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Carrie Underwood credits legendary country star Martina McBride with teaching her how to sing, she said as she rewatched her McBride cover from her run as an American Idol contestant in 2005.
Underwood went on to win the show’s fourth season, and now, 20 years later, she returned to Idol as a judge for the first time. She’s marking the milestone moment with the Idol To Icon online series, reminiscing on some of her most memorable moments on the show. In the latest episode that premiered on Thursday (May 1), the Grammy-winning country artist relived her performance of McBride’s “Independence Day” when she made the Top 10 in the competition.
Underwood said she’d performed “Independence Day” a few times on Idol, including during filming in her hometown and at her very first audition, before setting foot in front of the cameras.
“She [McBride] was somebody that, you know, I looked up to (and) still look up to,” Underwood said in the newest Idol To Icon installment before she watched her performance (and commented on her dramatic hairstyle again). “I would want to sing her songs because they were difficult. So, in a lot of ways she kind of taught me how to sing because I was trying to sing her big songs with her big voice. But my very first audition before I got in front of the cameras, I sang one of her songs. …If I had picked a different song or a different artist, everything might’ve ended up different.”
Underwood previously shared what she remembers about her audition in front of then-judges Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell. She chose to sing Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” acknowledging she “knew going into my Idol auditions that Simon was not a fan of country music. …That did affect my song choice in my audition because I thought maybe if I sing ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me,’ it would kind of still be me, and a song that I knew and loved.” She noted during the audition, however, that McBride is one of her favorite artists.
Underwood went on to share her reaction to the judges’ feedback to her “Independence Day” performance, read her journal entry from that night in 2005, reflect on the career path she would’ve taken if she didn’t pursue music, and comment on “the ‘it’ factor” she’s looking for in the contestants now. Watch the full episode here: