b. Samuel Timothy Smith, 1 May 1967, Delhi, Louisiana, USA. This highly popular country singer was raised in Start, Louisiana, and is the son of Frank Edwin ‘Tug’ McGraw, a noted left-handed relief pitcher for the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies, who retired in 1984 after a 19-year major league baseball career. Tim began his musical career singing in local clubs and also worked as a demo singer. He was signed to Curb Records in 1990 but did not achieve his first chart entry until 1992 with ‘Welcome To The Club’. In 1993, he had two further minor hits with ‘Memory Lane’ and ‘Two Steppin’ Mind’, all three of these songs taken from his debut album. He appeared on the Honky Tonk Attitude tour with Joe Diffie. McGraw’s career took off with the release, early in 1994, of the single ‘Indian Outlaw’. The song, written by John D. Loudermilk, caused considerable controversy in the USA, where some claimed that it degraded the accepted image of the American Indian. Controversy always helps sales, and the recording, with its war dance, rhythmic drum beat, quickly gave McGraw his first country Top 10 record and broke into the pop Top 20. The song naturally appeared on his second album, Not A Moment Too Soon, which spawned the country chart-toppers ‘Don’t Take The Girl’ and ‘Not A Moment Too Soon’. The album, Not A Moment Too Soon, entered the Billboard country chart at number 1, and became the first McGraw recording to go multi-platinum, remaining in the Top 5 for over a year. The following album, All I Want, also amassed huge sales and McGraw topped the country singles chart with ‘I Like It, I Love It’, ‘She Never Lets It Go To Her Heart’, ‘Everywhere’, and just missed with ‘Can’t Be Really Gone’.
McGraw was by now being rightly hailed as the successor to Garth Brooks, and although his records are not quite as distinctive he does seem determined to remain a country artist (whatever that means today) with titles such as ‘Don’t Mention Memphis’, ‘Give It To Me Strait’ and ‘It Doesn’t Get Any Countrier Than This’. His run of commercial success continued with Everywhere reaching number 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1997, and a CMA Award for Vocal Event Of The Year on ‘It’s Your Love’. The latter, recorded with his wife Faith Hill, topped the US country charts for six weeks and reached the mainstream Top 10. The solo McGraw broke into the US mainstream Top 10 in May 1999 with ‘Please Remember Me’, and topped the album charts with A Place In The Sun.
Since then McGraw’s popularity has widened way beyond the country market, with 2001’s Set This Circus Down and attendant singles such as ‘Grown Men Don’t Cry’, ‘Angry All The Time’, ‘The Cowboy In Me’ and ‘Unbroken’ becoming huge hits. A duet with Jo Dee Messina, ‘Bring On The Rain’, followed all these singles to the top of the country charts. McGraw then recorded an album with his road band the Dancehall Doctors, a delightfully raw and vibrant recording which assuaged the doubts of his record company by selling in vast quantities. The album included an almost note perfect cover version of Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer’.
The title track of 2004’s Live Like You Were Dying, a tribute to the singer’s late father, was another big country chart-topper, spending over six weeks at the top of the Billboard charts. McGraw made his acting debut later in the year in Black Cloud. He also enjoyed an unlikely transatlantic hit collaborating with rapper Nelly on ‘Over And Over’. Another smash album, Let It Go, made its debut at the top of the US album chart in summer 2007.
