NAME: Beverley Mahood, but my friends call me "The Beav" because when I get mad, my two front teeth stick out like a beaver.

BIRTHPLACE: Northern Ireland, but I moved to Canada (London, Ontario) at the age of 6. I moved around over 20 times in my youth, which mean I was always the new kid in school. That turned into the subject of my first radio release, "Girl Out Of The Ordinary".

FIRST GIG: A show with Anne Murray at a Country Jamboree. I sang songs like "I'm Shirley Temple" and "Paper Roses". I had the big hair needed to cover these tunes. My hair also made my face look pretty natural on the TV screen when I began taping cutouts of myself to the television during Reba's music videos.

I met my producer, Rick Hutt, when I was 12. I sang him Patsy Cline's "Crazy" and Madonna's "Like a Virgin". I'm still not sure whether it was my voice or my song selection that drew him in , but he's been working with me ever since.

I always wanted to sing -- nothing else. This meant doing jingles and back-up vocals during my teen years and constantly asking for my chance to record a CD. For seven years, my producer kept saying, "real soon". Finally, at age 20, I was told I was ready to begin recording my first album. The catch was, I had to write the whole thing. I wrote 30 songs in 12 months -- a few great songs, some good ones, and a couple that only a writer could love.

My first radio single was a song called "Girl Out Of The Ordinary". The first time I heard it on the radio, I found myself driving 90 miles an hour from excitement by the time song had finished. It went top 10 in Canada and was co-written by Mark Dineen, who also co-wrote with me on a song we cut for the Lace album called " True Love (Never Goes Out Of Style)".

How does an artist who is just starting out manage to pay her bills? Not from royalty checks! I paid mine by hosting a Karaoke night in a bar in London, Ontario. In fact, one night I was on stage introducing some guy singing "Brown-Eyed Girl" when my first video, "Girl Out Of The Ordinary", was playing on CMT over the bar's big screen TV.

With the release of my first album, entitled "Girl Out Of The Ordinary", in 1998, I launched a marketing effort that involved over 150 shows. I loved it. One of my first summer festivals was with George Jones, and he and I sang "Rocking Chair" together. people loved him and his songs, and I learned a lot about performing from working with him. Fortunately, I also learned a lot of other things over the course of the tour, such as lots of useful tidbits about luggage.

I met David Foster in Nashville around that time, and his first words to me were, "... are you going to be in trouble." I wonder what he thinks now! David played one of my songs one of the first times we met. It took two weeks for me to write and only 30 seconds for him to learn. Sitting at the piano with David that day, singing the song, "True Love (Never Goes Out Of Style)", was probably the most memorable moment of my career to date.

I also act as the national celebrity spokesperson for Juvenile Diabetes in Canada. The mandate of the organization is to find a cure for this terrible disease which affects so many of our children today. Children seldom complain, so I will remain very involved in helping them be heard.