Shania Twain Says Ella Langley ‘Didn’t Just Come Out of Nowhere’
tags:“If the doors were wider open a few years ago, she would have been here a few years ago,” the superstar says of country’s gender imbalance
Shania Twain looks back to her formative years on her new album Little Miss Twain. Released on Friday, it focuses on the period before Twain became a country crossover superstar. In a new interview with Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast, Twain acknowledges the similar crossover success of Ella Langley, whose song “Choosin’ Texas” just marked its 14th week at Number One on the Hot 100.
“I’ve never met Ella Langley, but just from what I’m observing, she seems very authentic. She doesn’t come across to me as somebody that’s trying to be somebody else or trying to write a song with an agenda,” Twain says. “The way she delivers a song, believe her. I believe what she’s saying.”
But according to Twain, Langley’s success also underscores the gender disparity in country music. “I would imagine if the awareness and the doors were wider open a few years ago, she would have been here a few years ago,” Twain says. “She’s not just great now; she didn’t just come out of nowhere.”
Twain, 60, knows about that imbalance firsthand. It’s been 23 years since she had a Top 10 hit on country radio as a lead artist (“She’s Not Just a Pretty Face”), while some male peers around her age have had numerous Top 10 singles since 2020.
“It isn’t just me. There’s a lot of women that have been around for a while, that are only just now surfacing. They’ve been there, there just hasn’t been any room for them to be exposed,” she tells Nashville Now. “I’ve built my audience, I’ve worked hard for that audience. We love each other, but what about the new artists? What about the new women? How are they going to get to build an audience if they’re not heard?
“I’m not saying give anybody anything on a silver platter,” she continues, “but just give them some space.”
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On Thursday night, Twain celebrated the release of Little Miss Twain with an intimate performance at Racket in New York. Presented by SiriusXM, it dovetailed with the launch of “Little Miss Twain Radio,” a new pop-up channel on SiriusXM that focuses on the country singer’s own music and the influences that made her “Shania Twain.”
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Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone’s weekly country-music podcast, Nashville Now, hosted by Deputy Editor, Head of Country Joseph Hudak, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). New episodes drop every Wednesday and feature interviews with artists and personalities like Vince Gill, Lainey Wilson, Shaboozey, Hardy, Charley Crockett, Blackberry Smoke, Jason Newsted, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Kings of Leon, Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, the Black Crowes, the War and Treaty, Carly Pearce, Amy Grant, Luke Grimes, Brandon Lake, Breland, Bryan Andrews, Noeline Hofmann, Adam Mac, Devon Gilfillian, Gavin Adcock, Amanda Shires, Shooter Jennings, Margo Price, Michaela Anne, Ink, Ne-Yo, Rival Sons’ Jay Buchanan, Halestorm, Dusty Slay, Lukas Nelson, Ashley Monroe, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, Clever, Love on the Spectrum‘s Tyler White, Willie Nelson scholar John Spong, and authors Marissa R. Moss, Josh Crutchmer, Mark Gray, and Jonathan Bernstein.