Best Friend," and "My Next
Thirty Years." 2000 brought Tim McGraw's first Greatest Hits compilation, a
best-selling smash, and another Top Ten duet from Hill's Breathe album, "Let's
Make Love." The song later won Tim McGraw his first Grammy, for Best Country
Vocal Collaboration. Also in 2000, Tim McGraw had a brush with the law when he
and tourmate
Kenny Chesney got involved in a scuffle with police officers, after
Chesney attempted to ride one of the officers' horses; Tim McGraw was later
cleared of assault charges and spent the rest of 2000 on a second tour with
Hill.
Released in 2001, Set This Circus Down (number one country, number two pop)
kept Tim McGraw's hit streak going into the new millennium, giving him four more
number ones -- "Grown Men Don't Cry," "Angry All the Time," "The Cowboy in Me,"
and "Unbroken" -- just like that. In 2002, his duet with protégée Jo Dee
Messina, "Bring on the Rain," also went to number one. For the follow-up album,
Tim McGraw defied country convention by entering the studio not with session
musicians, but with his road band, the Dancehall Doctors, a unit that had been
together since 1996 (with some members around even before that). Tim McGraw was
released in late 2002 and produced Top Ten hits in "Red Rag Top" and "She's My
Kind of Rain"; it also featured a startlingly faithful cover of Elton John's
"Tiny Dancer." Tim McGraw kept the formula the same on 2004's chart-topping Live
Like You Were Dying, utilizing his road band, as well as co-mixing/producing the
record himself. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
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