Country music star Martina McBride has garnered over 15 major music awards, including four wins for Female Vocalist of the Year from the Country Music Association. Before all the fame and accolades, however, McBride had an interesting day job, which she shared with host Ophira Eisenberg at the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville: selling T-shirts at Garth Brooks concerts. At the time, she and her husband were newlyweds, and he was often on the road as Brooks's production manager. So McBride sold merchandise in order to join him. After she got her first record deal, Brooks invited her to open for his next tour, and "I went from [his] T-shirt seller to opening act in a few months' time."

Her latest album is called Reckless, and every song on it was written or co-written by female songwriters. She told Eisenberg, "It really wasn't by design, it's just, it makes sense that I would be drawn to a woman's point of view." She continued, "It was about halfway through the record I started looking at all the songs and the writers and sort of made that realization that yeah, every song has a woman writer on it."

For this next game, Martina McBride let us rewrite her song "Happy Girl" to be all about famous women who were born in Tennessee.

HIGHLIGHTS

On being a part of a high school graduating class of ten students

I thought that's how it was everywhere!

On challenging listeners with the serious subject matter in her songs

It just comes down to instinct. When I hear a song that moves me, ... I just can't walk away from it. I also feel instinctively that those kinds of songs, there's somebody out there that needs to hear that song, that it's going to either lift them up or inspire them or make them feel not so alone.

On getting feedback on her songs

It's a testament to the power of music and how powerful music really is. I feel like I am so blessed to be the vehicle that that song gets to come through and kind of do what it's supposed to do in the world.

Connie Britton & Martina McBride: 'This One's For The Girls'

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.