Shania Twain was already struggling to trust her voice when her marriage to Robert “Mutt” Lange fell apart. The man who had helped shape her greatest records was leaving, just as illness had made singing itself uncertain. Lange had been her husband, producer and songwriting partner. Together, they created The Woman in Me and Come On Over, albums that carried her from country music into worldwide stardom. Their personal and professional lives had become closely intertwined. After contracting Lyme disease in the early 2000s, Shania developed vocal problems that left her wondering whether she could ever perform comfortably again. In 2008, Lange asked for a separation after fourteen years of marriage. Then came another painful discovery. Shania later said Lange had become involved with Marie-Anne Thiébaud, her close friend and personal assistant—the same woman in whom she had confided about her marriage. Marie-Anne’s husband, Frédéric, told Shania what he believed was happening. Her divorce from Lange became final in 2010. Shania and Frédéric initially found companionship in their shared experience. Over time, that friendship became a relationship, and they married in 2011. Rebuilding her musical life took longer. When Now arrived in 2017, it was her first studio album in fifteen years and her first without Lange producing or co-writing. The songs came from her own experience of loss and recovery. The album reached No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and the country album chart. Later surgery helped address the lasting damage to her voice. Returning meant learning to work without the partnership behind her biggest successes while adapting to a voice that had changed. Now gave listeners the result: songs she had written herself, recorded after years of uncertainty about whether she could make another album at all.

SHANIA TWAIN LOST HER MARRIAGE AND HER VOICE—THEN MADE HER FIRST ALBUM WITHOUT EITHER

Shania Twain was already losing control of the voice that had made her famous when the man who helped build her biggest records told her their marriage was over.

Robert “Mutt” Lange was not simply her husband.

He had produced and co-written the albums that transformed Shania from a struggling country singer into a global star.

Then, in 2008, that partnership collapsed too.

Her Voice Had Already Begun Failing

Years earlier, Shania had contracted Lyme disease.

The illness eventually affected nerves controlling her vocal cords, leaving her with severe vocal problems and uncertainty about whether she could ever sing normally again.

For a performer whose career depended on an instantly recognizable voice, the damage struck at the center of her professional identity.

Then came the separation from Lange.

After fourteen years of marriage, the person beside her in both the studio and at home was suddenly leaving.

The Betrayal Came From Inside Their Circle

The breakup became more painful when Shania learned that Lange had become involved with Marie-Anne Thiébaud, a close friend and personal assistant.

Marie-Anne was someone Shania had trusted enough to discuss problems in her marriage with.

The person who eventually told Shania what he believed was happening was Marie-Anne’s husband, Frédéric Thiébaud.

Two marriages were breaking apart at the same time.

And two people were left trying to understand the same betrayal from opposite sides.

The Other Abandoned Spouse Became Her Closest Support

Shania and Frédéric initially leaned on each other because few other people could understand the situation as completely.

The friendship gradually became something more.

Shania divorced Lange in 2010.

In 2011, she married Frédéric.

It was an extraordinary reversal: the man who had helped her understand how her first marriage was ending became the person with whom she began rebuilding her private life.But her professional problem remained.

She still had to find her voice.

For the First Time, She Had to Make the Music Without Mutt

When Now arrived in 2017, fifteen years had passed since Shania’s previous studio album.More importantly, it was the first studio record of her major career made without Lange producing or co-writing beside her.

Shania wrote through the aftermath herself.

The album reached No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and country album chart, proving that the creative identity people had often associated with the Shania-Lange partnership could survive without it.

Later vocal surgery helped stabilize the damage caused by Lyme disease.

She Had to Rebuild Two Things at Once

The difficulty of Shania Twain’s comeback was not simply that she had gone years without releasing an album.

She had lost two foundations almost simultaneously.

One was emotional.

The other was physical.

The marriage that had shaped her biggest records was gone.

The voice that had sung them no longer behaved the same way.

Returning meant learning how to create without one and perform with a changed version of the other.

What Now Really Meant

Shania Twain’s biggest albums had been made beside the man she loved.

Her comeback required discovering whether the artist existed independently of that partnership.

By 2017, the answer was sitting on an album cover with one word for a title: Now.Not the marriage that had ended.

Not the voice she once had.

Not the career machinery she and Lange had built together.

What remained was Shania herself—writing again, singing differently, and proving that losing the two things most closely associated with her success did not mean losing the person who had created it.

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Alan Jackson spent ten years living with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease before explaining publicly why he was having trouble keeping his balance onstage. By the end of his touring career, he was using his farewell to help fund research into the condition. Diagnosed in 2011, Jackson had inherited the degenerative nerve disorder from his father, Eugene. His grandmother and older sister were also affected. As it weakened his lower legs and feet, moving around during concerts became more difficult. He disclosed the diagnosis on Today in September 2021, concerned that audiences might mistake his unsteadiness for drinking. He continued performing, launching Last Call: One More for the Road in 2022. The arena tour concluded in Milwaukee in May 2025. Along the way, he adapted: singing from a tall stool or using the microphone stand for support. Even as his fingers became less nimble, he kept signing cowboy hats and tossing them to fans near the stage. On June 27, 2026, more than 50,000 people gathered at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium for his final full-length concert. Jackson was 67. Luke Combs, Eric Church, Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Luke Bryan, Jon Pardi and Lee Ann Womack joined the celebration. The evening also supported the CMT Research Foundation. One dollar from each ticket went toward its work, with anonymous donors contributing another two dollars per seat. After decades of touring and 35 No. 1 country hits, Jackson stepped away from full-length concerts to spend more time in Tennessee with Denise, their three daughters and their grandchildren. His last stadium audience had helped support research into the disease that made leaving the road necessary. More below follows the final Last Call tour and the Nissan Stadium celebration, alongside one of Jackson’s classic performances.

Jerry Reed filled “Amos Moses” with things listeners weren’t supposed to believe. The one-armed poacher, the father who used his son as alligator bait, the sheriff who vanished in the swamp—all belonged to a tall tale. The law pursuing Amos, however, had a real reason to be there. When the record arrived in October 1970, alligator hunting was illegal in Louisiana. Reed had set his story roughly 45 minutes southeast of Thibodaux. Louisiana had closed its alligator season in 1962 after a steep population decline, and the ban remained in place. A limited legal hunt would not return until September 1972, when 59 hunters were permitted to participate in a single parish. The storyteller himself came from Georgia. Born in Atlanta in 1937, Reed spent seven childhood years in foster homes and orphanages and taught himself to thumb-pick guitar on a porch in a cotton mill village. By 1970, he was an established Nashville session musician, and Elvis Presley had recorded his songs. “Amos Moses” gave Reed a character as distinctive as his guitar playing. Country radio took the single to No. 16, while its bigger audience came through pop: it reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1971 and sold a million copies. No documented real-life Amos has emerged behind the story. Reed nevertheless kept the fictional poacher close. In 2005, when asked to choose three songs he could sing for the rest of his life, he named “Amos Moses” first.

Waylon Jennings arrived at the Ryman Auditorium in a wheelchair on July 3, 2001, to say goodbye to Chet Atkins. Diabetes had made walking difficult, but he had returned from Arizona to honor the producer who signed him—and with whom he had so often argued. Atkins brought Waylon to RCA in 1965 and produced his early hits. Their disagreements grew from the records themselves. Chet favored Nashville’s established session musicians; Waylon wanted to record with his own band and follow the sound he heard onstage. In 1972, Waylon secured creative control. The following year, he made Honky Tonk Heroes without Atkins. Nearly three decades later, those battles remained part of the friendship he remembered outside Chet’s funeral. Listed among the honorary pallbearers, Waylon called him a genius. He recalled arguments that left them furious with each other, followed by sessions that produced records he was proud of. He also told a local television reporter about an earlier moment, when he was new in Nashville. Faced with someone in the studio who doubted him, Chet had announced that he had found himself a star. Waylon and Jessi Colter had already sold their Nashville home and moved to Arizona. His health was deteriorating, and five months after the funeral, doctors amputated his left foot. He died at home on February 13, 2002, a little over seven months after Chet’s service. On that final visit to the Ryman, he had remembered both the man who challenged his musical choices and the man who believed in him before the hits arrived.

Before Toby Keith built OK Kids Korral, a grieving mother told him what it meant to arrive at a hospital with nothing—and find that someone had thought of what she would need. Her two-year-old daughter, the child of one of Toby’s bandmates, had been diagnosed with a tumor. Toby helped connect the family with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Doctors could not save her, but her mother never forgot the support she received: a room, meals at any hour, and gift cards for necessities, all without a bill. Toby wanted families in Oklahoma to have that kind of help. His foundation began supporting children with cancer in 2006. On January 7, 2014, it opened OK Kids Korral near the children’s hospital in Oklahoma City, offering free accommodation to families whose children were undergoing treatment. He described the place as “Ritz Carlton meets Disney World.” His golf classic raised more than $15 million to support it, and the Korral grew to welcome about 300 families each year. When Toby received his own stomach cancer diagnosis in 2021, he later said one of his early concerns was who would look after the Korral. He died in February 2024, at 62, having called it the best gift he ever gave the world. The idea had stayed with him because of one family’s experience. Years later, other parents could bring their children to Oklahoma City for treatment knowing that a place to stay—and help through the days ahead—was waiting for them.