Tenille Arts

Tenille Jade Dakota Arts grew up around a family wheat farm in the small prairie town of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada. She was singing all the time from a young age. "My mom has a video of me on my first birthday singing instead of blowing out my candles, and in the video she says, 'All she wants to do is sing,'" she told Toast Life. "I was always walking around the house making up songs, so it was just a very natural thing for me."

A neighbor first tipped off her mom after hearing 8-year-old Tenille belting Shania Twain's "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" in the backyard; soon she was in piano and voice lessons.

Her parents, Kevin and Glenda Arts, nurtured her talent with music lessons, festival trips and radio talent contests. Looking back, Arts credits those early supporters - and the discipline of life on a Saskatchewan wheat farm - for giving her the drive she would later carry to Nashville.