One of the most popular female country singers, Trisha Yearwood staked out her own identity as an assertive yet vulnerable modern woman. Her self-titled debut album was released in 1991, and the lead single, "She's in Love With the Boy," rocketed to the top of the country charts, making her an instant star. She went on to score nine #1 hits, in addition to 11 Top-10 hits, and helped to define contemporary country music. In 1999, Yearwood was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. The Monticello, Georgia native has won back-to-back CMA awards as country’s Female Vocalist of the Year in 1997 and 1998, along with three Grammy Awards including one for the #1 hit single "How Do I Live.” Yearwood has also contributed to soundtracks of several popular films including “Hope Floats,” “Stuart Little,” “Thing Called Love” and “Honeymoon In Vegas.” Yearwood’s most recent album, Jasper County, was released in September 2005.

She has a full-bodied, muscular voice with bulls-eye tonal control, wide-open volume and dynamic range. But what Trisha Yearwood possesses goes far beyond pitch and technique. Hers is an instrument of uncommon emotional resonance, a voice that makes lyrics glow with believability, that gives them a beating heart. It is a voice of rapture and wonder.

Hit songs include: "Like We Never Had a Broken Heart," "She's in Love With the Boy," "That's What I Like About You," "Walkaway Joe," "Wrong Side of Memphis," "The Woman Before Me," "The Song Remembers When," "Xxx's and Ooo's (An American Girl)," "Thinkin' About You," "Believe Me Baby (I Lied)," "Everybody Knows," "How Do I Live," "In Another's Eyes," "Perfect Love," "Powerful Thing," "There Goes My Baby," "Where Your Road Leads," "I'll Still Love You More," "Real Live Woman," "You're Where I Belong" & "I Would've Loved You Anyway."

"I have never been this busy in my life. Never. Ever," says Trisha Yearwood. "I'm just happy that this whirlwind is coming at a time in my life when I know how to handle it and how to enjoy it."

Trisha has had a miraculous string of successes over the expanse of one year. Her 1997 MCA Nashville greatest hits album, Songbook: A Collection of Hits, debuted at number one, yielded three consecutive number one singles ("How Do I Live," "In Another's Eyes" and "Perfect Love") and has sold three million copies worldwide to date. Trisha achieved country music's "Triple Crown" by winning the 1997 CMA Female Vocalist of the Year, the 1998 ACM Top Female Vocalist of the Year and the 1998 Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance Female for "How Do I Live," from the movie Con Air. She picked up a second Grammy for her vocal collaboration with Garth Brooks, "In Another's Eyes." Trisha has toured extensively with Brooks, and now her new album, Where Your Road Leads, which she co-produced with MCA Nashville President, Tony Brown, is being released at the same time the first single, "There Goes My Baby," is flying up the charts.

It's hard to believe that Trisha Yearwood could have gotten busier. To illustrate, Trisha recently traveled the globe where she performed with Pavarotti in Italy, Don Henley in New York City and Garth Brooks in Los Angeles - all within one very busy week.

It has been a short seven years since 1991, when the unknown demo singer from tiny Monticello, Georgia - the modest blonde-haired music business intern with the Bachelor of Business Administration degree- made music history with her first MCA Nashville release, Trisha Yearwood - the first time a debut record by a female country artist ever surpassed sales of a million copies. The album eventually went double platinum.

From that point, the heavens opened and showered their bounty on the unsuspecting, then 26 year-old singer. Trisha began to tour with Garth Brooks, meaning the first live audiences she played to Brooks' massive crowds. Trisha stood up to all the pressure, astonishing both the listening public and Nashville music-makers with her undeniable, pitch-perfect vocal instrument andthe poise she exhibited under the tension of instant fame.

In 1992, Trisha escaped the notorious "sophomore jinx" and forever silenced those who might have wondered if she would be just another meteor flashing upon the scene but burning out just as quickly. Her second album, Hearts In Armor, received extraordinary critical acclaim and achieved platinum status, yielding the number one single, "The Woman Before Me," and two more hits, "Wrong Side Of Memphis," and "Walkaway Joe," sung with Don Henley. Trisha, with only two albums under her belt, had proved that she could produce hits while building a career on taste and integrity.

One year later, Trisha's rapid rise was chronicled in the 1993 book, Get Hot or Go Home: Trisha Yearwood and the Making of a Nashville Star. That year also brought a third album, The Song Remembers When, accompanied by a Disney TV special featuring her music. Trisha's exceptional delivery of the gorgeous title track by Hugh Prestwood demonstrated not only a commitment to quality material, but showed that she was poised to join a handful of singers whose nuanced interpretations transform romantic ballads into poignant portraits of the human heart. "The Song Remembers When" went to number one and the album went platinum.

1994 brought Trisha yet another number one, "XXX's And OOO's," the title cut from a television series. She won a Grammy for her duet with Aaron Neville, "I Fall To Pieces," and her new album, Thinking About You, was nominated for another Grammy, Best Country Album. The title cut went tonumber one on both Billboard and R&R charts. By the end of the year, she had released a critically acclaimed Christmas album, The Sweetest Gift, and Thinking About You had gone platinum.

In the midst of it all, in May 1994, Trisha married Mavericks' bassist Robert Reynolds at the Ryman Auditorium, celebrating their commitment to each other against the backdrop of country music history. Known for some feisty songs of female independence, Trisha wryly promised audiences that she was not going to let love make her mushy, allowing that she "married him so that I might observe him more closely!"

Trisha continued to tour relentlessly through 1994 and 1995, joining Brooks, Randy Travis and others on the road. But she also developed a more intimate kind of performance in theatrical venues that would become her signature show, where she could communicate in a more personal way with her audience and showcase her essence as a singer - the stirring ballads, the gutsy, uptempo scenarios of women's wilder sides, and the stunning voice which by now had acquired a mature elegance.

In 1996, Trisha released Everybody Knows. "Believe Me Baby (I Lied)" soared to number one, and the album, predictably, went platinum. At that point, Trisha thought that she had a real handle on the future of her career. "I had settled into a pattern where I made records that I was really proud of. Some sold more than others, although they all sold at least a million copies. I thought of myself as having a niche, and I was really very happy with that niche." But all of that changed with "How Do I Live."

"How Do I Live," the first single off Songbook, helped launch the album at number one. "That had never happened to me before," Trisha says. "Then a few months later, I got to perform the song on the CMAs and then won that award, which was really a big moment for me. I grew up watching the CMAs, and I had been nominated several times, but I had made my peace with not winning it." Not only did Trisha win the CMA Female Vocalist of the Year award, but went on to pick up two Grammys in February of 1998.

Trisha performed "How Do I Live" at the Academy Awards, where writer Diane Warren was nominated for Song of the Year. "That was so much fun because all I had to do was sing. The song was nominated, not me, and I didn't know anybody there! It's not like Nashville where everybody you know is in the front row. I know it sounds strange, but Robert and I had a ball. The evening was relatively stress-free."

She continued to ride wave after wave of success as three songs - the only new cuts on the greatest hits album - overlapped one another on the charts. By the time she won the ACM award for Female Vocalist of 1998, the first words out of her mouth when accepting the award were, "I can't believe this is still happening!"

Trisha is grateful that this overwhelming surge of success has come after seven years of developing that sudden rush of initial fame into a solid, enduring career. "It's so much sweeter because I now know that things like awards and hits don't automatically happen. And I also know that it all goes by so quickly that it's important to try to savor these moments. It's important to appreciate it."

On the new album, Where Your Road Leads, Trisha delivers with the unflinching vocal confidence of a woman at the pinnacle of her powers. The album begins to show her more vulnerable side with songs of regret and lost love like the first single, "There Goes My Baby," as well as "Never Let You Go Again," "Love Wouldn't Lie To Me" and "Heart Like A Sad Song."

"Well, the older you get, the braver you get," she says. "I'm not a terribly emotional person in public, but I am expressing myself in these songs. As I get older, I'm less guarded." The album boasts several uptempo, signature Yearwood "bad news relationship" songs like "That Ain't The Way I Heard It" and "Wouldn't Any Woman," not to mention two rather raucous "good relationship" songs, "Powerful Thing," which Trisha says reminds her of the chemistry she has with Robert, and "Bring Me All Your Lovin'," her tribute to her early admiration of the Rolling Stones.

Trisha credits co-producer Tony Brown for allowing her a "total creative partnership," and looks forward to co-producing more of her material. "It was a wonderful challenge. I was in the studio for every decision, all the way through the mix and the mastering. I learned so much about the process, about the choices to be made along the way. If I become more and more involved with every record, they will express more and more of what I'm about."

Bottom Photo: Trisha Yearwood performs at Country Thunder at Shadow Hill Ranch in Twin Lakes, WI on July 21, 2006. (Phil Bonyata)