Five for Fighting and Edwin McCain

Edwin McCain was born in Greenville, South Carolina, where he still lives. "My sister is a great singer, my dad played guitar and sax in swing bands in college, my mom plays piano. They're all good musicians. When I was young, my dad made me promise to never be a musician. He should have said never be an accountant. He sealed my fate by telling me not to do something."   McCain's debut, Honor Among Thieves, captured his acoustic based blend of folk, pop and soul accented by some funky electric guitar, a horn section and backing singers. It did well, but nothing could have prepared him for the frenzy that was created by his second outing, Misguided Roses. "We did it as a band in the basement of a friend's house in Nashville, living together and playing to a DAT recorder. The label wasn't checking on us, so we made a quirky record. It turned out to be a good move." The popular WB TV show "Dawson's Creek" played "I'll Be", one of the album's most romantic ballads, on an episode of the show and sent McCain's career into overdrive. Misguided Roses went Gold; the song went Top 10 and was voted one of The Greatest Love Songs Of All Time by VH1. He was also invited to sing the song on Dr. Phil's syndicated show in 2005 after Dr. Phil's audience had voted it their favorite wedding song. "You can't disagree with having a hit like that. It still gets about 2,000 spins a week. It's like having a winning lottery ticket. The benefits of a hit like that lets us keep playing the music we want to play."   Atlantic wanted McCain to stick to the winning formula. His next album, Messenger, featured "I Could Not Ask For More," a tune by a Dianne Warren - writer of hits for Elton John, Cher and Chicago. The song hit, but McCain wasn't satisfied with the album. "They didn't trust my writing, so they got Dianne to write me a song, and put it on the Message In A Bottle soundtrack, and while it was a success, I didn't enjoy the label dictating what we had to do as opposed to us doing wha