CBC News Posted: April 12, 2012
Saint John-born singer Catherine McKinnon will receive the lifetime achievement award at the East Coast Music Awards in Moncton this weekend.
McKinnon, who spent much of her life in Halifax, where she became a star on the 1960s CBC television show Singalong Jubilee, says she always loved singing.
“I can just always remember that I always wanted to sing, that much I know for sure,” she told CBC News.
“I know when I was little, people would say, ‘What are you going to be when you grow up?’ And my first answer was, ‘I'm going to be a singer, an actor, a nurse, and Barbara Ann Scott.’”
McKinnon says she owes her successful career to the lifetime achievement award’s namesake, Helen Creighton – particularly for the popular folk song Farewell to Nova Scotia, which was part of Creighton’s collection.
Singalong Jubilee’s producer initially told McKinnon she couldn’t sing the song on the show because it was a man’s song.
But a couple of weeks later, when another number wasn’t working, the producer had a change of heart that changed McKinnon’s life.
“Apparently the first time that I did it, the switchboard lit up and people wanted to know what it was about and in the first week, we got 5,000 pieces of mail and that was unheard of,” she said.
The song was such a hit on the show that it became part of the closer the following season.
McKinnon says she has a painting of Creighton hanging in her music room.
“And I look at her every day for what she gave all of us and what she gave me and I am just so blessed.
McKinnon will receive the Dr. Helen Creighton Lifetime Achievement Award as part of the Gala ECMA show Sunday night at Casino New Brunswick.
The award recognizes an individual or individuals who have had a profound and lasting effect on the East Coast music industry.
Two other honorary award recipients at this year’s ECMAs include Richard Gibson, who will be presented the Musician’s Achievement Award, and Brent Staeben will get the Industry Builder Award.
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