One of the most beautiful couples in country music, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, have some exciting news!!! No, not another baby to add to the brood, unless you want to call a new duets collaboration between the two a "baby." Anytime soon? Not so fast cowboy. Read more from Heath McCoy of Canwest News Service in the Vancouversun.com.
Faith Hill and Tim McGraw performing in 2007.
Photograph by: Chris Schwarz, Canwest News Service
So when can Tim 'n Faith fans finally expect that full-length duet album?
"It's just a matter of time," says country music mega-star Tim McGraw in a phone interview to advance his North American tour that kicked off in Vancouver on Thursday night.
It's almost shocking that McGraw and his wife, country bombshell Faith Hill, haven't exploited their commercial chemistry on the charts further than they have.
After all, from Johnny Cash and June Carter to George Jones and Tammy Wynette, the country world loves a dynamic husband and wife team, and the dynamics of this one have proven hard to beat.
McGraw, the quintessential country jock, was already an established star in 1996 when he brought Hill on the road with him as the support act on The Spontaneous Combustion Tour. That trek was aptly named, as the two quickly fell in love, Hill breaking off her engagement to producer Scott Hendricks to marry McGraw later that year.
Since then, in addition to the three daughters they've brought into the world, the couple has recorded a handful of hit songs together. These have included Let's Make Love, I Need You and It's Your Love, their first collaboration, which swept the 1997 Academy of Country Music Awards as song of the year.
They've also embarked on two co-headlining tours, the second -- dubbed Soul2Soul II, which ran through 2006 and 2007 -- emerging as the highest-grossing country-music tour of all time.
While their impact as solo artists cannot be underestimated -- McGraw alone has sold more than 40 million records -- it seems the two together might reach a whole new level of success.
So if there is a plan for that duet album, what's the holdup?
Asked that, McGraw, 42, waffles slightly. "You know, (it's) labels and all these things," he says. "Once we clear the woods a little bit, we'll (record an album), for sure."
Speaking of label issues, McGraw is referring to his dispute with Curb Records, the company the Louisiana singer has been with since his 1993 debut.
Curb fell out of favour with McGraw by releasing a third greatest-hits package in 2008, against the singer's wishes. That dispute then held up the release of McGraw's latest album, Southern Voice, which finally hit stores in October of last year.
McGraw says he owes Curb one more album, and then he plans to move on from the label. He's evasive, though, when asked for specifics of his crumbling relationship with the company.
"I don't want to get into all that stuff, but in the history of the music business, artists and labels have not gotten along incredibly well, because there's a financial way to do things and there's an artistic way," McGraw says. "There's just other things I would like to do, and I think the best part of my career is ahead of me."
Is he looking to other record labels or, perhaps, considering going independent, given the increasingly shaky footing record companies have had in the Internet/iTunes era?
"I don't know; I'm just gonna see what's best for me," he says. "The music business, there's no formula to it. You sort of have to find your own way. It's a changing industry, and it's not gonna be the way it was before. Labels do need to figure out how they're going to operate in the future, if they're going to operate."
Business matters aside, though, McGraw continues to be inspired by the musical end of the game.
He enjoyed working with Albertan Chad Kroeger of the rock band Nickelback for the first single off Southern Voice, It's a Business Doing Pleasure with You.
"I forget where Faith and I were on the Soul2Soul tour, I think it was Toronto, and (Chad) came to the show," McGraw says. "We talked for awhile backstage, and he said he was going to write a song for me. You know, you hear that all the time from songwriters and other artists: 'I'm gonna write you a song.' And you never see the song.
"But he sent me his song and it was a lot of fun. We were looking for something fun and energetic and that's what he sent. . . . I'm a huge fan of his."
Of course, music isn't the only artistic endeavour that inspires McGraw. Since 2004, he's made a fair name for himself as an actor, receiving acclaim for his roles in movies such as Flicka, The Kingdom, Four Christmases and Friday Night Lights, where he played the intense, overbearing father of a high-school football player.
He also played Sandra Bullock's husband in The Blind Side, which just won the actress an Oscar.
On the horizon, McGraw will be seen with Gwyneth Paltrow in the upcoming release Love Don't Let Me Down, and he's excited about a brief but juicy role he's set to play in a movie called Dirty Girl, which will star William H. Macy and Milla Jovovich.
McGraw says he had considered acting for a long time, trying his hand at it as early as 1995, when he made a cameo appearance on The Jeff Foxworthy Show, but it's something he was determined to ease into gradually.
"Since my first hit record, there were scripts coming at me," he says. "I knew I wanted to try it, but I didn't want to do it too early, because I really wanted to work at establishing my music career.
"When Friday Night Lights came along, it was just something I could relate to. I read it and the character I auditioned for . . . I sort of knew that guy growing up, or it was a combination of people I knew. It was one of those things I felt akin to."
In a sense, McGraw says, his approach to acting is not far removed from the way he approaches his music.
"You try to find stuff you relate to and like," he says. "My career would be nowhere without great songs, and I sort of approach it the same way now, when I'm reading a script."
Since it'll be one of the last times they'll appear on TV as a duo, 
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