George Canyon - My Country

My Country

An Incredible Life Story.

Johnny Reid, multiplatinumselling and Juno and CCMA Awardwinning artist

George Canyon

Platinum-Selling and Juno and CCMA AwardWinning Country Musician

Simon & Schuster Canada

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Copyright 2022 by George Canyon

All photos courtesy of the author unless otherwise specified. Reasonable efforts have been made to contact copyright holders for permission and give credit. If additional information is provided, changes may be made to future printings.

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This Simon & Schuster Canada edition November 2022

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Cover photograph by Dainya Sapergia Photography

Cover design by Karen Corbin Hughes

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: My country / George Canyon

Names: Canyon, George, author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2022026726X | Canadiana (ebook) 20220267383 | ISBN 9781982196882 (softcover) | ISBN 9781982196899 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Canyon, George. | LCSH: SingersCanadaBiography. | LCSH: Country musiciansCanadaBiography. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.

Classification: LCC ML420.C135 A3 2022 | DDC 782.421642092dc23

ISBN 978-1-9821-9688-2

ISBN 978-1-9821-9689-9 (ebook)

To my wife, Jennifer: my best friend, the love of my life, and my rock. I would be completely lost without you.

To my children, for understanding why Dad wasnt there so many times, and for supporting and loving me anyway.

To my mom and dad, who laid the foundations of my faith, and the love of my country.

And last but not least, to all of my family, my friends, and my fans: thank you for being a part of this journey called life, and for your support through all the years.

I t was May 1, 2004, and I was standing underneath the blinding lights of the hallowed Grand Ole Opry theatre in front of a screaming, sold-out crowdnot to mention millions of viewers on TVwaiting to hear the sentence that would change my life.

It was the final night of Nashville Star, a reality show for country musicians in its second season. Id spent the last five months of my life here, in the heart of the country music industry, and now my mind flashed back to all the steps along the way that had brought me to this moment: not just the nerve-racking auditions in Calgary and Philadelphia, but also the decade-plus Id spent on the road touring dive bars and music joints across Canada. Over the years, I had seen just about every inch of this great country of ours as I tried to scrape together a music career after I abandoned a promising future in medicinea decision that gave my loving parents back home in Nova Scotia no shortage of heartache and worry.

Somehow, Id made it onto Nashville Star as its only Canadian contestant, then survived all eight eliminations along the way. Thats how I ended up here, waiting to see which name the announcer was going to call out as the winner: Brad Cotter, Matt Lindahl, or me. One of us was going to get a record deal with Sony, and from there the path to stardom wasnt difficult to imagine. The other two? Well, lets just say the future was a lot hazier.

Of course, in TV, they know to milk a moment like that for all its worth. So just as it seemed they were finally about to announce the winner, the cameras cut to one last commercial break.

I let out a breath. Id stood before a lot of crowds by that point in my career, but I never felt so excitedor so queasyin front of an audience as I did that evening in Nashville. The whole show had been a surreal experience for me. As a kid growing up in little Pictou County, Nova Scotia, my dreams didnt involve playing music at all. But a surprise trip to the hospital when I was fourteen changed my lifes trajectory, and suddenly I had to reckon with the fact that nothing was going to go the way Id imagined it would.

Back then, I could never have dreamed that one day Id find myself here, standing on one of the most famous stages in the world. Or that Id have already worked out a deal with one of country musics best managers, who had big plans of his own for my future. Or that Id have a beautiful wife and two amazing kids to cheer me on from back home in Canada.

As the cameras turned back on, I found myself starting to giggle. Sure, I had no idea what was about to happen, or where my future might lead me. But Id already dealt with so much uncertainty in my life, and Id always tried to face it with a smile and a sense of humour. Why should a moment like this be any different?

I gave Brad and Matt one last nod of solidarity, then turned to the judges and waited for their verdict. No matter what was about to happen, I was ready for it.

S omeone asked me how old I was when I first started playing music. I have vivid memories of sitting around the kitchen table as a little kid, listening to my mother sing while my grandpa played the guitar. I knew Danny Boy from hearing it on records and on the radio, but it was incredible to see it being played right in front of me. It triggered something inside me, and soon enough I convinced my parents to give me an old acoustic guitar. They taught me three chords, and I was off to the races. Every morning I sat on our old green couch and practiced my guitar until the second I had to run down and catch the bus to school. Then, when I got back home again, Id grab a snack and then get right back to it. I took to that guitar like a fish takes to water.

But music wasnt my first love. When I was five years oldI remember it like it was yesterdayI wanted nothing more than to be an astronaut.

Its kind of strange. A lot of people wonder if its something I made up, or a faulty memory or something, given the different paths life would eventually take me down. But its the truth. As far back as I can remember, I wanted to ride an Apollo rocket all the way to the moon.

Im not sure where the idea came from. Its not like my family had any experience with zero gravity. My dad was the chief technologist at the local hospital, and my mom worked at a lawyers office. They had good jobs and were saving up to build a house, but for the first few years of my life, my parents, my two younger sisters, Cynthia and Mylissa, and I lived in a single-wide trailer in the middle of rural Nova Scotia. I remember sitting in that trailer, watching replays of the 1969 lunar landing on our old black-and-white TV, and dreaming about a life in the stars. Seeing those images of the earth from outer space really put things in perspective and made me realize there was way more to the universe than just us humans.