Christopher Ward (songwriter)
Encyclopedia
Christopher William Ward (born 28 July 1949 Toronto
, Ontario
) is a Canadian songwriter and broadcaster, known as a former long-standing on-air personality at MuchMusic
, Canada's music video
network, where he and J.D. Roberts were among the first video jockeys in 1984. Recently Ward has become a judge on The Next Star
which is a Canadian reality television show on YTV.
children's series Catch Up
, as leader of the show's band. He also played a minor role as a musician in an episode of The Kids of Degrassi Street
alongside Alannah Myles
in 1984.
Before MuchMusic launched, Ward hosted a weekend, all-night video program called City Limits on CITY-TV
in Toronto. On Friday and Saturdays, from midnight to 6 a.m., Ward broke ground as Canada's first "veejay". The show was broadcast from CITY-TV's old Queen Street East studios and apart from playing the latest music videos, hosted guests. Bands such as Bon Jovi
and actors like Mike Myers
- playing his Wayne's World character long before Saturday Night Live
made it famous- added to the prototype of what MuchMusic
would become. The show also had "video clip" contest segments which gave winners prizes to special events like movie debuts. Broadcast only in the Toronto region, it was a major way music videos were introduced to the Southern Ontario public. (MTV
, the American television network was not broadcast in Canada due to regulatory laws protecting Canadian Content
until 2006.) When the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) granted a broadcast licence for an all music channel to begin in 1984, CHUM-CITY won the lucrative rights. The application process to the Commission included Ward's current show as evidence of experience in broadcasting music video entertainment.
During five years on MuchMusic
Ward interviewed artists like Paul McCartney
, Tina Turner
, Peter Gabriel
, Leonard Cohen
and Kate Bush
. While with the network, he hosted another show titled City Limits
that spotlighted alternative music. Even after his departure from MuchMusic in the late 1980s, he was still involved in the channel off-and-on, most notably as Charles de Camembert, host of the annual Fromage
specials.
, Diana Ross
,The Backstreet Boys
, Wynonna Judd
, Amanda Marshall
, Tina Arena
, Peter Cetera, Anne Murray
and Meredith Brooks
. His best known song is perhaps the Billboard
number one single "Black Velvet
", recorded by his then-girlfriend Alannah Myles
. 'Black Velvet' was named the #49 song in Bob Mersereau's book 'The Top 100 Canadian Singles'. Ward has also released several of his own recordings, including the singles "Once in a Longtime" (1977) and "Maybe Your Heart" (1978) (both co-written with his longtime friend Stephen Stohn
the executive producer of Instant Star
) and "Boys and Girls" (1987). The music video for "Boys and Girls" featured both Alannah Myles and comedian Mike Myers in an early version of his "Wayne Campbell" character.
Promotional tour for Time Stands Still (released on House Of Lords Records/distributed by WEA) included David Wipper on guitar, Billy Idol bassist Steven Webster and featured on keyboards, pianist Antonio Salci.
Starting in 1997, Ward became a member of Ming Tea
, the tongue-in-cheek celebrity rock band assembled by fellow Canadian Mike Myers
for the first and third Austin Powers
films. Group members included Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet and performed the faux-sixties songs "BBC" and "Daddy Wasn't There".
Recent work (much of it in collaboration with Rob Wells
Luke McMaster, Greg Johnston and Fred St-Gelais
) includes songs for Alexz Johnson
in the TV series Instant Star
, with soundtrack albums for the four seasons of the show. Along with Rob Wells and Fred St-Gelais, he has also been working with Lindsay Robins
. Ward songs were featured on two recent Degrassi - The Next Generation features, Degrassi Takes Manhattan and Degrassi Goes Hollywood. His songs were featured in Cirque du Soleil's tribute to Vaudeville, 'Banana Shpeel'.
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
) is a Canadian songwriter and broadcaster, known as a former long-standing on-air personality at MuchMusic
MuchMusic
MuchMusic is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel owned by Bell Media. MuchMusic is dedicated to music-related programs, pop and youth culture.-History:...
, Canada's music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
network, where he and J.D. Roberts were among the first video jockeys in 1984. Recently Ward has become a judge on The Next Star
The Next Star
The Next Star is a Canadian reality television show on YTV hosted by Adamo Ruggiero. The show is a competition to find the most talented singer in Canada who is under 15 years of age. The next star inspires many to come and audition for their chance to win the next star. Winning contestants are...
which is a Canadian reality television show on YTV.
Early career
Ward began his music career in the late 1970s while attending Trent University in Peterborough Ontario where he was an active member of the school's campus radio station.Broadcasting
Some of Ward's early television appearances began in 1978 on the CBCCBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
children's series Catch Up
Catch Up
Catch Up was a children's television series which aired on CBC Television in Canada during the 1978-1979 season.Although the series did not continue past its first year, its hosts would proceed to careers of international scope:...
, as leader of the show's band. He also played a minor role as a musician in an episode of The Kids of Degrassi Street
The Kids of Degrassi Street
The Kids of Degrassi Street is a Canadian children's TV show which aired from 1979 to 1986, and is the first in the Degrassi series, aboutthe lives of a group of children living on Degrassi Street in Toronto, Canada...
alongside Alannah Myles
Alannah Myles
Alannah Myles is a Canadian singer-songwriter, the daughter of Canadian broadcast pioneer William Douglas Byles. In 1989, she released her eponymous debut album...
in 1984.
Before MuchMusic launched, Ward hosted a weekend, all-night video program called City Limits on CITY-TV
CITY-TV
CITY-DT, Channel 57 , is a television station based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada owned and operated by Rogers Media...
in Toronto. On Friday and Saturdays, from midnight to 6 a.m., Ward broke ground as Canada's first "veejay". The show was broadcast from CITY-TV's old Queen Street East studios and apart from playing the latest music videos, hosted guests. Bands such as Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi is an American rock band from Sayreville, New Jersey. Formed in 1983, Bon Jovi consists of lead singer and namesake Jon Bon Jovi , guitarist Richie Sambora, keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres, as well as current bassist Hugh McDonald...
and actors like Mike Myers
Mike Myers (actor)
Michael John "Mike" Myers is a Canadian actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film producer of British parentage...
- playing his Wayne's World character long before Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
made it famous- added to the prototype of what MuchMusic
MuchMusic
MuchMusic is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel owned by Bell Media. MuchMusic is dedicated to music-related programs, pop and youth culture.-History:...
would become. The show also had "video clip" contest segments which gave winners prizes to special events like movie debuts. Broadcast only in the Toronto region, it was a major way music videos were introduced to the Southern Ontario public. (MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
, the American television network was not broadcast in Canada due to regulatory laws protecting Canadian Content
Canadian content
Canadian content refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requirements that radio and television broadcasters must air a certain percentage of content that was at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by persons from...
until 2006.) When the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) granted a broadcast licence for an all music channel to begin in 1984, CHUM-CITY won the lucrative rights. The application process to the Commission included Ward's current show as evidence of experience in broadcasting music video entertainment.
During five years on MuchMusic
MuchMusic
MuchMusic is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel owned by Bell Media. MuchMusic is dedicated to music-related programs, pop and youth culture.-History:...
Ward interviewed artists like Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
, Tina Turner
Tina Turner
Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have led many to call her the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...
, Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
, Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
and Kate Bush
Kate Bush
Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...
. While with the network, he hosted another show titled City Limits
City Limits (TV series)
City Limits was a Canadian television series, which aired on Citytv and later MuchMusic in the 1980s. Airing on Fridays at midnight, and on Saturdays, the program aired alternative music videos....
that spotlighted alternative music. Even after his departure from MuchMusic in the late 1980s, he was still involved in the channel off-and-on, most notably as Charles de Camembert, host of the annual Fromage
Fromage
Fromage was an annual one-hour special produced by the Canadian MuchMusic cable channel. Originally hosted by songwriter Christopher Ward, beginning in the late 1980s , Fromage pays "tribute" to music videos that are considered the worst or cheesiest of the year by MuchMusic staff.- History :Since...
specials.
Songwriting
Ward has written many songs for artists such as Hilary DuffHilary Duff
Hilary Erhard Duff is an American actress, singer-songwriter, entrepreneur, and author. After working in local theater plays and television commercials in her childhood, she achieved fame playing the title role in the Disney Channel television series Lizzie McGuire. She also reprised her role in...
, Diana Ross
Diana Ross
Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...
,The Backstreet Boys
Backstreet Boys
The Backstreet Boys are an American vocal group, formed in Orlando, Florida in 1993. The band originally consisted of A. J. McLean, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, Nick Carter and Kevin Richardson. They rose to fame with their debut international album, Backstreet Boys...
, Wynonna Judd
Wynonna Judd
Wynonna Ellen Judd is an American country music singer. Her solo albums and singles are all credited to the singular name Wynonna. Wynonna first rose to fame in the 1980s alongside her mother, Naomi, in the country music duo The Judds...
, Amanda Marshall
Amanda Marshall
Amanda Meta Marshall is a Canadian pop-rock singer.She grew up in Toronto in a biracial family to a White Canadian father and a Black Trinidadian mother...
, Tina Arena
Tina Arena
Filippina Lydia "Tina" Arena is an Australian singer, songwriter and musical theatre actress. She has won several awards, most notably 6 ARIA Awards and in both 1996 and 2000 she received the World Music Award for the world's best selling Australian artist...
, Peter Cetera, Anne Murray
Anne Murray
Morna Anne Murray CC, ONS is a Canadian singer in pop, country and adult contemporary styles whose albums have sold over 54 million copies....
and Meredith Brooks
Meredith Brooks
Meredith Ann Brooks is an American singer/songwriter and guitarist. She is best known for her 1997 hit song "Bitch", for which she was nominated for a Grammy Award.- Early life :...
. His best known song is perhaps the Billboard
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
number one single "Black Velvet
Black Velvet (song)
"Black Velvet" is a rock song written by Canadian musicians David Tyson and Christopher Ward, and recorded by Canadian singer Alannah Myles in 1988. It became a number one hit for two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1990 and reached number one on the Album Rock Tracks chart, as well as...
", recorded by his then-girlfriend Alannah Myles
Alannah Myles
Alannah Myles is a Canadian singer-songwriter, the daughter of Canadian broadcast pioneer William Douglas Byles. In 1989, she released her eponymous debut album...
. 'Black Velvet' was named the #49 song in Bob Mersereau's book 'The Top 100 Canadian Singles'. Ward has also released several of his own recordings, including the singles "Once in a Longtime" (1977) and "Maybe Your Heart" (1978) (both co-written with his longtime friend Stephen Stohn
Stephen Stohn
John Stephen Stohn is a Canadian-based, American-born entertainment lawyer and television producer. He is the president of Epitome Pictures Inc., and is executive producer of the teen drama series Degrassi: The Next Generation and Instant Star , and most recently the television movie Degrassi Goes...
the executive producer of Instant Star
Instant Star
Instant Star was a Canadian television program which aired from September 2004 to June 2008. The series starred Alexz Johnson as adolescent music competition winner Jude Harrison. The show chronicles Harrison's experience in the recording industry whilst focusing upon character development.Linda...
) and "Boys and Girls" (1987). The music video for "Boys and Girls" featured both Alannah Myles and comedian Mike Myers in an early version of his "Wayne Campbell" character.
Promotional tour for Time Stands Still (released on House Of Lords Records/distributed by WEA) included David Wipper on guitar, Billy Idol bassist Steven Webster and featured on keyboards, pianist Antonio Salci.
Starting in 1997, Ward became a member of Ming Tea
Ming Tea
Ming Tea is a band formed and consisting of:*Mike Myers *Susanna Hoffs *Matthew Sweet...
, the tongue-in-cheek celebrity rock band assembled by fellow Canadian Mike Myers
Mike Myers (actor)
Michael John "Mike" Myers is a Canadian actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film producer of British parentage...
for the first and third Austin Powers
Austin Powers (film series)
The Austin Powers series is a series of action-comedy films written by and starring Mike Myers as the title character, directed by Jay Roach and distributed by New Line Cinema...
films. Group members included Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet and performed the faux-sixties songs "BBC" and "Daddy Wasn't There".
Recent work (much of it in collaboration with Rob Wells
Rob Wells
Rob Wells is a multi-platinum, award-winning producer/songwriter based in Toronto & Los Angeles.Wells has worked with Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Adam Lambert, Nick Lachey, Miranda Cosgrove, Mika, Backstreet Boys, Paloma Faith, Cyndi Lauper, Olivia Newton John, Daisy Dares You, Boyzone, Matt Dusk,...
Luke McMaster, Greg Johnston and Fred St-Gelais
Fred St-Gelais
Fred St-Gelais is a Canadian songwriter, television music composer, record producer and multi-instrumentalist, currently living in Montreal, Quebec.-Early work:...
) includes songs for Alexz Johnson
Alexz Johnson
Alexzandra Spencer "Alexz" Johnson is a Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. Her debut album Voodoo was independently released on March 30, 2010....
in the TV series Instant Star
Instant Star
Instant Star was a Canadian television program which aired from September 2004 to June 2008. The series starred Alexz Johnson as adolescent music competition winner Jude Harrison. The show chronicles Harrison's experience in the recording industry whilst focusing upon character development.Linda...
, with soundtrack albums for the four seasons of the show. Along with Rob Wells and Fred St-Gelais, he has also been working with Lindsay Robins
Lindsay Robins
Lindsay Robins is a singer-songwriter who wrote and performed the theme song "What Would You Do" for the VJ Search reality series on MuchMusic, which went on to be the 2007 recipient of The North American Promax Award for Best Music Package/Theme Song...
. Ward songs were featured on two recent Degrassi - The Next Generation features, Degrassi Takes Manhattan and Degrassi Goes Hollywood. His songs were featured in Cirque du Soleil's tribute to Vaudeville, 'Banana Shpeel'.
Albums
| Year | Album |
|---|---|
| 1978 | Spark of Desire |
| 1981 | Time Stands Still |
| 1987 | Christopher Ward (EP) |
Singles
| Year | Single | Chart Positions | Album | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CAN AC | CAN | CAN Country | |||
| 1976 | "Lost in a Love Song" | 9 | 69 | 10 | Spark of Desire |
| 1977 | "Once in a Long Time" | 19 | 38 | — | |
| 1978 | "Maybe Your Heart" | 17 | 47 | — | |
| "Imagine a Song" | 16 | 96 | — | ||
| "No Time to Cry" | 26 | 74 | — | ||
| 1981 | "So Long Baby Jane" | 17 | — | — | Time Stands Still |
External links
- Jam!: Christopher Ward profile
- The Canadian Encyclopedia: Alannah Myles (reference to Christopher Ward)