Faith Hill

Faith Hill lays her journey to the upper echelons of country music for us at the beginning of her hit 2005 tune “Mississippi Girl”: “It’s a long way from Star, Mississippi to the big stage I’m singin’ on tonight.” She’s done it with style—Hill’s spectacular pipes, coupled with her girl-next-door vibe, turned her into one of the most successful country artists of all time. Born in 1967, Hill dropped out of college at 19 and took off to Nashville, earning her keep selling T-shirts and working as a secretary at a music publishing firm until she was discovered when a coworker overheard her singing to herself. The rest, as they say, is history; Hill’s very first single, 1993’s raucous and rebellious “Wild One,” made her an overnight success. But it’s her love songs, like 1998’s dizzyingly sweet “This Kiss” or 1999’s epic “Breathe,” that cemented her legacy. “This Kiss” was the song Hill needed to cross over into the pop world, and the Breathe album found her moving further into that space with other hits like “The Way You Love Me” and “There You’ll Be.” But regardless of the dazzling level of success and celebrity Hill has amassed—her husband and frequent duet partner Tim McGraw has done pretty well for himself in country music, too—she still exudes the same warm, approachable energy she always has. After all, “a Mississippi girl doesn’t change her ways,” Hill reminds us, “just ‘cause everybody knows her name.”