![]() ![]() Earlier in 2017, he and Hill released “Speak to a Girl,” a remarkable ballad in which they instruct men to respect women and tell women to demand that respect. Two of his biggest smashes, “Live Like You Were Dying” and “Humble and Kind,” are about hard-earned wisdom. ![]() Since then, while country has been dominated by songs about endless summer nights, McGraw has distinguished himself by picking the kind of tunes that soundtrack milestones in people’s lives: weddings, graduations, funerals. Many of his early tracks were borderline novelties (“What Room Was the Holiday In,” “Refried Dreams”) until the 1995 hit “I Like It, I Love It,” about a guy who loses interest in his rowdy male friends and becomes happily domesticated. McGraw doesn’t have a classic country voice - “There are people working at 7-Eleven who can sing circles around me,” he likes to say - but he’s unmatched at picking highly emotional songs that also tell the story of his own maturation. Hill: I don’t mean I sat home on my butt and ate bonbons. Did you really just say that? Are you kidding me? McGraw: That’s the only reason she married me, so she could have kids and stay home. Marriages between artists, she notes dryly, “don’t have a good track record.” Nonetheless, they started a family right away. When Hill and McGraw began dating, they spent hours talking about how their relationship would never work. (Hill’s father died first, in a car accident.) “They were just getting to know one another better,” adds McGraw, when White died in 2007. “I kept the relationship at bay,” she says. Knowing her mom was an artist helped Hill understand why she had felt like a misfit, but the two didn’t become close. She located her biological mother, a professional painter, and learned she had a full brother too. In her early 20s, after Hill moved from Star, Miss., to Nashville, she began to look for her birth family. I didn’t know anyone I was related to, biologically, which gives you a sense of not knowing who you are.” I had a spirit that was completely outside what my family was. “I have a great family: salt of the earth, hardworking. And of course I used to dream I was Elvis’ daughter,” Hill says with a laugh. “I used to think there was some kind of conspiracy, that I must be the daughter of one of my aunts. Hill’s parents, Edna (a bank teller) and Ted (a factory worker), never hid the fact that they had adopted her, though they claimed her mother put her up for adoption because she’d had an affair with a married man, which wasn’t true. “Having an incredibly strong family, that foundation was there.” Hill wears a Versace shirt, jacket and skirt, and an Anita Ko ring. “Doing this for a living can absolutely turn you inside out,” says Hill. Then one day, he found his birth certificate in a drawer. That was my education in country music.” “I remember sitting in countless truck stops, before the sun came up, listening to the jukebox. The two took long drives in his 18-wheel truck, hauling cottonseed, listening to 8-track cassettes of Merle Haggard and George Jones. Until he was 11, McGraw thought a man named Horace Smith was his father. “So I wanted what I didn’t have: a stable family.” “I had a very dysfunctional childhood,” says McGraw. “Although our stories are very different, there was a missing link within our souls that we both related to.” For her next album, Hill hired a new producer.Īside from their careers, what bonded the pair so quickly, says Hill, were the unusual details of their raising. By May, they were sharing a duet and a not-brief kiss onstage. Innocently or not, he picked Hill as his opening act. ![]() David Needlemanīy 1996, Hill was engaged to her record producer, and McGraw was popular enough to start his first major headlining tour. “People come out to see that.” McGraw wears a Lanvin sweater and Sand shirt. “What’s part and parcel of our relationship translates to the crowd,” says McGraw. ![]()
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