Peek Inside Martina McBride’s ‘Dream Come True’ Country Music Hall of Fame Exhibit [PICTURES]
As a child in Sharon, Kan., Martina McBride and her family formed a country band, the Schiffters (a play on her maiden name, Schiff). Her newly opened Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum exhibit contains a black satin jacket with the band's name on the back, displayed next to her high school yearbook and 4-H ribbons.
It's all proof of teenaged McBride's varied interests and extracurriculars, and paints a piece of the fuller picture of a small-town girl with big dreams and the drive to make them come true.
"When you're that little girl back in Kansas, I had big dreams, obviously, but there's some things you can't even dream about, you know?" McBride told a crowd of country music media and industry members gathered at the Hall of Fame on Tuesday night (July 27) for the opening of Martina McBride: The Power of Her Voice. "You just don't even have the capacity to know."
In addition to her yearbook, 4-H ribbons and band jacket, McBride's new exhibit — which she calls "surreal and overwhelming" and "a dream come true" — includes, among other items, songwriter Gretchen Peters' handwritten manuscript for her hit song “Independence Day," McBride’s Jenny Packham dress from the cover of her 2007 album Wake Up Laughing and several ACM and CMA Awards. Placards cover her childhood, her career beginnings — as a merch seller for Garth Brooks before she landed her own record deal — and her work as a musical advocate for justice.
"She is a force of nature," Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum CEO Kyle Young shared of McBride, comparing her to icons including Loretta Lynn and Reba McEntire for her penchant for "songs about dreams" and "songs of equality."
The Hall of Fame had initially planned for McBride's exhibit to open in 2020, but — like most things intended for that year — it had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, Martina McBride: The Power of Her Voice will run from July 30, 2021, through Aug. 7, 2022; keep reading for a peek inside the exhibit: