Toronto jazz singer and philanthropist Molly Johnson has been awarded a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for lifetime artistic achievement and also one of France’s highest honours, the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
The singer, songwriter and ex-radio host known for her powerful jazz vocals and her philanthropy received news of two formal accolades almost simultaneously: afor lifetime artistic achievement and also one of France’s highest honours, the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
“It took me almost a month to call them back,” Johnson revealed. “I gotta say I was depressed. It saddened me, initially, deeply, that here I am in this stage of my career and I still can’t really pay my bills. “And I look at David Bowie’s master class in retirement and death. That was a master class as an artist, what he did.
As far as the demand for her creative contributions are concerned, that question was favourably broached when Jeffrey Remedios, president of Johnson’s record label, Universal Music Canada, inquired as to whether she was considering making a new album to follow her 2021 holiday effort, “It“I looked at him and said, ‘You know I’m turning 63 this year,’” Johnson recalled. “And he said, ‘Yeah, you’ve still got a lot of stories to tell. We want to hear them.
Johnson’s entrance into showbiz came as a Mirvish baby, with she and brother Clark playing childhood roles in several Ed Mirvish-promoted theatrical productions, due to the impresario’s friendship with their parents John and Suzanne — the latter an activist who helped form the non-profit Canadian University Service Overseas , the international development organization that sends skilled Canadians to communities to advance gender equality and improve economic opportunities for youth on four...
“I sort of fell into the music business by default, because I wanted to be a choreographer. I like making stuff. And I didn’t think it was in the cards for me as a young girl at ballet school, so one day I strolled down Maitland Street and one of my big sister’s friends, Shawne Jackson, would play at the Colonial I’d sneak in the back, get up on the balcony and stare down.
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