| School Daze I'd applied to Belmont University and I went there for a year and a half...My parents had to sell a car so I could go to school the first year, one of the cars. It always sounds so sad, but it's the truth. I feel really bad about it still, but they assure me it was no big deal. But to me, that was a big deal. Your mom and dad giving up a vehicle that they used, and it was a great one, too--a gray Taurus--(so that I could) go to school. So, there's a little pressure ther on my part, thinking, 'Now I've really got to make it. My parents sold a car.' So, I got to school and the first day I remember was being with my parents on the college campus for orientation day...I remember my dad and my mom being so proud of me, just being at college...They are just so proud of me and that made me feel great, but I told my mom, I said, 'You know what? I'm not supposed to be here.' They had paid the tuition, which was astronomical, and I olooked at them and said, 'I'm not supposed to be in school. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. I want to go home.' The next thing we had to go to was the orientation with the president of the school. We walk in, the students had to sit on one side fo the auditorium and the others side was parents. And I'm sick inside, because I don't want to be there. It's not Nashville. It's school. The first thing the president said was, "I know that you don't feel like you should be here." And I look up at him and he said, "But you belong here." And it totally went away-the feeling went away. My mom said to me later, "Thank God that you stayed. I'm so glad he gave that speech, because you wouldn't have stayed. You were determined to leave." So I stayed in school, but after about a year and a half, I knew that I was gonna to have to get loans and be in debt and all that stuff. And that's not what I wanted to do. A degree is very important to me. I realized I wanted to be in public relations. And I knew, for plan B, if it wasn't music, I knew where I would go to get a degree and how I would get it and what it would be. So, I called my parents. I said, 'I've got to leave school. I've got to try to pursue this career.' At Belmont, I didn't tell many people I sang. Belmont's a great school, but it wasn't the way for me to become a singer. It works for some people. I knew that wasn't it. My parents said, 'Ok, if that's what you need to do, then we'll support that.' |
| More Cyndi Bio! |
| Thursday, August 23, 2001 Cyndi's World a living dream Country singer's debut a chart-climber By JANE STEVENSON -- Toronto Sun Good genes certainly haven't hurt the burgeoning career of country music newcomer Cyndi Thomson. Just get a load of the 24 year-old Tifton, Ga native's pretty face staring out from the cover of her southern-drenched debut album, My World. It was realeased three weeks ago with some buzz because of her chart-climbing single, What I Really Meant To Say. Thomson's already being compared to such country music glamour-pusses as Shania Twain, Faith Hill and the Dixie Chicks. "Some people tell me that this is as big as Shania and Faith, I've heard that," says Thomson, relaxing with a glass of wine over lunch recently in Toronto, the day after performing an acoustic showcase at the Top O' The Senator. "I mean, I always laugh because who knows what tomorrow brings? I have no idea. I just know I'm just so fortunate to be able to do this now, and this isn't a BS answer, this is the truth." Thomson's road to a recording contract began somewhat strangely. While waitressing in Nashville, she was hired as one of two models to shave their legs in two bathtubs during the release party for Deana Carter's Did I Shave My Legs For This? "Yeah, we hung our legs out the tubs and shave them for, like, three hours," said Thomson, whose sound is now being compared to Carter's. "I was wearing a towel with this bathing suit underneath. It was a little sexy, obviously, but it wasn't, like, low enough to the ground where it was, like, 'look at our girls!' like a strip club would have 'em. It was up high and we were atmoshere, that's what we were." It was the other leg shaver who eventually ended up introducing Thomson to her songwriting partner and producer Tommy Lee James. Since then, Thomson has sung two songs at the Grand Ole Opry -- "I had an out-of-body experience and came back to jello legs," she reports -- and opened on four dates for her childhood idol, Trisha Yearwood. She's next opening for Jo Dee Messina. The Thomson-Yearwood connection goes back a long way. Thomson was 13 years old when she first heard Yearwood sing "She's in Love With the Boy" and decided she wanted to be a country music singer. So to be finally opening for Trisha Yearwood was overwhelming. "I wish you could read my journal because I could not stop writing about that night -- I just kept writing and writing and writing," says Thomson. "I remember when I heard her singing for her sound check. I ran as fast as I could to the stage door, and as soon as I hit the door, I walked real cool, like, 'no big deal. It's Trisha Yearwood.' "And I got outside to where the venue's seats were, it was the middle of the day, and I just sat there and just watched her and couldn't believe my eyes. And I just started crying." Now before you go thinking that Thomson's some wuss, she has a pretty good tale to tell about actually meeting Yearwood for the first time when she was seventeen. Thomson, who skipped school that day, went to see Yearwood at an autograph at an Atlanta mall. "In front of my mom and me were this really poor family -- they were really poor and dirty. They had three children who didn't have any shoes. So when it became their turn to step up to the stage to meet Trisha, she didn't hesitate one minute with those children. She just picked them up and loved them and their little faces were just so bright. because it looked like they felt invincible and loved at the same time. Trisha did too. She just loved those people. I looked at mom and I was like, 'I don't need to meet her because I just did'." |
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