Tuning In To Shania Twain

Wednesday night, Shania Twain's first network TV special airs on CBS. Shania Twain's Winter Break also will feature guest appearances by Elton John and the Backstreet Boys.

The singer-songwriter says she is especially excited about Elton John's appearance, calling him "my absolute favorite of all times forever... He's got so much soul."

And the music of the Backstreet Boys has special meaning for her, because she frequently listened to it before going onstage during her concert tour.

"I put them on, because it warms my voice up, because there's so many different vocal things going on," says Twain. "And I just dance and rock the [tour] bus for 20 minutes before I go onstage."

Twain picked up two trophies at last month's Grammy Awards ceremony for You're Still the One, which won as best country song for Twain and husband Robert John "Mutt" Lange, and as female country vocal performance for Twain.

While she's riding the wave of success now, success was a long time coming, she said in a recent interview with CBS This Morning Co-Anchor Mark McEwen. When she was 8 years old, Twain was singing at local nightclubs. Her childhood wasn't easy. Her family was poor and, when she was 21, her mother and stepfather were killed in an auto accident, leaving Twain to raise her siblings.

Asked if life was as bleak and as tough as it sounds like it was, Twain replies, "Yeah. It was... Our electricity sometimes would get shut off. And there were a lot of times we didn't have food. And sometimes we couldn't even afford to go to the laundromat. A lot of times, I was doing laundry in the tub."

While she says she doesn't want anyone to feel sorry for her or to get the impression that her family was "always dirt, dirt poor," she adds, "I also don't want them to get the impression that I'm in any way embellishing this rags-to-riches story."

While many young girls dream of someday becoming a star, Twain says her fantasy was to become Stevie Wonder's backup singer.

"I thought that would make me rich. And it probably would have made me rich," she recalls. "For some reason, I didn't dream of being him. I didn't dream of being [a] star."

When she was a child, she defined a rich person as "anyone who lived in a brick house and could afford to eat roast beef. And ironically now, I'm a vegetarian. I don't eat roast beef anyway."