When Shania Twain wowed on her TV debut as a plucky 14-year old

15 March 2024, 09:43

She had remarkable talent from a young age.

However, because of her difficult, traumatic childhood struggles, Shania Twain didn't necessarily believe how talented she was growing up.

She knew she wanted to be a singer, and loved performing - despite being dogged with stage fright in the beginning, something she admits she struggles with still.

In her memoir From This Moment On, Shania confessed that she once wet her pants in school because of stage fright, but covered the mess by spilling a glass of water.

"As far as the trumpet players on either side of me knew, the puddle... was nothing more than H2O!" Twain wrote.

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Singing from the age of eight, there must have been plenty of instances where Shania had to overcome her fear of performing.

One such occasion was when she was asked to perform on The Tommy Hunter Show, a show renowned for breaking country music talent.

At the age of just 14 years old, she faced her fears and appeared on the talent show, wowing the audience and becoming a superstar in the process.

The road to becoming the 'Queen of Country Pop' as we now know her was a long one, having to withstand her difficult upbringing with an abusive father-in-law, mired by poverty, whilst caring for her siblings too.

But wanting to become a singer was Shania's goal, performing in bars around her native Timmins, Ontario even from a very young age.

"From the age of eight years old, I've been singing in clubs, I've been filling my lungs with second-hand smoke and these were all classes in my life and in my career that I took to become the artist that I am right now," she later revealed.

Former manager Mary Bailey remembers first seeing her perform, wowed by her emotive talent for such a young girl.

"This little girl walked on the stage with a guitar in her hand," she said, "and out came this sound, this magnificent, breathtaking sound."

She proved her performing chops, full of wisdom, swagger, and a pair of teenage teeth on The Tommy Hunter Show, and never looked back. Nearly.

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She was worlds away from the glamorous, demure icon we've been used to over the past thirty years. But after her television debut, she might've not pursued music at all.

When Twain was just 21 years old, both her mother - who had ensured her passion was prioritised despite being poor and her step-father was tragically killed in a car accident.

After the tragedy, Shania was willing to quit her dreams entirely just so she could raise her younger brothers and sisters.

But luckily, she found a job performing Broadway hits and jazz numbers in the lounge of the Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, Ontario.

This job enabled her to focus on music as a career, but also be close enough to support her young siblings.

Producer John Kim Bell - who appears in the video above - said this determination to still perform was "where she really came out and became a seasoned professional."

She truly did transform into a global superstar with a slew of hits. But if it wasn't due to her brave, plucky performance on The Tommy Hunter Show, it might not have been the case at all.