On The Road continued

In today's marketplace the most successful concert tours are no longer just about the music. They have to be an event, a spectacle, part Broadway Show, part theme park ride, a combination of high energy and effects that assault the eyes as well as the ears. However while constant touring is an integral part of country music the live shows have remained traditional, visually as dull as ditchwater - grizzled old bloke in hat, jeans and cowboy boots stands still and plays jolly well. Shania was determined that her live band break the mould.

The trick was to keep the country sound but present it as if it was something new. The players had to be accomplished versatile musicians capable of playing the complex song arrangements but to look young, cool and funky. "I can't have anyone in the band who doesn't have my energy," said Shania explaining her choices. "I don't want people who have been on the road for years and are just doing it in order to do it. And I like a clean band. I don't like drugs. I don't like alcohol. I like to have clean-living people around me."

After he had finished remixing Come on Over for Europe, and Shania took off to promote it, Mutt took on the role of musical director. He only kept two musicians from The Woman In Me days, pedal steel guitarist Marc Muller and fiddle player Allison Cornell. From Nashville's young scene he recruited guitarist Brent (BB) Barcus and drummer JD Blair. Blair was a six foot black guy in wrap around shades and dreadlocks who looked like he had stepped off a street corner in Compton. There were two Australian expats who had fetched up in Tennessee guitarist Randall Waller, the joker in the pack and bassist Andy Cichon, once a member of Oz hard rockers Rose Tattoo.

By late January '98 Mutt's attempts to find a keyboard player who could double on percussion and accordion and sing high had floundered. BB recommended Hardy Hemphill who he had played with behind Steven Curtis Chapman. Hardy was cooking dinner at home when he had a call suggesting he learn You're Still The One fast and get out to Los Angeles even quicker. Fiddler Cory Churko, a native of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan who also doubled on guitar, mandolin, keyboards, percussion and vocals quit his job as a computer animator to enlist.