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Tim McGraw: Music Has Been His ‘Best Friend’

Tim McGraw is a master at picking great songs to sing, and his over 45 number-one songs can attest to that. In one of my interviews with Tim over the years, he…

Tim McGraw performs in a maroon shirt and a cowboy hat.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Tim McGraw is a master at picking great songs to sing, and his over 45 number-one songs can attest to that.

In one of my interviews with Tim over the years, he talked about what music has done for him. He said, "Music has always been there for me. That's been my sort of best friend all throughout my life."

The country icon continued, "I've spent a lot of time going back and listening to music that I grew up with, but also listening to music from a lot of artists and in all genres from the period of time that I started out as a musician from the late 80s up through the early 90s. I've been going back and listening to a lot of that music."

He added, "There's so much meaning in all the stuff that you just let go past you. And when you're just listening to stuff, and you're really letting it settle in on you. You can find the extra meanings that are in things."

McGraw concluded, "What great music does, I think, is allow you to do that, especially in a revisit to go back and hear something that comes to life in a new way and it gives you a new perspective on things."

Tim has made himself a nice career in Hollywood as an actor in many big movies like the Oscar-winning film The Blind Side in 2009, The Shack in 2017, The Kingdom in 2007, and Country Strong in 2010, to name a few. He also starred in TV's 1883.

While he has done a lot of acting roles over the years, the country superstar has managed to keep his music career in check and has consistently scored number-one songs. His recent single, "One Bad Habit,' is his latest chart-topper.

In another one of my interviews with McGraw, he talked about acting. The country superstar told me, "I love doing it, and it's a good spot for me to find. I love to just go in and find that spot and dive into it."

He continued, "But it's not unlike doing a record or making an album. I think that when you're in a studio, and you're in a dark room with the lights off, and you've got the headphones on, and you are singing this song - yeah, it's your voice, and you're singing it and being emotional about it - but you're singing about a character that is walking through a scene."

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.