About
"I've always wanted to be an artist who writes things that are real to me," Carolyn Dawn says. "I just want to be honest in my music”.
The fresh-faced songwriter who originally hails from Northern Alberta drove 60 hours from her then home, Vancouver, BC, Canada to build a career in Nashville. She seemingly never looked back. She never had to. Arriving in 1995, Johnson developed her skill and reputation as a songwriter while working odd jobs to pay the bills. A publishing deal led to cuts by artists including Jo Dee Messina, Patty Loveless, Kathy Mattea and more. Her first No. 1 as a writer came in 1999 with Chely Wright's "Single White Female."
The milestones came quickly. She was named Music Row magazine's Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year in 2000, she toured behind Martina McBride for a year, singing backgrounds and playing guitar for her and eventually signed a recording contract with powerhouse Arista/Nashville. Her first album, Room With A View, bowed in 2001 and launched her first hits as an artist including "Georgia," "I Don't Want You To Go" and the top 5 smash "Complicated." Critical acclaim and the approval of her peers poured in, and Johnson was honored as the Academy of Country Music's Top New Female Vocalist in 2002. The American Music Awards hailed her as Favorite New Country Artist the following year. She also received a Juno award in her home country and to date has brought home 15 Canadian Country Music Awards.
High profile tours with Reba McEntire, Alan Jackson, Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban kept her out in the public eye and she won fans all across the country.
She then came with her second album, 2004's Dress Rehearsal, which included the top 15 hit, "Simple Life”, which reached #1 in Canada. Also included on the album were three Canadian top five hits, “Head Over High Heels”, “Dress Rehearsal” and “Die of A Broken Heart”.
In 2005 Arista and CDJ parted ways. Energized and at the same time benefiting from the incredible education of making her first two albums, Johnson took the wildly ambitious step of deciding to make an album without a label deal in place. She wrote or co-wrote all 12 songs on “Love & Negotiation”, produced eight of them and co-produced the other four with legendary musician and producer Dann Huff. The album was released on Angeline/Universal Records.
CDJ’s successes go well beyond her artist career, including acting as an ambassador for Children’s Miracle Network for the last six years, hosting her own syndicated radio show in Canada, developing and producing other artists, and of course songwriting. From her earliest dreams of Nashville, songwriting has been at the core of Johnson's artistry. She continues to write, play and produce other artists as well as her own music.
