Gregory Charles

Grégory Charles, a crooner from Quebec, emerged as a genuine cultural sensation across his home province through overlapping careers as a recording artist, television host, and concert-stage performer. Born February 12, 1968, in Montreal to a Trinidadian father devoted to jazz and a French-Canadian mother who gave piano lessons, the future star revealed extraordinary gifts early. At age seven he captured first place in a national piano competition, earning subsequent engagements with several of Canada’s leading symphony orchestras. While enrolled in law school he also acted, sharing the screen in the series Chambres en Ville. His broadcasting work began in 1991 with a daily program on Montreal’s CKOI, and the following year he became host of the television game show Que le Meilleur Gagne, remaining in that chair for five seasons. Music continued to anchor his schedule; in 1998 he served as pianist and backing vocalist for Quebecois superstar Celine Dion on tour. Two years afterward Radio-Canada awarded him a free-form three-hour weekly program that highlighted his skills as singer, pianist, and encyclopedic authority on music. In 2003 he introduced Noir et Blanc, a one-man variety production that enjoyed a long run and later reached New York City. The show supplied the material for his first album, the live recording Gospel Live Noir et Blanc, issued in late 2004. Charles attained his strongest commercial showing yet with the 2006 release I Think of You, which entered the Canadian pop charts at number one.