Faith Hill Faith Hill is a country music singer and songwriter who has also enjoyed success in the pop charts. She has worked as a model and has recently made a move into acting. She is also known for her high profile marriage to fellow artist Tim McGraw. Audrey Faith Perry was born on September 21, 1967, in Jackson, Mississippi; she grew up in nearby Star, after being adopted, and didn't meet her birth mother until she was in her twenties. Audrey Faith Perry’s adoptive father, Ted, was a factory worker, and her adoptive mother, Edna, gave up a job in a bank to look after her. As a child, Perry loved singing, and performed whenever she got the chance - at family and school events, local fairs and rodeos. After a brief period at college, the future star moved to Nashville to concentrate on a singing career. There she made a living selling t-shirts at country music events until she got a job working as a secretary at Gary Morris's publishing company. A writer at the company overheard her singing to herself and persuaded her to record a demo, which Morris was highly impressed by. She became a backing singer for Gary Burr, who helped her to develop her talent and encouraged her songwriting. At this time Faith met and married fellow musician Daniel Hill, though the marriage proved to be short-lived. Hill's big break came when her work as a backing singer caught the attention of Warner Bros., who eagerly offered her a contract. Her first album, Take Me as I Am, sold two million copies and launched the hit singles "Wild One" and "Piece of my Heart," a cover of the Janis Joplin song. It also led to a tour with Tim McGraw, whom she fell in love with and married after breaking off her engagement to music producer Scott Hendricks. Problems with her vocal cords threatened her career, but were successfully surmounted by surgery, and Faith went on to record the triple platinum album It Matters to Me. In 1998 she made a move into the pop mainstream with Faith, from which the song "This Kiss," a #1 country hit, also reached #7 in the pop charts. Breathe solidified her mainstream success, becoming one of the best-selling albums of 2000, winning three Grammy awards. 2003's Cry, however, though it won another Grammy, was largely ignored by country fans, who felt that Hill was no longer singing for them. She took notice, and made an effort to go back to her roots with 2005's Fireflies, which reached #1 on the country chart and has since been certified double platinum. As well as recording albums and touring, she has sung the national anthem at the Superbowl and has performed at the Olympic Games and the Oscars.
When not working in the music industry, Hill has made ample use of her talents elsewhere. In 2004 she appeared in her first film, The Stepford Wives, with Nicole Kidman, Glenn Close, Christopher Walken, and Matthew Broderick. Faith has also appeared in episodes of Promised Land and Touched by an Angel, and has contributed to the soundtracks of several films, including Pearl Harbour, with Ben Affleck and Cuba Gooding Jr., and Practical Magic, with Sandra Bullock and Aidan Quinn. She has also worked as a model for Cover Girl cosmetics and has appeared in a series of Pepsi commercials. Faith’s charitable interests have included setting up the Faith Hill Family Literacy Project. Hill lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with McGraw and their three daughters Gracie Katherine, Maggie Elizabeth, and Audrey Caroline. Her house is on the same block as that of fellow country star Kenny Chesney. YUDDY |
