lang, music executive Gilles Godard were 2024 inductees
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In the mid-1980s during the Calgary Stampede, legendary record executive Seymour Stein went to see k.d. lang and The Reclines at the Crystal Ballroom of the Palliser Fairmont hotel.
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Stein, the golden-eared co-founder of Sire Records and credited with discovering Madonna and the Talking Heads, had travelled to Calgary to see lang perform — and potentially sign her to his renowned label.
“He did a lot of cocaine and so forth,” lang said Wednesday morning at a private ceremony honouring her induction into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame at the National Music Centre. “He fell asleep during my show. It worked out fine.”
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Stein, who died in 2023, did sign lang and helped shape the early years of her remarkable 40-plus-year career as an internationally renowned singer-songwriter. It was a suitably strange and Calgary-centric anecdote for lang to reveal on Wednesday as the Canadian Country Music Association and the National Music Centre paid tribute to the artist during a ceremony that included her placing her name on the wall alongside fellow 2024 inductee Gilles Godard, the president of Anthem Music Publishing Nashville.
lang has won 10 CCMA awards, eight Junos and four Grammys, received the Order of Canada and became an international star selling millions of albums — but her career in the conservative country music industry has also had a rebellious nature to it. She expanded the boundaries of country music with a post-modern take on the genre that included nods to traditional country-and-western sounds and sophisticated modern influences such as pop and jazz. lang, who was born in Edmonton and grew up in the small town of Consort, has also been a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and an activist for animal rights during her career.
On Wednesday, lang was surrounded by memorabilia from her career that included the yellow tulle ball gown she wore in the video for her hit Miss Chatelaine from her 1992 breakthrough album Ingenue, and a framed image of her famous 1993 magazine cover for Vanity Fair. Shot by renowned photographer Herb Ritts, it featured lang wearing a suit and tie and sitting in a barber chair having her face shaved by supermodel Cindy Crawford. It is considered an iconic image in queer culture.
“I never felt like I belonged in the room, I still don’t,” lang said Wednesday before putting her plaque on the wall.
“I’m just so honoured to be here and to be amongst you and amongst the people on the wall, and all the people in this building and all the youngsters that are making Canadian music and continuing to make Canadian music world-class and cutting edge,” she said. “We are very, very blessed with our musical aptitude in Canada.”
lang cut her teeth playing in Edmonton clubs in the 1980s before finding worldwide success. In 1985, much of Canada got their first glimpse of lang when she jubilantly skipped to the stage dressed in a wedding gown to accept the Juno for most promising female vocalist. In the past few years, there has been an effort in Alberta to celebrate her artistic legacy, even as her performing career wound down. In 2013, she collaborated with Alberta Ballet for Balletlujah, which mixed lang’s music with a loosely autobiographical narrative. It was turned into a CBC documentary in 2015 by Calgary director Grant Harvey.
In 2021, she told Postmedia that she had little interest in touring or recording new material and considered herself semi-retired.
In 2024, she reunited with her original backup band The Reclines for the first time in 32 years to perform at the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in Edmonton. On Wednesday, lang said the reunion was special, but it did not change her mind about retirement.
“That was so much fun, but no,” lang said. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, I just feel like the muse is taking a break from me and I can’t force it. It may come back, it may not, but certainly the reunion in Edmonton was so emotional and so joyous and such a full-circle moment for me that it will always remain one of the highlights of my career. It was stellar. It was all the feels.”
The National Music Centre has been the physical home of the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and the ADISQ Hall of Fame since opening in 2016.
It is also home to a number of the elaborate stage outfits and costumes that lang wore over the years. The singer apparently called NMC CEO Andrew Mosker to ask if he would be interested in accepting them because she would otherwise “send them to Value Village,” Mosker says. She had to borrow one of her old costumes from the NMC for her performance in Edmonton last year.
Goddard spent 50 years in the country music industry, originally as a songwriter before becoming president of Anthem Music Publishing Nashville. The Ontario-born executive and songwriter was chosen as the Stan Klees Builder inductee in 2024.
Amy Jeninga, president of the Canadian Country Music Association, said the 2025 inductees into the Country Music Hall of Fame will be announced later this year.
evolmers@postmedia.com
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Alberta superstar k.d. lang honoured for her 2024 induction into Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame – Calgary Herald
