SHAZAM

Although he was raised on an Alberta cattle ranch, Canadian singer/songwriter George Fox cared little about country music until he was 21 years old and preparing to stay in Sweden. His host family requested that he bring some American country albums with him on his visit; Fox began listening to them and was hooked. Upon his return, he began playing music in public on weekends and decided to make an album, which he paid for himself out of money set aside to buy a new tractor. He sent tapes of his music to various stations and went back to the ranch until he got a call from Warner Brothers in Toronto, who released the eponymous album in 1988.

With a style similar to that of John Prine, his second single, "Long Distance," made the Top 20 on the Canadian charts. That year he also signed with Anne Murray's manager, Leonard Rambeau, who hadn't accepted a new client since the late '70s. The following year was even better for when three of Fox's singles hit to the Canadian Top 20. On his second album, 1990's With All My Might, Fox wrote all but one of the songs, and before the year ended, the album had gone gold in Canada. In 1990 he starred in his own TV special for the CBC and guested on three others, including Anne Murray's Family Christmas. His next two albums, Spice of Life (1991) and Mustang Heart (1993), continued Fox's hit streak. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi