9 Things to Know About Martina McBride

Martina McBride celebrates her birthday on July 29, and while she remains one of the most well-known women in country music, McBride has since let fans in on some of her other passions including cooking and her philanthropic efforts.

After releasing her first studio album in 1992, McBride went on to develop her signature pop-country style, earning multiple number one singles and selling over 14 million albums. She’s released 13 studio albums and numerous compilation albums and been named the CMA Female Vocalist of the Year four times and the ACM Top Female Vocalist three times. This year, she appeared on an episode of Songland and released the song “Girls Like Me.”

Read on to learn more about McBride.

She sold t-shirts for Garth Brooks

After moving to Nashville, McBride’s husband, sound engineer John McBride, joined Garth Brooks’ sound crew and eventually became his concert production manager. McBride would sometimes join her husband on the road and sell Brooks’ merchandise, impressing the country icon with her personality and talent. She impressed him so much that he told her she had a spot as his opening act provided she secure a record deal, which she did after her husband helped her produce her demo tape.

She has three siblings

McBride comes from a family of four siblings and has two brothers, Martin and Steve, and a sister, Gina. Martin and Steve now play in her band as of 2017. Her husband also occasionally helps out behind the sound board and has worked on several of his wife’s albums.

She grew up on a dairy farm

McBride’s parents, Daryl and Jeanne Schiff, owned a dairy farm in Sharon, Kansas. When she was young, McBride worked on the farm and was exposed to music from an early age when her dad would play country music. When she was six years old, McBride began performing her dad’s country-rock band, The Schiffters, first singing and eventually playing keyboards as well. Her dad led the band, Martin played guitar and her mom would work the soundboard, with the group performing at weddings, supper clubs and BYOB dances. McBride stayed in the band until she graduated from high school in 1984.

She fronted a rock band

After dropping out of junior college after one semester, McBride worked at a Dairy Queen and performed with a rock band named the Penetrators.

“I was so naive,” she told PEOPLE. “I thought, ‘That sounds like a good name!’ We’d ride around in this van with a hole in the bottom, eating sandwiches and showing up to sing Pat Benatar songs.” Though they “made no money,” McBride “wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.”

She was in an episode of ‘Baywatch’

The Kansas native appeared on the small screen in a 1994 episode of Baywatch titled “Western Exposure,” playing a character named Sadie Jennings. Ten years later, she appeared on Sesame Street, showing up at the famed address in 2004.

She doesn’t really like turkey

McBride and her family aren’t huge fans of turkey, so because of this, her holiday meals usually include pot roast instead. “We spend our Thanksgiving at home,” she shared with Fox News. “We have also gone to family in Kansas, back to my husband’s brother’s house, so we’ve done a little bit of both.”

The singer added that her oldest daughter loves to cook and that they spend a lot of time in the kitchen together.

She has released two cookbooks

Along with singing, McBride also loves to cook, having released two cookbooks. Her first, Around the Table: Recipes and Inspiration for Gatherings Throughout the Year, was released in 2014 and she followed that with Martina’s Kitchen Mix: My Recipe Playlist for Real Life in 2018.

“It’s really just about how I’m cooking now,” she told The Boot of her second book. “I’m not a cooking show; I’m a home cook. I’m not a trained chef. So, for me, the idea behind the new book was more just about showing people how I cook now, in my own kitchen, and how it’s grown and changed over the last couple stages of life.”

She met her husband while looking for rehearsal space

McBride met her sound engineer husband while she was searching for a rehearsal space for herself and a group of musicians, finding a spot in a warehouse John was living in that the group rented out. Ultimately, that musical venture failed to pan out when the group “wouldn’t rehearse.”

“Here I was, crying on his shoulder about my band not coming together, and I thought, ‘I’m in love with this guy,” McBride recalled to PEOPLE. “This is crazy. He lives in a warehouse.’” The couple married in 1998 and shares three daughters, Delaney, Emma and Ava.

Her favorite song to perform is ‘Broken Wing’

As the result of a decades-long career, McBride has dozens of songs to choose from when it comes time to perform, though she previously told Babble that her favorite one to sing live is “Broken Wing,” which details a woman breaking free from an abusive relationship.

“The important thing for me, though, is that the crowd really loves it,” she said. “I can feel the connection. The fact that I’m singing what they came to hear or that the song means something to them makes it more special.”