One of Canada's brightest country stars is orbiting into Prince George next week.
George Canyon was a sensation all over the world for going deep on the Nashville Star program in 2004. His song My Name was one of those ubiquitous tunes that owned the airwaves and hearts of listeners in 2005. He breathed new creative life into the Johnny Cash gem Ring Of Fire and brought a country spark to the Crowded House pop '80s hit Better Be Home Soon.
His list of hit singles is more than a dozen titles long, some of them among the best-loved Canadian songs in the genre. Superstars Richard Marx and Kenny Rogers got together to write songs, one day, and worked one up especially for Canyon, so beloved is he within the country music industry.
But audiences haven't seen much of Canyon in the past five years. Or rather, he's been seen all over the place but heard on the radio. With his athletic build and chiseled features, the pure cowboy handsomeness that Nashville Star audiences swooned over, Canyon found himself on the receiving end of film projects. A lot of film projects. Soon he was doing TV shows and movies with the likes of The Trailer Park Boys, Donald Sutherland, Dean Cain, Christian Slater and more.
It was exciting and new creative adventures, in amongst being a husband and father and rancher in Alberta. It was also a much needed break from the mental pressure of songwriting and physical pressure of touring. But he is back with a new package of songs he entitled I Got This.
It was fair to ask, when he called The Citizen from his ranch office, if the years of creative departures had caused any stylistic departures along the way.
"Yes and no, and that's a loaded answer," he said with one of his frequent and affable chuckles. "I grew up on everything, in Nova Scotia, in fact I didn't even recognize styles of music until I was a teenager. I just knew music as music. It's still me. I remember a few years back I was writing with Chad Kroeger of Nickelback, we took some time to do that, and he told me he'd written this song but he really felt it was a country song, but when he sang it, it sounded to him like rock. So I'd sing a bit of their rock songs, and it would sound like a country song. He'd sing a bit of my stuff and it would sound like a rock song. It was hilarious. I remember him and I having that laugh. I look on that and think yeah, whatever song I sing on, it's going to be a country song, there's no way around that."
The time off from active focus on his own musical career (he did a lot of producing and engineering for other acts, however, he is well trained in those studio arts) did give him a fresh energy lately, and that is evident in the new songs, he said.
"I wasn't really paying attention to my own music. So for the past two years, what we did was, go back to look at what it was that got me into the music business in the first place, finding the fun in music. So, a departure? Not really. Fresh and new? Yeah."
Canyon has gone to great lengths to be a father. The entertainment industry can easily turn well-intentioned parents into part-time family figures, but he insisted on keeping home ahead of the equation.
The mentality of it seeped into his music career, too. Even though he is only in his mid-40s, with ages of productive music and acting ahead of him, he has become sought-after by younger musicians who want little more from him than some wise words. He has been there and done that, and just about every level of show-biz, but he is also a safe man to talk with, to those on the jittery front fringes of their career.
And Canyon recognizes the responsibility of that gift.
Young stars like Jordan McIntosh and Brett Kissel have been artists he's happily taken under his wing. Part of the lesson he hopes to impart through simply answering the phone when they call, is do that, be there for others, share what you know, and embrace the common values that apply as much to a young punk band as to a DJ as to a country singer.
"That's what our industry is really about. It's what we should be doing all the time: talking to each other, supporting each other. Quit competing. Music is not about competing," he said, but with that affable chuckle again spotting his own irony, as a Nashville Star competitor and the winner of many prestigious awards.
To make up for the obvious good-natured discrepancy, Canyon extends his volunteerism and leadership out into the public realm as well. He is a national spokesperson for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and a colonel commandant of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, among other ways of giving back.
His towering presence as a leader, a friend, and a performer will be on personal display at Cariboo House / Heartbreakers on Feb. 12. Call 250-562-2441 for ticket information.
