SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, June 3, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — Utah will welcome one of the biggest stars of country music this summer when Martina McBride takes the stage at Layton’s Kenley Amphitheater in August.
McBride is part of a lineup of mostly national and a handful of local acts that are part of Davis Arts Council’s 2024 Summer Nights with the Stars season. The season will kick off next Saturday, June 15, with An Evening with Matthew and Gunnar Nelson, then will conclude on Thursday, Sept. 12, with Petty Theft: San Francisco Tribute to Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. Also appearing during the summer are boldface names including Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Ben Folds, and Phillip Phillips.
For more information about McBride’s show on Saturday, Aug. 31, at 8 p.m., click here. McBride begins her tour in Nixa, Missouri on June 14 and the tour will wrap up Oct. 4 in Ocean City, Maryland.
A multiple Grammy® nominee, McBride has sold over 23 million albums to date. She’s had 20 Top 10 singles and six No. 1 hits.
Born Martina Mariea Schiff, McBride was raised on a dairy and wheat farm in Sharon, Kansas, population 200. By age 7, she was performing with her family’s band, The Schiffters. After moving to Wichita, Kansas, she sang in rock bands in clubs in the area and met sound engineer John McBride, whom she married in 1988.
The McBrides moved to Nashville in January 1990, as country music exploded in popularity. John started working as a sound engineer on concert tours and, in 1991, became production manager for Garth Brooks. So that the newlyweds could spend more time together, she took a job on Brooks’ tour selling T-shirts.
Around the same time, McBride made a demo recording of five songs to pitch to record labels. To get the demo to the talent scouts at RCA Records, she got past the company’s strict rules about submitting new material by writing, in large letters, “REQUESTED MATERIAL” on a bright purple package, even though RCA had not asked for the tape. The strategy worked; the label signed McBride to a recording contract in 1991 and her debut album, “The Time Has Come,” was released in 1992.
She has gone on to be known for smash-hit songs including “This One’s For the Girls,” “I Love You,” “Wild Angels,” “A Broken Wing” and “Independence Day.” She has released 14 studio albums, one live album, eight compilation albums, two video albums and three other additional albums. Each of her albums from 2007 to 2016 reached the Top 5 on the country album chart. She has continued as a cultural force, too; in 2015, she became a lead voice in combating the dwindling airplay given to female country artists. In 2021, McBride released “Greatest Hits: The RCA Years.”
McBride has accumulated major music awards including four wins for Female Vocalist of the Year from the Country Music Association and three from the Academy of Country Music for Top Female Vocalist. She has been awarded 14 gold records, nine platinum honors, three double platinum records, and two triple platinum awards. Most recently, she was honored with the Cliffie Stone Icon Award at the ACM Honors event in 2018 for her impactful contributions to country music.
When McBride isn’t in Blackbird Studio, the studio that she and her husband founded not far from their home, she focuses her time on charitable causes dear to her heart through her Team Music Is Love charity initiative. She also was awarded the Covenant House Beacon of Hope Award and Music Business Association’s prestigious 2015 Harry Chapin Memorial Humanitarian Award for her philanthropic efforts on behalf of domestic violence. She has released two cookbooks; “Around the Table,” and “Martina’s Kitchen Mix: My Recipe Playlist for Real Life.”
McBride, who marked her 30th year as a recording artist in 2022, epitomizes how country artists can find success as they reflect their changing times and address social issues in songs.
We chatted to McBride over the phone from her home in Nashville, where the gardening enthusiast said she was dealing with a bit of a cicada outbreak.
We asked her first what audiences can expect from her 2024 tour.
“Well, we have been fortunate enough to have quite a few hits that people know, so we do most of those,” she said. “Then we do a couple of cover songs, we do a couple of songs from ‘Timeless’ [from 2005]. I do a song, usually one, from ‘Everlasting’ [from 2014]. So it’s just a little bit of a retrospective, not as much as Taylor Swift but yes, we basically just have a great time on stage.”
McBride is often joined by family members on her tours; her husband John is her sound engineer, and her brothers Marty and Steve at times go out on the road with her. Growing up, the three McBride girls, Delaney, Emma and Ava, often traveled with their mom and joined her for big events, such as a 2012 appearance on “CMA Country Christmas.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, she made her podcast, “Vocal Point with Martina McBride,” a family affair, with her relatives joining her on a 2020 episode. We asked her if family members will be joining the tour this time around.
“Well, my husband is my sound engineer, but I think that’s it,” she said. “I think my youngest daughter will be in college. So that’s probably all the family that I will have is my husband.”
We asked her if she finds it important to be surrounded by family when she tours.
“Well, my husband and I have always worked together, since 1988,” she said. “And then when my kids were little, of course they’re 29, 26, and almost 19 now, so they don’t come with me anymore. But you know when they were little they did and it was a lot of fun, a lot of fun on the road.”
She also told us about her proudest onstage moment.
“There are so many,” she said. “I think probably winning CMA Female Vocalist of the Year for the first time [in 1999], having been nominated for maybe three or four years before that, and so it felt like we reached a new level at that point. It was just a really magical feeling to get that award, especially on a show that I had watched since I was a little kid.”
We asked her if she performed at that show. “I did, I performed ‘I Love You,'” McBride said.
We also asked her about the resonance of the song “This One’s for the Girls,” released in 2003, and written by Chris Lindsey, Hillary Lindsey and Aimee Mayo, and why she thinks it speaks to so many people. McBride’s eldest two daughters, Delaney and Emma, sing backing vocals on the song, as do fellow country singers Carolyn Dawn Johnson and Faith Hill.
“I think it’s one of those rare songs that has substance but is also upbeat,” she said. “It’s upbeat tempo, it’s got a great melody, it’s fun. It also has substance to the lyrics, and then you know the fact that they touched on not only different ages but different experiences that seem to be pretty universal. I just think it’s a really brilliant piece of songwriting, and it comes off, you know, on the surface, being sort of an up-tempo radio hit, but then when you really listen to lyrics, it’s got substance to it, you know, and it’s relatable, and I think that’s why.”
We asked McBride if there are any musicians she is particularly excited about at the moment, and also who her heroes are, both musical and non-musical.
“Well I love, I mean this one’s not new, but I love Brandi Carlile,” she said. “I love Sara Bareilles. I mean those are two, and I love a lot of older music too, but those are two female vocalists that I really respect and have playing pretty regularly in the house.”
As for her heroes, McBride said: “You know, I love Aretha Franklin, musically, vocally. And not musically, I mean, I’d say, my daughters, my girls, you know, it’s just so inspiring to see them growing and learning and navigating their own lives and their own dreams, and it’s nice to sit back and just watch that unfold; they’re such good people and so much fun and so strong. It’s nice to see that.”
We asked her finally what her plan is for the rest of this year.
“We’re doing a couple of trips this summer, a family vacation, and probably just, you know, I’ve become a real homebody, so probably just be at home,” she said. “You know, that’s what I love to do the most.”
For more information about McBride’s 2024 tour, click here, and for more on the Kenley Amphitheater concert, click here.
