Tim McGraw
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| Tim McGraw | ||
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 Tim McGraw performing for the United States Air Force
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| Background information | ||
| Birth name | Samuel Timothy McGraw | |
| Born | May 1, 1967 | |
| Origin | Delhi, Louisiana | |
| Genre(s) | Country | |
| Years active | 1993 - Present | |
| Label(s) | Curb Records | |
| Website | Tim McGraw official web site | |
Tim McGraw (born Samuel Timothy McGraw on May 1, 1967, in Delhi, Louisiana) is an American country music singer who has achieved many number one hits on the country singles and album charts, with total sales in excess of 25 million units. He is married to country singer Faith Hill and is the son of baseball player Tug McGraw. His trademark hit songs include "Indian Outlaw", "Don't Take the Girl", "Down on the Farm", "I Like It, I Love It", "It's Your Love" (featuring his wife, Faith Hill), and "Live Like You Were Dying".
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[edit] Earlylife
His mother was a waitress named Betty Trimble (née D'Agostino) and his father was Tug McGraw, a famous relief pitcher for the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies. McGraw's father was of Scotch-Irish descent, his mother was of Italian and Irish descent.
Trimble raised Tim in Start, Louisiana, near Monroe. Tim grew up believing his birth father was Horace Smith, who was actually his step-father, until he discovered his birth certificate in his mother's closet at the age of 11. It was then that his mother told him that his birth father was Tug McGraw.[1]
Growing up, Tim loved to play baseball and other competitive sports. Soon after, he grew a love for music as well. He attended Northeast Louisiana University on a baseball scholarship, where he was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. During this period, he learned to play guitar and would frequently perform and sing for tips. He dropped out of college in 1989 in order to head to Nashville and pursue a musical career. He was discovered busking for tips in front of a hot dog stand known as HounDogs in Nashville, since HounDogs had a small stage exclusively for buskers to perform on. Many Nashville noteworthies played there at one time or another.[2]
[edit] 1990s
He signed with Curb Records in 1990, but it wasn't until 1992 that he had his first minor hit "Welcome to the Club" off his self-titled debut album, which failed to make much of a dent on the charts. He achieved a couple of minor hits including, "Memory Lane" and "Two Steppin Mind", off the same album in 1993.
The second album, Not a Moment Too Soon, went on to become the best selling country album in 1994. The first single, "Indian Outlaw", written by John D. Loudermilk, caused considerable controversy as critics argued that it presented Native Americans in a patronizing way. Some radio stations refused to play it, but among some Indian tribes, the song was popular; it went to the top of the playlist at the clear channel KTNN, the radio voice of the Navajo Nation. The controversy helped spur sales and the song became McGraw's first top ten country single (getting as high as #8); it also made #15 on the pop chart and went gold and silver.
His second single, the ballad "Don't Take the Girl", became his first #1 country hit (it also reached the top 20 on the pop chart and went gold); and in [1995]] the album's title track was also a #1 country single. "Down on the Farm" reached number two and "Refried Dreams" reached the top 5. The album sold over 5 million copies, topping the Billboard 200 as well as the country album charts. He won Academy of Country Music awards for Album of the Year and Top New Male Vocalist in 1994.
All I Want, released in 1995, continued his run of success debuting at number one on the country charts. The album sold over two million copies and reached top 5 on the Billboard 200. "I Like It, I Love It" reached number one on the country charts as the leadoff single, while "She Never Lets It Go to Her Heart" also went to number one in 1996. "Can't Really Be Gone", "All I Want is a Life", and "Maybe We Should Just Sleep On It" were all top 5 hits.
In 1996, Tim McGraw travelled America on the Spontaneous Combustion Tour, which was the most successful country tour of that year.Faith Hill was his supporting act and the title of the tour turned out to be prophetic as the singers married October 6, 1996. The couple have had three daughters: Gracie Katherine born May 5, 1997, Maggie Elizabeth born August 12, 1998 and Audrey Caroline born December 6, 2001.
Tim McGraw's happy family life is in contrast with his father who had a reputation as a hell raiser. Tug McGraw once famously said: "Ninety percent I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish Whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
Everywhere continued his golden run topping the country charts and reaching number two on the album charts in 1997. The album sold 4 million copies and its first single, "It’s Your Love", a duet with Faith Hill, became the first single in twenty years to spend six weeks on top of Billboard's country singles chart (the previous such song had been Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson's "Luckenbach, Texas" in 1977); reached #7 on the pop chart (and gained platinum status); and became the most played single in the history of the Billboard country charts. Five more singles "Everywhere", "Where the Green Grass Grows", "One of These Days", "For a Little While", and "Just to See You Smile" reached the top of the country charts from the album, with the last of these setting a new record by spending 42 weeks on the Billboard charts. The Country Music Association awarded Everywhere its Album of the Year award for 1997.
A Place in the Sun in 1999 was another huge hit topping the US pop and country album charts, and selling three million albums. It featured another four chart topping singles on the country charts including "Please Remember Me" with Patty Loveless, "Something Like That", "My Best Friend", and "My Next Thirty Years"; "Some Things Never Change" was also a big hit, reaching #7 on the country chart. During Summer 1999, Tim McGraw toured the US with the Dixie Chicks as the support artist as well as appearing as the headline artist at the George Strait Country Music Festival.
Faith Hill's career was also going well. Another duet between the pair, "Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me" off her multi-platinum 1998 album Faith, reached the top five of the US country charts. Her follow-up and even more successful 1999 album Breathe featured another duet between the couple called "Let's Make Love", which would win a Grammy Award in 2000 for Best Country Vocal Collaboration.
By the end of 1999, Tim McGraw had supplanted Garth Brooks as the most popular country male singer in the nation, while Faith Hill was one of the most popular female country singers along with Shania Twain.
[edit] 2000s
In 2000, McGraw released his Greatest Hits album which again topped the charts for nine weeks. On tour he and opening act Kenny Chesney got involved in a scuffle with police officers when Chesney attempted to ride one of their horses; McGraw was later cleared of any charges. In the latter half of 2000, he and Hill went out on the Soul2Soul Tour, playing to sellout crowds in 64 venues including Madison Square Garden. It was one of the top tours of any genre in the US and the leading country tour during 2000.
Set This Circus Down was released in April of 2001 and spawned four number one country hits - "Grown Men Don't Cry", "Angry All the Time", "The Cowboy in Me", and "Unbroken". A duet with Jo Dee Messina entitled "Bring on the Rain" also topped the country charts. "Things Change" made the history as the first country song to chart from a downloaded version following his performance of the song at the CMA Awards show. After the tragedies of September 11, 2001, 2 unreleased songs were leaked to the Internet. The songs were Petra's "More Power To Ya" and Eric Clapton's "Tears In Heaven", both performed at freedom concerts.
In 2002, Tim McGraw bucked country music traditions by recording his album Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors with his tour band The Dancehall Doctors in the Catskill Mountains. Unlike rock music, where it is commonplace for touring bands such as the E Street Band or Crazy Horse to play on albums with the artist they support, country albums are normally recorded with session musicians. McGraw stated on his web site that he felt he owed this to the musicians who had been an integral part of his success and to capture some of the feel of a real band. All of the Dancehall Doctors had been with McGraw since at least 1996. They include:
- Darran Smith - lead guitar;
- Denny Hemingson - steel guitar;
- Bob Minner - acoustic guitar;
- John Marcus - bass guitar;
- Dean Brown - fiddler;
- Jeff McMahon - keyboards;
- Billy Mason - drums; and
- David Dunkley - percussion.
Tim McGraw and the Dance Hall Doctors was released on November 26, 2002 and reached number 2 on the country charts, with "Real Good Man" reaching number one. "She's My Kind of Rain" reached number 2 in 2003 and "Red Rag Top" reached the top 5. The album also featured a cover version of Elton John's early 1970s classic "Tiny Dancer", as well as appearances by Kim Carnes on "Comfort Me" - a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks - and Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit of the Eagles on "Illegal".
McGraw also performed the song "Wherever the Trail May Lead" for the 2004 Disney film Home on the Range.
McGraw's 2004 album Live Like You Were Dying continued his record of commercial success. The title track was a soaring ode to living life fully and in the moment, while the second single "Back When" was a paean to an easy nostalgia. 'Live Like You Were Dying' spent seven nonconsecutive weeks at #1 and went on to become the biggest hit single of the year. It also became one the most awarded songs/records by winning ACM Single and Song of the Year, CMA Single and Song of the Year and a Grammy. Yet another unreleased song entitled Dear Santa was leaked in 2004 about a desperate prayer to Santa Claus to help a woman who's heart was broken by McGraw.
In late 2004, his unlikely duet with rapper Nelly on "Over and Over", a soft ballad of lost love, became a crossover hit. [1] "Over and Over" brought McGraw a success he had never previously experienced on contemporary hit radio, and brought both artists success neither had previously experienced in the hot adult contemporary market. The song also spent a week at the top of the UK single charts, and was McGraw's first visit to the UK hit countdown.
In a 2004 interview, McGraw said he would like to run for public office in the future, possibly for Senate in his home state of Tennessee. In the same interview, he praised former President Bill Clinton, a somewhat unusual stance in the conservative country music industry, which used to be more Liberal with groups such as Alabama: "I love Bill Clinton. I think we should make him king. I'm talking the red robe, the turkey leg - everything."
McGraw also participated in the Live 8: The Long Walk to Justice concert series, performing along with Faith Hill at the Rome, Italy concert on July 2, 2005 as part of the effort to get G8 leaders to address the humanitarian crises in Africa. McGraw's performance of "Live Like You Were Dying" was one of the most re-played performances in Live 8 television recaps.
Throughout the 2005 NFL season McGraw sang an alternate version of "I Like It, I Love It" every week during the season. The alternate lyrics, which would be different each week, would make reference to plays during Sunday's games and the song would be played along video highlights during halftime on Monday Night Football.
In April 2006 McGraw and Hill began their 73-concert 55 city Soul2Soul II Tour 2006, again to a strong commercial acceptance. The tour was declared the top grossing tour in the history of country music grossing nearly $89 Million dollars and selling almost 1.1 million tickets.
Tim McGraw will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame during ceremonies October 17, 2006. McGraw's star will be located at 6901 Hollywood Blvd. near stars in the sidewalk honoring Julie Andrews, William Shatner and the late Greta Garbo. The event coincides with the release of the soundtrack to Flicka, the feature film starring McGraw. One of his co-stars, Alison Lohman, is also expected to attend the ceremony that will include comments from Billy Bob Thornton, McGraw's co-star in the film, Friday Night Lights.
A new CD from McGraw is due in March 2007 and may feature a song entitled "I Need You" with Faith Hill which they sang together on tour.
[edit] Acting
McGraw first started his acting career in a 1995 episode of The Jeff Foxworthy Show playing Foxworthy's rival.
In 2004 McGraw first began appearing as an actor in movies with Black Cloud. He played a sheriff in Rick Schroder's independent release Black Cloud. Then in the same year, McGraw received good notices as the overbearing father of a running back in the major studio Texas high school football drama Friday Night Lights (for example, the Dallas Observer said the role was played with "played with unexpected ferocity by country singer Tim McGraw" [2]). The movie went on to gross over $60 million dollars worldwide. Most recently it was named one of the top 50 high school movies of all time (number 37) by Entertainment Weekly.
McGraw's first lead role is in the current Fox 2000 film Flicka, which was released in theatres October 20 2006. He plays the father Rob in the remake of the classic book "My Friend Flicka," and costars Alison Lohman and Maria Bello. The movie debuted in the top 10 list and has grossed over 15MM in a several weeks. The movie is a family drama and again McGraw has achieved critical acclaim for his acting.
In addition, he serves as executive producer of the soundtrack album which was released by his record label, StyleSonic Records, in association with Curb Records and Fox 2000 films. It features the closing credit song "My Little Girl" which is the first song McGraw has recorded that he cowrote. It is considered a contender for an Oscar and became his 38th top 10 single and is still climbing the charts.
[edit] Discography
[edit] Albums
- Tim McGraw (1993)
- Not a Moment Too Soon (1994) #1 US, 5,000,000 US Sales, #78 Australia
- All I Want (1995) #4 US, 2,000,000 US Sales
- Everywhere (1997) #2 US, 4,000,000 US Sales
- A Place in the Sun (1999) #1 US, 3,000,000 US Sales
- Greatest Hits (2000) #4 US, 5,000,000 US Sales
- Set This Circus Down (2001) #2 US, 2,000,000 US Sales
- Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors (2002) #2 US, 3,000,000 US Sales
- Live Like You Were Dying (2004) #1 US, 4,000,000 US Sales, #36 Australia
- Tim McGraw Reflected: Hits Vol. 2 (2006) #2 US, 1,500,000 US Sales, #69 Australia
- Untilted 11 CD (2007)
[edit] Singles
| Year | Title | Chart Positions | Album | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Hot 100 | US Country | |||
| 1993 | "Welcome to the Club" | - | 47 | Tim McGraw |
| "Two Steppin Mind" | - | 71 | Tim McGraw | |
| "Memory Lane" | - | 60 | Tim McGraw | |
| 1994 | "Indian Outlaw" | 15 | 8 | Not a Moment Too Soon |
| "Don't Take the Girl" | 17 | #1 | Not a Moment Too Soon | |
| "Down on the Farm" | - | #1 | Not a Moment Too Soon | |
| "Not a Moment Too Soon" | - | #1 | Not a Moment Too Soon | |
| 1995 | "Refried Dreams" | - | 5 | Not a Moment Too Soon |
| "I Like It, I Love It" | 25 | #1 | All I Want | |
| "Can't Be Really Gone" | - | 2 | All I Want | |
| 1996 | "All I Want is a Life" | - | 5 | All I Want |
| "She Never Lets it Go to Her Heart" | - | #1 | All I Want | |
| "Maybe We Should Just Sleep On It Tonight" | - | 4 | All I Want | |
| 1997 | "It's Your Love" (with Faith Hill) | 7 | #1 | Everywhere |
| "Everywhere" | - | #1 | Everywhere | |
| "Just to See You Smile" | - | #1 | Everywhere | |
| 1998 | "One of These Days" | 74 | "#1" | Everywhere |
| "Where the Green Grass Grows" | 79 | #1 | Everywhere | |
| "For a Little While" | 37 | 2 | Everywhere | |
| 1999 | "Please Remember Me" | 10 | #1 | Place in the Sun |
| "Señorita Margarita" | - | 74 | Place in the Sun | |
| "Something Like That" | 28 | #1 | Place in the Sun | |
| "The Trouble With Never" | - | 66 | Place in the Sun | |
| "My Best Friend" | 29 | #1 | Place in the Sun | |
| 2000 | "Seventeen" | - | 64 | Place in the Sun |
| "Some Things Never Change" | 58 | 7 | Place in the Sun | |
| "Let's Make Love" (with Faith Hill) | 54 | 6 | Breathe (Faith Hill)/Greatest Hits (Tim McGraw) | |
| "My Next Thirty Years" | 27 | #1 | Place in the Sun | |
| 2001 | "Grown Men Don't Cry" | 25 | #1 | Set This Circus Down |
| "Angry All the Time" | 38 | #1 | Set This Circus Down | |
| "The Cowboy in Me" | 33 | #1 | Set This Circus Down | |
| "Bring On The Rain" (with Jo Dee Messina) | 36 | #1 | Burn (Jo Dee Messina) | |
| 2002 | "Telluride" | - | 52 | Set This Circus Down |
| "Unbroken" | 26 | #1 | Set This Circus Down | |
| "Red Ragtop"* | 40 | 5 | Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors | |
| "Tiny Dancer"* | - | 49 | Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors | |
| 2003 | "She's My Kind of Rain"* | 27 | 2 | Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors |
| "Real Good Man"* | 27 | #1 | Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors | |
| 2004 | "Watch the Wind Blow By"* | 32 | #1 | Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors |
| "Live Like You Were Dying"* | 29 | #1 (10 weeks) | Live Like You Were Dying | |
| "Back When"* | 30 | #1 | Live Like You Were Dying | |
| 2005 | "Drugs or Jesus"* | 87 | 14 | Live Like You Were Dying |
| "Do You Want Fries With That"* | 59 | 5 | Live Like You Were Dying | |
| "My Old Friend"* | 79 | 6 | Live Like You Were Dying | |
| 2006 | "When the Stars Go Blue"* | 37 | 4 | Greatest Hits Vol. 2 |
| "I've Got Friends That Do"* | - | 49 | Greatest Hits Vol. 2 | |
| "My Little Girl" | 53 | 4*(current) | Greatest Hits Vol. 2 | |
*Credited to Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0212/10/lkl.00.html
- ^ http://www.countrymusicplanet.com/houndogs/
[edit] Further reading
- Tim McGraw: Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors - This is Ours, Atria Books, 2002 (ISBN 0-7434-6706-X).
[edit] External links
- Tim McGraw official web site
- Tim McGraw at the Internet Movie Database
- Tim McGraw at MySpace
- Tim McGraw - When The Stars Go Blue Music Video at Clevver Music
- Tim McGraw at Country Music Television
- Tim McGraw All Music Guide Page
- VH1 Tim McGraw biography
- Tim McGraw Lyrics
- Liberal Country Fan Covers Tim's music and his political ambitions.
- Tim McGraw Music Video
- http://one.revver.com/watch/81640/format/flv/affiliate/26948 Video from seremony Honoring Tim McGraw star at Hollywood Walk of Fame 10/17/2006
- Tim McGraw articles and CD reviews at Country Standard Time
Categories: Articles lacking sources | American country singers | American male singers | American buskers | Grammy Award winners | American actor-singers | Monday Night Football | People from Louisiana | Italian-American actors | Italian-American musicians | Scots-Irish Americans | Pi Kappa Alpha brothers | 1967 births | Living people
