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The exception, the hit single, "Simple
Life," is her only concession to the demands of
a career that has already made her the 2000 Music
Row Magazine Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year
and propelled her to an amazing thirteen Canadian
Country Music Awards, including CCMA honors
as the 2001 and 2002 Female Artist of the Year.
2002 brought more accolades, both stateside and in
Canada, as her homeland honored her with her
first Juno Award (the Canadian equivalent of the
Grammy), while the Academy of Country Music named
her Top New Female Vocalist. The excitement
continued into 2003's American Music Awards
when she became Favorite New Artist - Country.
In 2003, she also became a celebrity ambassador for
the Children's Miracle Network.
Johnson's energy is restless and electric, and it
had to be to bring her many skills to the attention
of country music's insiders. Born closer to the
Arctic Circle than to Nashville, she looks back on
60-hour drives to Tennessee from her native Canada,
where she was born six hours north of Edmonton,
Alberta, and raised on a farm where her family grew
much of its own food. Her grandfather was a
minister, her father a farmer and operator of a
seed-cleaning business, and her mother the
supervisor of a home for senior citizens.
Real-life struggles and joys permeate both her past
and the music that has impressed Nashville music
executives since almost the day she arrived in town.
Her first school in little Deadwood, Alberta, had
three grades in each classroom, her first piano
teacher was the wife of her minister, and her
parents were so musically supportive that they
provided her and her siblings with plenty of
cassettes, albums, and instruments and took them
long distances to attend concerts by stars Johnny
Cash, Charley Pride and Amy Grant. When she moved on
to high school in a larger town, she encountered
instructors who seemed less sensitive and
music-loving, and put her off her dream for a while,
making what she termed "a stain in my heart."
Because of that and her good grades, she
concentrated on science in college, but dabbled at
her first love on the side.continued
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