“I don’t like to share it too early.”
That is Tim McGraw talking about new music, and the people he keeps it from are his own family.
Tim sat down this week with the radio show Taste of Country Nights, and the talk turned to what happens at home when he is making a record. Taste of Country published the interview on Nov. 11. It lands in a busy stretch for him. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in October, and he is on the list of performers for the CMA Awards on Wednesday, Nov. 18, on ABC, with Lainey Wilson hosting.
He and Faith Hill also marked 30 years of marriage on Oct. 6.
For anyone who knows them mostly from the radio, Tim is the Louisiana singer behind “Humble and Kind” and “Don’t Take the Girl.” Faith is the Mississippi singer who gave us “This Kiss” and “Breathe.” They have three grown daughters, Gracie, Maggie and Audrey.
You might think a wife of 30 years would hear every rough idea the minute it was written. Tim says it works the other way around. He reportedly waits until a song is close to its final mix before Faith or the girls hear a note of it.
“I like to get it to where it’s sounding pretty decent before they hear it because they’ll let me know the truth for sure,” he told the show.
He is not looking for a pat on the back from them, and he says Faith’s opinion counts for more than a wife’s kindness. She has spent her own life in recording studios.
“Faith’s one of the best recording artists out there and one of the greatest singers in the world, I think,” Tim said.
So what happens when she finally listens and something bothers her? By his own account, he takes her at her word.
“So when she hears something on a record and tells me I need to go back and check that, I’ll go back and check it,” he said.
That is a Hall of Fame singer with decades of hits heading back to the studio because his wife heard something she didn’t like. Taste of Country’s writer called her one of the few people who can tell Tim his songs need work.
Tim did not name a song Faith sent him back to fix. He has, though, told the same radio show about one that passed her test. In October 2018, when he released the single “Neon Church,” he said Faith had plenty of favorites among the songs he was recording at the time.
“This is one that she really gravitated to,” he said then. “She didn’t have any complaints with this being the first single. She loves the guitars on it and loves the lyric.”
The official video for that single is below.
Tim sings “Neon Church,” the single Faith had no complaints about
The two have plenty of practice working side by side. By Taste of Country’s count, they have released 19 studio duets, including a whole album together in 2017 called “The Rest of Our Life.” Their biggest, “It’s Your Love,” spent six weeks at No. 1 in 1997.
When that joint album came out, they sat down together on NBC’s “Today” to talk about making it.
Tim and Faith talk on “Today” about recording their first album together
Tim has not said what he will sing at the CMA Awards next Wednesday. If it is something new, one listener at home has probably already had her turn with it.