Johnny Reid

The driving force behind Johnny Reid’s newest album, A Place Called Love, is as universal as it is straightforward. With his first release on EMI/Johnny Mac Entertainment in Canada, Reid takes on love in all its myriad forms; exploring both the intensity of his feelings for his closest family, and the enduring gratitude he has for those who have helped him become one of Canada’s most successful recording artists of the past decade.

On A Place Called Love Reid explores both kinds of weather, alternately celebrating the joy of perfect love with songs like Doesn’t Get Better Than You and Let’s Go Higher, as well as the emptiness left in the wake of love lost on Tell Me Margaret, a song inspired by the death of his grandmother.

“Before the passing of my Granny if someone had asked me, ‘do you believe in a place called love?’ I would have said, ‘yes’, but in no way would I have understood how deeply.” It’s the first time Reid has felt a loss so personally and profoundly. An experience made all the more powerful by the news that he, his wife and three sons would soon be welcoming their first daughter into the world. One that prompted Reid to consider his own mortality, and the kind of legacy he’d like to leave behind with his life and music. “It’s not about number one songs, tour buses and having your face on a billboard,” he says. “It’s about writing songs that help people. Songs that help them cry when they need to and help them laugh when they can.”

With A Place Called Love Reid achieves that like never before, with all the characteristic grace and humility that is such an enduring part of his appeal; showcasing both his personal growth as a songwriter, and his capacity to speak to his audience’s most deeply held hopes, fears and dreams with an authenticity few can muster.

At a time when many artists are finding it difficult to build lasting ties with listeners, the Canadian bred, Scottish born singer/songwriter commands a degree of loyalty from his audience that deepens with every record. Over the past five years, Reid has sold in excess of 500,000 copies of his recordings in Canada alone. His debut DVD, Johnny Reid, Live at the Jubilee was certified triple platinum within three weeks of its February 2010 release and remained #1 on the Soundscan Music DVD Chart for months. A perennial favourite on the biggest night in Canadian country music, The Canadian Country Music Awards, Reid has been nominated in five categories for 2010. In recent years he has won a total of thirteen CCMA’s, including the 2009 Fan’s Choice Award and the Top Selling Record and Male Artist of the Year Awards two years running. In 2009 he was also nominated for a total of four JUNO Awards and took home the JUNO for Country Album of the Year.

Out of the box A Place Called Love’s first single, Today I’m Gonna Try and Change the World hit the Top 10 at Country Radio and garnered some interest from A/C radio. When Reid begins his A Place Called Love tour in Canada on September 13th he’ll be playing over forty largely sold out shows, often multiple nights, in some of the country’s largest venues from coast to coast. But awards and accolades aren’t what motivate Reid’s audience to return to his shows time and again. What does draw them is Reid’s commitment to speaking the truth, and his ability to reach out as both a songwriter and a member of their community – only one of a many in a group of friends and neighbours who celebrate with each other in times of joy and lean on one another in times of need.

It’s just that quality, explains Ian Ralfini, President of EMI/Manhattan Records that so enthralled him when he was first invited to watch Reid perform in Halifax in 2009 by EMI Canada’s President, Deane Cameron. For Ralfini, translating the immense success Reid enjoys in Canada isn’t complicated. “Our job is to put him in front of a new audience. You can leave the rest to Johnny Reid. There isn’t anybody doing what he is doing today and we are totally, totally, committed to him.”

More than anything, A Place Called Love reads like a love letter. Both an intensely personal exploration of our common human need to inhabit A Place Called Love we can call our very own, and a challenge to everyone who finds a measure of peace and inspiration in Johnny Reid’s music to help each other to find it.

A Place Called Love will be released in Canada on August 30st, 2010 and in the US and the rest of the world in Spring 2011.