Staying Connected

It's easy to confuse the "Six Degrees of Separation" theory with that Kevin Bacon game, but try this one out.

What's the tie between country superstar Martina McBride and Steppenwolf singer John Kay?

In talking about "Six Degrees of Martina McBride," an ABC special airing Monday, McBride says she and her husband, John, used the '60s rocker for a connection when they first moved to Nashville in 1990.

McBride's husband was a sound engineer who had worked for Kay on the road. Kay had settled in Nashville ahead of them, "so that's one contact we had," she explains. "He led us to a publisher who listened to our demo tape and helped us get songs."

Six music hopefuls pursue similar routes in the special, attempting to get to McBride by finding people who know her. Though it echoes "American Idol" and "The Apprentice," the show is produced by ABC's news division and explores a theory that's been floated since 1929: that everyone in the world is connected within a chain of six people.

"It was a little over my head at first," McBride says when the concept was first presented to her. However, "It just sounded like a really great idea, something a little bit different from just being on a show and performing."

Now that McBride is an arena-level star -- singing today at the Mandalay Bay Events Center -- and Steppenwolf works the nostalgia circuit -- the band is due at Boulder Station on Aug. 17 -- have there ever been any awkward moments with Kay or delayed requests to return the favor?

"No, no, no, not at all," she says. "It doesn't matter what kind of venue you're playing. He's still John Kay and he still sings 'Born to Be Wild,' " she adds with a laugh over the phone. "That'll never change. He's amazing."

An appreciation for classic songs, and hits that can leapfrog genres, helped McBride to the top tier of country stardom. Crossover hits such as "Valentine" and "I Love You" blend right into a summer tour set list that includes both classic country hits she covered on her "Timeless" album and a just-for-fun encore of '80s rockers.

"I'm a huge fan of '70s and '80s pop music, and a lot of country music fans grew up just like me, listening to classic country music but also to pop radio," says the singer who turns 41 on Sunday. "Bands like Journey, Foreigner, Pat Benatar and Heart. You can sit there and agonize about what songs to do for an encore. I just decided to have fun with it."

McBride's career added a new milestone in recent months when two singles from her latest album, "Waking Up Laughing" -- "Anyway" and the current "How I Feel" -- also carried her first credits as co-songwriter.

Asked if Nashville requires its divas to get to a certain stature before they're "allowed" to write, McBride says most Nashville writers "love to write with artists, because they feel it will hopefully get a song on the record."

But, she adds, "In this situation, I was fortunate to write with a couple of my great friends, the Warren brothers (Brad and Brett), and there was never any pressure about whether it would end up on my record. We just got together to write."

"It was great to be able to have that kind of input at the very beginning stages," she adds. "A lot of times I'll hear a song and there'll be a couple of lines that don't do it for me. It's hard to go and change the lyric (though) sometimes I do. To really be able to tailor-make a song to fit me is great."

McBride says people have been asking if she feels closer to these two hits because she co-wrote them. But that doesn't take into account her active hand as a producer, dating back to her 1993 album "The Way That I Am."

"Honestly, I choose songs so carefully and really spend so much time with each song -- singing it and producing it and figuring out how I want to present it -- that I feel connected to all of them," she says.

"I don't really know that I feel any more connected to 'Anyway' or 'How I Feel' than I do to 'Wild Angels' or 'Independence Day' or 'Broken Wing' or anything I've recorded before. They all wind up feeling like mine in the end, which tells me I'm doing something right, if I can feel a personal connection to each song as if I had written it."