Faith Hill

One of country music’s leading female vocalists throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, Faith Hill capitalized on the pop inroads Shania Twain had already forged, achieving massive crossover stardom by the close of the millennium. Her cinematic good looks certainly amplified her appeal, and her high-profile marriage to fellow country artist Tim McGraw added further glamour and mystique to her public profile. While she may not have won over traditional country fans, Hill commanded diva-level star power long before her pop breakthrough.

Born Audrey Faith Perry on September 21, 1967, in Ridgeland, Mississippi, she spent her early years in the small town of Star nearby. From age three she sang regularly for her family, and at seven she gave her first public performance during a 4-H luncheon. Throughout childhood she seized every chance to perform, drawing primary inspiration from Reba McEntire, and by seventeen she had formed a band that played local rodeos. At nineteen she left college and relocated to Nashville in pursuit of a singing career, initially earning income by selling T-shirts. During this period she entered a brief marriage with music executive Dan Hill. She later secured a secretarial position at a music publishing company, where an impromptu moment of singing to herself led to her discovery. Company president Gary Morris encouraged her to become a demo singer, and she soon worked as a harmony vocalist for singer/songwriter/producer Gary Burr, who also oversaw her own demo recordings. A Warner Bros. executive who caught one of their club performances in Nashville ultimately offered her a solo contract.

Hill issued her first album, Take Me as I Am, in late 1993 under the guidance of producer Scott Hendricks. Momentum arrived swiftly when the opening single “Wild One” ascended the country charts and held the top spot for four weeks early the following year, making her the first female country singer in three decades to achieve such a lengthy run with a debut release. Its successor, a country-styled rendition of Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart,” also reached number one, as did the album’s title track, and Take Me as I Am ultimately sold more than three million copies. Plans to follow up immediately were interrupted by vocal-cord surgery, yet the delay proved brief; It Matters to Me arrived in summer 1995. The title song became her fourth number-one country single, and a succession of additional Top Ten hits drove early sales past the three-million mark. By then firmly established as a country hitmaker, Hill joined Tim McGraw for the 1996 Spontaneous Combustion Tour. The pairing proved combustible in more ways than one: the couple wed that October. Their first child, daughter Gracie, arrived in May 1997, and shortly afterward their duet “It’s Your Love,” recorded for McGraw’s Everywhere album, dominated the country charts for six weeks.

Hill returned in spring 1998 with Faith, an album whose still largely country sound hinted at pop ambitions without fully declaring them. The single “This Kiss” validated her strategy, topping the country charts for three weeks while climbing to number seven on the pop side and becoming her first mainstream hit. By the time its chart run concluded, Hill had welcomed her second daughter with McGraw, Maggie. Her stature had grown from country star to full-fledged celebrity, prompting an endorsement agreement with Cover Girl. Subsequent releases “Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me,” another duet with McGraw, and “Let Me Let Go” both reached number one on the country chart, though they did not match the pop performance of “This Kiss.”

Faith ultimately became Hill’s biggest-selling project to date, moving more than six million copies and reaching the Top Ten on the Billboard album chart, confirming her substantial crossover potential. She entered the studio promptly after touring and recorded Breathe, a deliberate move into pop and adult-contemporary territory. The album debuted at number one upon its late-1999 release, and the title track spent six weeks atop the country chart while dominating adult-contemporary airplay. Although it peaked at number two on the pop side, the single’s longevity made it the year’s biggest hit overall. Follow-up singles “The Way You Love Me” and “There You’ll Be” both reached the pop Top Ten, with the former also topping country and the latter hitting number one on adult contemporary. Hill scored another Top Ten country hit with “Let’s Make Love,” her third duet with McGraw, and the pair toured together again in 2000. Breathe sold more than seven million copies in the United States and earned numerous award nominations. Much of 2001 was devoted to a hiatus spent with the couple’s third daughter, Audrey.

Hill resurfaced in 2002 with her fifth studio album, Cry, which surpassed three million copies sold and earned her the Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for the title track in 2003. Nearly three years passed before her next release; Fireflies arrived in August 2005 and was widely praised as one of her strongest collections. Its lead single, “Mississippi Girl,” written by John Rich of Big & Rich, topped the country singles chart, while the album itself reached number one on the Billboard 200. The Soul2Soul II tour she co-headlined with McGraw in 2006 became the highest-grossing country tour in history. In 2008 she issued the holiday album Joy to the World, which debuted at number 13 on the Billboard Top 200. Over subsequent years she pursued acting, appearing in the 2015 film Dixieland, while continuing to harmonize with McGraw as she worked on new material. In 2016 she released the compilation Deep Tracks, which entered the charts at number 22 that November. Early the next year she announced a new recording deal with Sony, and The Rest of Our Life, a duet album with Tim McGraw, appeared in November 2017.