„He offered it to me out of the blue,” says a baffled Martina McBride when asked how she was chosen as the opening act for Garth Brooks' 1992 tour. “I have no idea why.”

Anyone who listens to her debut album, The Time Has Come, won't have a hard time realizing that Garth knew what he was doing. with vocals reminiscent of Linda Ronstadt's, Martina is one of country's most powerful new stylists. That she looks as good as she sings doesn't hurt, either.

Her style and her looks are matched by her song-choosing sensibility. “You have three minutes to say something,” she says, “so you find songs that will reach people.”

To prove her point, Martina listened to more than 2,500 songs to find the perfect ones for her album. “When I was looking for material, I went in and said, `No wimpy woman songs. No doormat songs. Play me songs that you think only guys can sing. Sometimes, a woman singing that same lyric can give it a real strength,'” she says.

That's what Martina felt happened with the song “Cheap Whiskey”. “Everybody was skeptical about my doing it,” she says, “but I knew that song had something that I wanted to say. Now, `Cheap Whiskey' is one of my favourite things on the album.”

Her strong sense of self comes from years of performing. She may be the new kid on the block at RCA, but the Sharon, Kansas, native has been onstage since she was eight, playing keyboards and singing in her dad's band.

After high school, Martina played with bands in Kansas clubs. In Wichita, she met and married John McBride, who owned a sound company. They moved to Nashville in January 1990, and John's company went on the road with Charlie Daniels, Ricky Van Shelton, finally, Garth Brooks, where Martina joined him, selling tour T-shirts. In between gigs, she sang demos for publishing companies.

When a friend mentioned that RCA was looking for a female artist, the couple went into action. “RCA has a policy against taking unsolicited material,” she says with a grin “so John and I put a demo tape in a big purple envelope and wrote `Requested Material' on it. It somehow got through, and three weeks later, we got a call.

“I really would like to do some good in the world with my music,” says Martina, “to create some ripple effect.” If Garth can pick talent like he can pick songs, Martina won't be a ripple; she'll be a tidal wave.