{"id":1817526,"date":"2026-07-08T02:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T02:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/?p=1817526"},"modified":"2026-07-08T02:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T02:21:14","slug":"molly-johnson-interview-new-album-talk-to-me-canadian-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/molly-johnson-interview-new-album-talk-to-me-canadian-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Molly Johnson Interview: New Album Talk to Me & Canadian Music"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It doesn\u2019t matter where you are or what you\u2019re doing when you reach the last track on Molly Johnson\u2019s new album,<\/span> Talk to Me<\/span><\/i> \u2013 you have to stop, breathe it in and feel it. The twangy guitar comes first, then the harmonica \u2013 this does not sound like a jazzy Johnson song, but just wait \u2013\u00a0 then the recognizable tenor of Blue Rodeo frontman Jim Cuddy slides in, \u201cDoes your mother tell you things \/ long, long when I\u2019m gone \/ Who you talkin to \/ does she tell you I\u2019m the one?\u201d Wait a beat for Johnson\u2019s signature smokey timbre, \u201cThe drive-in\u2019s rained out \/ the weatherman wet fingers the sky \/ <\/span>He pokes it out, he pulls it in \/ He don\u2019t know why.<\/span>\u201d And now we\u2019re wide awake to this cover of The Tragically Hip\u2019s <\/span>Long Time Running<\/span><\/i>. Cue the frisson and the heart-pounding pride \u2013 not to mention that lingering sadness every time we think of Gord Downie. \u201cElbows up people,\u201d says Johnson. \u201cI\u2019m an uber Canadian.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

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But it\u2019s not just the fact that Johnson, Cuddy\u2019s band or The Hip all hail from the same country; to me, and other younger Gen Xers, it\u2019s that they define a specific moment of our MuchMusic-infused youth. In 1987, Johnson\u2019s rock band Alta Moda had released its self-titled debut album and, in a music video for the single <\/span>Notown (In Particular)<\/span><\/i>,<\/span> she could be seen clutching a bouquet of red roses, walking through an abandoned drive-in theatre singing: \u201cSeems like an old song \/ seems like a very small town \/ seems like a closed mind \/ no city ain\u2019t no town at all.\u201d The words cut to the core of my desire to one day move to Toronto, and out of the southwestern Ontario sticks. Blue Rodeo\u2019s first video arrived around the same time, with Cuddy really given\u2019er on that yearning chorus, \u201cOh, you got to try, try, try\u201d about a love that, at 14, I was very far from understanding. Also dropping in 1987: The Tragically Hip\u2019s first recording \u2013 a self-titled EP \u2013 and video, <\/span>Small Town Bringdown<\/span><\/i>. While they didn\u2019t get as much play as the above bands, the Hip was only two years away from <\/span>Blow at High Dough<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>New Orleans Is Sinking<\/span><\/i>. And if you happened to be attending a small-town high school, these would be the songs that brought all the cliques together \u2013 hell, even your parents listened to them \u2013 foreshadowing the eventual crowning of Canada\u2019s band.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201c<\/span>I\u2019ve sung with Blue Rodeo a bunch of times. But this one with Jim was special. And it being The Hip tune, we were very careful.\u201d<\/span><\/h2>\n
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With eight musicians in the studio to record <\/span>Long Time Running<\/span><\/i>, they tried to do the impossible \u2013 read Gord Downie\u2019s mind. \u201cNone of us, including Jim, knew what the heck Gord was talking about with this song,\u201d says Johnson. \u201cEverybody had a different read. And that speaks to me of genius. That line, \u2018I\u2019ll drop a caribou, I\u2019ll tell on you.\u2019 It\u2019s a great line. We\u2019re all using fake money now, but back in the day, a caribou referred to the caribou on the 25-cent piece, which is how much it cost to make a phone call.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnson also crossed paths with Downie many times, and she recalls how the Hip headlined the Kumbaya Festival \u2013 which Johnson launched to raise money for AIDS in Toronto in the 1990s \u2013 and Downie wore his famed whale T-shirt, which cheekily read, \u201cSave the Humans.\u201d She says, \u201cObviously, I\u2019m not alone in adoring what The Tragically Hip did for this country. They didn\u2019t focus their career in the United States. You\u2019re not writing songs about hockey players and wheat kings and expecting to have a hit in America.\u201d While she was invited to attend the final concert in Kingston, \u201cI couldn\u2019t bear it,\u201d she says. \u201cSo, like many Canadians, I watched it in my room, crying.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

STAY GOLDEN<\/h2>\n

During our recent interview at her record label\u2019s office, Johnson commands the room, cracking jokes with camera operators, talking fashion \u2013 \u201cI\u2019ll be wearing Greta Constantine at my upcoming shows in Paris\u201d \u2013 and effortlessly setting up her lapel mic, no help needed. She\u2019s wearing a brightly patterned summer dress, knockoff slip-on Vans \u2013 funny, since I had changed out of Vans to wear heels that reminded me of her designer Fluevog kicks from the \u201990s. With her long grey hair hanging in two braids, she radiates joy and openness, perpetual youth as well as an I\u2019ve-seen-everything cool. When asked about where this new record finds her in life, she is quite clear: \u201cThis is the golden years, and I\u2019ve never been stronger, more confident, more healthy than I am right now at 67,\u201d she says, sharing that every day she follows an exercise video series called <\/span>Angelica\u2019s 22-Minute Workout<\/span><\/i> \u2013 ZoomerMedia founder and CEO Moses Znaimer\u2019s remake of the \u201980s aerobics show <\/span>20 Minute Workout<\/span><\/i>, which he originally commissioned for CityTV, MuchMusic\u2019s sister station. Talk about full circle. \u201c<\/span>Moses Znaimer built us an incredible beast,\u201d says Johnson, \u201cFirst MuchMusic for us, then as Blue Rodeo and me aged, he went on to build MuchMoreMusic. And now, of course, he\u2019s built Zoomer for us.\u201d <\/span>While she could wax nostalgic all day, let\u2019s set the record straight. Save for that one Hip song, Johnson\u2019s new album is not a throwback \u2013 it is fresh and forward-looking. Her driving principle this time around was \u2026 make it intergenerational. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Johnson and ZoomerMedia founder and CEO Moses Znaimer have known each other since he put her teenage rock band on MuchMusic in 1987. They reunited for a cover photoshoot in 2022, when Molly released It\u2019s A Snow Globe World. | Gabor Jurina<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the title track, Johnson gets lyrical with hip hop artist Haviah Mighty, the 33-year-old Polaris Music Prize winner from Brampton, Ont. \u201c<\/span>It\u2019s about asking a young woman to talk to me and then actually listening,\u201d says Johnson, referring to Haviah\u2019s lines about how \u201cGenerations change, some of that is more than a phase \/ I look up to predecessors that were born for the stage.\u201d The other young \u2019un working in the studio with Johnson was Cube, a Toronto songwriter and producer who collaborated on two tracks. \u201cCube was 19 when we started, and he turned 20 during the recording of this record,\u201d says Johnson. \u201cHe\u2019s still a boy <\/span>\u2013 a growing boy. So there was a lot of sleeping on the couch and there was a lot of eating. Nonstop eating. But also a lot of fun.\u201d And they shared thoughts on music and the future as a whole \u2013 \u201cThese young people have got it covered, we\u2019re good,\u201d Johnson now realizes \u2013 and it gave her a jolt of positivity that can be found throughout the whole album. Meanwhile, she was able to give him some real-world, old-school experience. \u201cHe\u2019d only ever worked with his laptop. So, to put him in the room with my guys, these seasoned professionals, was a whole new experience for him,\u201d she says of the backing trio she\u2019s worked with for 25 years, Robi Botos, Mike Downes and Davide Di Renzo. \u201cHe was used to thinking, \u2018If I don\u2019t like this drum pattern, I\u2019m going to change it up on my laptop,\u2019 and it would take all this time to re-program. But in our sessions, he was able to just reach over to Davide Di Renzo, who\u2019s probably one of Canada\u2019s greatest drummers, and say, \u2018You know what? Maybe a little less hi-hat.\u2019 And Davide would play less hi-hat. It was like that. So I think what he saw was the beauty of humanity and professional musicians.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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By the time Johnson was Cube\u2019s age, she had already lived three acts. As the legend goes, little Molly got her ACTRA card when she was six years old, thanks to theatre impresario Ed Mirvish, who cast her and her siblings in a professional production of <\/span>Porgy and Bess<\/span><\/i>. As more shows came along, the Johnson kids grew up in the wings, and most stuck with it: brother Clark went on to star in 1990s police drama <\/span>Homicide: Life on the Street<\/span><\/i> and directed and starred in <\/span>The Wire<\/span><\/i> as well as shepherding other prestige TV to the screen; sister Taborah remains part of Toronto\u2019s theatre scene; and brother Ron is a social worker and community organizer. Molly left the theatre for the National Ballet School with her mentor\u2019s blessing \u2013 \u201cEd Mirvish paid for my shoes for decades. And he didn\u2019t speak to me for three years when I left the ballet.\u201d But she wanted to be in a band \u2013 and by 20, she had formed Alta Moda.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then came the fourth act, the jazz career that has defined her last two decades, with eight albums, international acclaim, Juno Awards, an Order of Canada \u2013 and France\u2019s Chevalier de l\u2019Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters), after winning over the jazz-loving country\u2019s devotion in the early 2000s. She thinks back to the days at the Cameron House, where she actually lived upstairs, and how she would play around with jazz numbers from the Great American Songbook to help her write a rock melody. But she didn\u2019t want to record and perform the classics until she had the \u201cgravitas\u201d she believed would come from living a full life. Fast-forward to 2008\u2019s <\/span>Lucky<\/span><\/i>, a compilation of standards, which earned her the Juno for best jazz album. And in 2014, she did a full record of Billie Holiday songs. \u201cThere is nothing like dropping a Billie song right into the centre of your show and completely changing the mood of the room for those four minutes,\u201d she says. \u201cThe silence after a song like<\/span> Don\u2019t Explain<\/span><\/i> means that I\u2019ve done my job.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Molly
Wearing a nostalgic tee, Johnson says for her new album, \u201cI wanted a record of<\/span><\/span>\u00a0joy. I felt the world<\/span><\/span>\u00a0needed some happy,<\/span><\/span> some looking to the future.\u201d <\/span><\/span>| Chris Nicholls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But it\u2019s not all music all the time these days. Even if she\u2019s not retired, Johnson has made a few sunset-years changes. She\u2019s moved away from Toronto \u2013 but keeps a <\/span>pied-\u00e0-terre<\/span><\/i> in the city\u2019s bohemian Kensington Market neighbourhood. \u201cI\u2019m 50 minutes outside of the city, my neighbours are farmers,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I have gorgeous gardens, which I could never afford here. The lady who lived in my house prior had been there for 40 years \u2013 very British. And her gardens were gorgeous. And anyone who gardens knows that it takes time. So I have peonies that are 15 years old. I have a rhododendron that\u2019s got to be 20 years old.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

She spends a lot of time focusing on the important things in life \u2013 and we asked her to break \u2019em down.<\/span><\/h2>\n
HER BOYS<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

\u201c<\/span>I\u2019ve raised two very strong, confident young men who are feminists and gentlemen. My greatest achievement is those boys.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

HER BROTHERS AND SISTER<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t talk about work, even if <\/span>my brother is a big-time American television producer. When we get together, we\u2019re talking about, \u2018What are you eating?\u2019; \u2018What did you have for dinner?\u2019 \u2013 stupid stuff. We talk about family. But we do admire each other\u2019s work. After I received the Order of Canada [in 2007], Clark started calling me Sir Molly. It\u2019s cute.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

HER BOOKS<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

\u201c<\/span>I was on the Giller Jury a couple years ago, and I developed a habit of reading in the middle of the day for an hour \u2013 sometimes two. And I\u2019ve kept that up. I love Louise Penny, American author Elizabeth George, who writes these doorstop books about Britain. And I read Margaret Atwood. She\u2019s a girlfriend of mine, so I\u2019ve often said to her, \u2018Your books are so complicated. Can\u2019t you write something easy, Margaret.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

HER BIRDS<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Her birds: \u201c<\/span>Margaret has not yet taken me birding on Pelee Island [where the author founded an avian observatory], but I\u2019m dying to go. Out in the country, I\u2019ve got some great bird feeders and, I\u2019m afraid to say, I have binoculars \u2013 so I am now officially old. I love to sit in my kitchen and look out the window at my birds.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a well-earned, quiet life after decades of navigating the every-day\u2019s-a-hustle music business. At one point in our interview, Johnson declares her admiration for Justin Bieber, calling him a survivor. <\/span>\u201c<\/span>This is a kid who went to the top, top, top of a very difficult world with just his mom to kind of protect him. And that\u2019s tough,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd for him to have survived that and to come out the other end making such amazing, joyous music \u2013 with that beautiful child and his beautiful wife and living a lot in [Wellington County], because he is a Canadian \u2013 I\u2019m very proud of him. I love him.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I ask Johnson if she feels like a survivor, as well. And with only the slightest pause, she replies: \u201cI do. I remember one of my album jackets, I had this much [holds her thumb and finger three inches apart] grey hair or, as I like to call it, platinum. And I went in to meet the then-president of Universal Music Canada Jeffrey Remedios. He looked at me and said, \u2018You\u2019re a legacy artist, Molly.\u2019 And I thought, \u2018Uh-oh, this could be bad.\u2019 So I said, \u2018Jeffrey, what exactly do you mean by that?\u2019 And he said, after thinking about it for a second because he\u2019s a thoughtful dude, \u2018I think it\u2019s because you\u2019ve outlived all the assholes.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, it\u2019s been a long, long, long time running. It\u2019s well worth the wait.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Canadian
Chris Nicholls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source zoomer.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 O artigo anterior foi obtido e traduzido do site internacional da celebrity.land \u2019 Source Link <\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It doesn\u2019t matter where you are or what you\u2019re doing when you reach the last track on Molly Johnson\u2019s new album, Talk to Me \u2013 you have to stop, breathe it in and feel it. The twangy guitar comes first, then the harmonica \u2013 this does not sound like a jazzy Johnson song, but just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1817527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1817526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-musica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1817526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1817528,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1817526\/revisions\/1817528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1817527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1817526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1817526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1817526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}