Terri Clark is opening up about her early career and going up against titans like Shania Twain while carving a name for herself in the country music industry. Clark said that she never feuded with Twain. The singer very much tried to stay in her own lane and focus on her own music.
However, she had some nice things about Twain to say. To Clark, Twain existed in another level. Speaking with Taste of Country, Clark said, "Shania and I were so. It was apples and oranges. We were on the same label. If anything, she probably helped my career because they were probably able to leverage her to help me get some stuff. But Shania, Shania was Canadian. She was on the same label."
She continued, "The place where I felt her the most was probably at Canadian awards shows. 'Of course she's gotta be Canadian.' And Paul Brandt comes up to me one day, and he goes, 'I'm so sorry, Terri. It's like, if Garth Brooks were Canadian, I'd be screwed.'So I'm like, yeah, I know I'm going up against the 800-pound gorilla who happens to be Canadian, but, no, I'm so proud of her success, and she's just, she's on another stratosphere. She's like a Taylor Swift type of fame."
Terri Clark Talks Career
Instead, Clark said she tried to focus on her own thing. Sure, they competed for airtime, but so was everyone else in the industry. She said, "But yeah, to be really honest, it was like, I kind of felt like I was just doing my own thing for the longest time. We all compete for radio airplay at that time. You know, we're all competing. I just worked so much."
Her hard work started to pay off over time. She said, "I think my agent at William Morris told me one time, he said, you are probably the hardest-working girl on our roster. And they have a big roster, and I worked a lot of dates for a lot of years. I opened a lot of tours. I was definitely the opening act for a lot of really great tours, which helped me get in front of big audiences and hone, you know, entertaining people."
Over-all, Clark said that was big camaraderie among female singers during her era. She said, "I think there was camaraderie, but I think it felt almost — like I'm sure there's competitiveness going on today with the new, you know, a sense of competing with yourself more than anything. But I find there's — because there was such a stale point at radio for women in country music for a long time, and it's still not even by any sense — I think there's a more of a "We gotta stick togetherness" now than there was in the '90s when everybody was getting airplay."
