Rita Chiarelli is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 blues singer. She has been dubbed "the goddess of Canadian blues" by CBC Radio One

CBC Radio One

CBC Radio One is the English language news and information radio network of the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial free and offers both local and national programming...

's Shelagh Rogers

Shelagh Rogers

Shelagh Rogers, OC is a Canadian radio broadcaster. She is currently the host of CBC Radio One's The Next Chapter.Rogers grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. She was the "Head Girl" at her high school, Lisgar Collegiate Institute. She played in the Ottawa Youth Orchestra and was a spare on the Reach for...

.

Biography

Born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...

, Chiarelli began performing in Ronnie Hawkins

Ronnie Hawkins

Ronald "Ronnie" Hawkins is a Juno Award-winning rockabilly musician whose career has spanned more than half a century. Though his career began in Arkansas, USA, where he'd been born and raised, it was in Ontario, Canada where he found success and settled for most of his life...

' band in the early 1980s. She subsequently spent several years in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. When she returned to Canada, she quickly attracted the attention of film director Bruce McDonald, who included her "Have You Seen My Shoes?" on the soundtrack to his 1989 film Roadkill. Chiarelli and Colin Linden

Colin Linden

Colin Linden is a Canadian musician, songwriter and record producer. He has worked with a wide variety of artists including Bruce Cockburn, Lucinda Williams, T-Bone Burnett, Colin James, Leon Redbone, Rita Chiarelli, Chris Thomas King and The Band.Linden is primarily a electric blues guitarist,...

 subsequently recorded a cover of Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

's "Highway 61 Revisited

Highway 61 Revisited

Highway 61 Revisited is the sixth studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. It was released in August 1965 by Columbia Records. On his previous album, Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan devoted Side One of the album to songs accompanied by an electric rock band, and Side Two to solo acoustic numbers...

" for McDonald's 1991 film Highway 61

Highway 61 (film)

Highway 61 is a 1991 film by Canadian director Bruce McDonald.- Synopsis :The film stars Don McKellar as Pokey Jones, an orphaned barber in a small town near Thunder Bay, Ontario who dreams of becoming a jazz musician...

, and Chiarelli released her debut album the following year on Stony Plain Records

Stony Plain Records

Stony Plain Records is a major Canadian independent record label, which specializes in roots music genres such as country, folk and blues. The label was the recipient of a 2003 Western Canadian Music Award for "Independent Record Label/Distributor of the Year"....

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Her albums Just Getting Started and Breakfast at Midnight were both nominated for the Juno Award

Juno Award

The Juno Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music...

 for Best Blues Album.

Solo

• Road Rockets (1992)
• Just Getting Started (1995)
• What a Night (1997)
• Breakfast at Midnight (2001)
• No One to Blame (2004)
• Cuore: The Italian Sessions (2006)
• Uptown Goes Downtown... Rita Chiarelli with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra (2008)
• Sweet Paradise (2009)
• Music From The Big House Soundtrack (2011)