Despite all this success, McBride says she will never forget the first time she heard one of her own recordings on the radio. The year was 1992, after she got her record deal with RCA Nashville, and the song was her debut single, "The Time Has Come."

"I was in Nashville," McBride told Radio.com recently. "I was living in a little suburb called Donelson, it's out by the airport. Somebody had told me that they have a [radio] show, that I believe originated in Kentucky, but we could hear it in Nashville, called Newest from Nashville. They said, 'We heard your song!' They played my first single, it was called 'The Time Has Come.'"

When McBride was told her music was being played on the station, she and her husband (Blackbird Studio owner John McBride) tuned in. "So John and I, we sit at our kitchen table. We had a little boombox, and we listened. And they played it about 7:30, and it was just like, 'Wow, that's really happening! I have an album out and a single and it's on the radio. It's amazing.'"