Trisha Yearwood
b. 19 September 1964, Monticello, Georgia, USA. In 1985, Yearwood started working as a session singer in Nashville. She was discovered by Garth Brooks and sang backing vocals on his album, NO FENCES. She was the opening act on his 1991 tour and became the first female singer to top the US country charts with her sparkling debut single, She's In Love With The Boy. Further singles such as Like We Never Had A Broken Heart, That's What I Like About You, The Woman Before Me and Wrong Side Of Memphis quickly established her as a major new talent in contemporatry country music. By 1994 she had accomplished major headlining tours had placed albums in the national charts and published her (ghosted) autobiography. For such a young talent to have a book published at this stage of their career shows great confidence, although presumably there is more of her life to come. Yearwood is at the vanguard of highly creative female country singers whose movement includes Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea and Mary-Chapin Carpenter. Together they have breathed exciting new life into an old formula. Her mid-90s album THINKIN' BOUT YOU contained irrisistable light rockers such as the Berg/Randall composition XXX's And OOO's (with apologies to Richard Thompson's I Feel So Good). Her choice of material is one of her great strengths; using contemporary songwriters and giving their songs her own country tinged interpretation is inspiring. Melissa Etheridge's You Can Sleep While I Drive benefitted greatly from the Yearwood treatment as did James Taylor's Bartender Blues. Married to the Mavericks bassist Robert Reynolds in 1995 she is at present riding high.