Country’s power couple find harmony on 1st duets album
NASHVILLE — In a scene from their Showtime documentary, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill are rehearsing for their elaborate Soul2Soul tour, one of the biggest of their careers. Hill is onstage singing “Devil Calling Me Back,” while McGraw is at the bottom of an opening on the stage waiting to be lifted up on a platform to join her.
“So Faith is dancing and I am about ready to get on this (lift) and I hear a whack,” McGraw recounted later.
In the documentary, which comes out Friday, Hill plummeted backward into the hole in the stage, a 6-foot drop onto her back. McGraw cradled her under the stage, while the crew rushed to her aid. Luckily, she escaped serious injury and was back performing the next day.
“It was a scary, scary moment,” McGraw said. “If she had fallen on her ankle or fallen on her head, it would have broken her neck. If she had fallen any other way than she fell, it would have been a disaster.”
They took the song out of the set list, but Hill is not deterred. “I want to put that song back in,” Hill said. “It’s some of my favorite lighting in the show.”
After 21 years of marriage, the Grammy-winning power couple seems invincible at a new peak in their careers. They released their first ever duets album, “The Rest of Our Life,” featuring songs written by hit singer-songwriters in pop and country including Ed Sheeran, Meghan Trainor and Lori McKenna, and expanded their tour into 2018.
And even though they have had countless duets on their respective albums, this was the first time they literally looked into each other’s eyes as they were recording the album.
The album is a mix of their singing styles. Hill, who hasn’t put out an album of new music in nearly a decade, delivers flawlessly on the big power pop and soulful anthems, like “Love Me To Lie.” And McGraw brings it back home to his country rocker roots on songs like “Cowboy Lullaby.”