Janie Fricke

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The Day That Changed My Life: More Stars Talk

From answered prayers and rehab to car crashes, health scares and second chances, country’s top stars reveal their life-altering stories.

JANIE FRICKIE

I was adamant that I wanted to try being a studio singer. So I auditioned at a talent contest in Los Angeles one night at the Palomino Club, just for the fun of it. And I won the contest and got the business card of Tom Collins, a music industry person from Nashville who happened to be sitting out there that night. That one business card is what got me into the whole studio scene in Nashville. Later on when I decided to move to Nashville, I called him and he let me be his receptionist and I answered the telephone at his company. Then I started meeting people and telling them I wanted to do sessions and sing backup. And that’s how the whole thing started. So you never know who you’re going to meet who will ultimately lead you where you’re meant to be.

TIM MCGRAW

Tim’s life changed forever when, at age 11, he found out major league pitcher Tug McGraw was his biological father and not Horace Smith, the man who’d married Tim’s mom when he was 7 months old. Here’s how Tim told the story to CNN’s Larry King in 2002:

“My mother used to keep Christmas presents in her closet. I was going through the closet looking for Christmas presents. I ran across my birth certificate. That's how I found out. I called my mom at work, and of course, she came immediately home. We drove around for a long time and she explained everything to me.”

While Tug was reluctant to acknowledge Tim as his son for several years, eventually the two had a meeting when Tim was 18 and began to build a loving relationship. 

JEFF COOK

I had gastric bypass surgery about three years ago, four days before I turned 56. I knew there was diabetes in my daddy’s side of the family. And I knew that it was just probably a matter of time, after being on the road and eating badly—eating the wrong kinds of food, eating at the wrong time of day. Bearing all that in mind, I knew that diabetes was just a matter of time.

And I got to a point where I just didn’t feel good, didn’t have energy to do stuff. And I thought, “Well, it’s time to check into this.” And I felt like, at that point in time, they’d come far enough with the research and perfecting that operation that it was time for me to try it.

I truly believe that this saved my life, at some point. There were the obvious medical things benefits. But I also feel better about myself. And, obviously, I look better because there was a time you’d never associate fashion show and Jeff Cook in the same sentence. I really think I put years on my life, barring any unforeseen accidents.

JIMMY WAYNE

[The following contains excerpts from Jimmy’s amazing biography]

Jimmy Wayne has weathered emotional abuse and real violence. He has lived in the open and subsisted on his wits in order to eat from day to day. He passed his early years shuttling with his sister, Patricia, back and forth from their mother to the homes of other families to foster homes. When in their mother’s custody, they moved constantly, for reasons that were seldom clear to Jimmy. By the time he was 12, his mother was in prison and he was living with his grandfather. Jimmy earned money for her picking blackberries—two dollars per gallon—or digging golf balls out of the bushes. He also collected marijuana seeds from local dealers, mixed them with dried tomato leaves, rolled it all up and sold “joints” to unsuspecting customers.

Eventually, something led Jimmy to a house he’d passed by a hundred times. For some reason on this day he walked through the door of a wood shop next to the house and asked the old man inside if he could do some work for him. “Ask the boss,” the man replied, pointing toward his wife, who then hired Jimmy to mow their lawn every couple of weeks. The summer wound down, and one day they invited him inside and made him an unexpected offer.

Their names were Russell and Beatrice Costner. “I’d never shared anything about my life with them,” Jimmy says, “but they invited me to move into a vacant bedroom they had. Their only conditions were that I cut my hair and go to church with them each week. I believe with all my heart that God was working through them.”

But just two months after Jimmy’s arrival, Russell died. Jimmy and Bea then bonded as a family of two. Jimmy attended school, never missing a day, and worked at the local textile mill. During the six years they had together before Bea also passed away, Jimmy’s world turned inside out—light spilled into spaces once shrouded by darkness.

Beatrice encouraged his musical aspirations and even went to hear him when he played in a band called Fantasyche. “Beatrice went to every single show I sang at; she was very supportive. I had the love for music when I moved in there, but I didn’t start taking it seriously until then.”

For more on the stars’ life-changing days, check out the July 14 issue of Country Weekly.

• June 30, 2008
• story by David Scarlett
• photo courtesy WEBSTER PR

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