Jann Arden

Jann Arden possesses a full-bodied, heartfelt vocal presence that lends emotional depth and sincerity to her often glossy adult alternative recordings. She first captured widespread attention with the tender ballad "Insensitive," featured on her sophomore effort, Living Under June, which appeared in 1994. Throughout the ensuing decades she sustained strong album sales in Canada, consistently placing in the national Top Ten well into the 2010s. Among her most successful releases stand the platinum-certified Happy? from 1997, the similarly platinum Uncover Me of 2007, and 2014’s Everything Almost, which climbed to the runner-up position on the domestic chart. An eight-time Juno Award recipient, she received induction into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame in 2017.

Born Jann Arden Anne Richards in Calgary, Alberta, in 1962, she developed an early passion for music and began composing original material at age thirteen. Two formative influences from that period were John Denver and Karen Carpenter. At seventeen she cut her debut single, “Never Love a Sailor,” issued in 1980 under the name Jann Richards. Although more than ten years passed before she returned to solo recording, she kept active by playing clubs and festivals and by performing with groups such as Factor 4 and Hip Hugger. Her first full-length project under the Jann Arden name, Time for Mercy, surfaced in 1993 via A&M Records and yielded three Canadian Top 40 entries, among them the number-ten single “Will You Remember Me,” earning her the Juno for Best New Solo Artist.

The follow-up, Living Under June, generated six domestic Top Ten tracks, one of which—“Insensitive,” written by Anne Loree—reached number one. After its placement in the 1996 Christian Slater romantic film Bed of Roses, the song advanced to number twelve on the U.S. Hot 100, marking another personal best. During this stretch Arden collected Junos for Single of the Year with “Could I Be Your Girl,” Songwriter of the Year, and Female Vocalist of the Year. Her last album for A&M, 1997’s Happy?, peaked at number seven in Canada on the strength of three Top 30 singles, including the number-three hit “The Sound Of.”

Beginning with 2000’s Blood Red Cherry, Arden established a lasting association with Universal. The reflective, mid-tempo collection climbed to number four, after which a greatest-hits package appeared alongside the 2002 release Live with the Vancouver Symphony. That same year she issued the journal collection If I Knew, Don’t You Think I’d Tell You, then delivered another Top Ten album, Love Is the Only Soldier, in 2003. Around this period she contributed an advice column to Elle Canada and opened a Calgary diner that inspired the 2003 reality series The Arden Diner; the establishment shuttered in early 2005. Despite these ventures she continued releasing music, issuing her sixth studio album, simply titled Jann Arden, in 2005 and the covers set Uncover Me in 2007. Both reached number three in Canada, where her version of “Son of a Preacherman” charted. The Top Ten album Free followed in 2009, succeeded a year later by the concert recording Spotlight.

In 2010 she unveiled Uncover Me, Vol. 2, featuring interpretations of material originally associated with the Beach Boys, the Smiths, and Peggy Lee. Knopf released her third book, Falling Backwards: A Memoir, in 2011. Her tenth studio album, Everything Almost, arrived in 2014 and became her highest-charting project to date, landing at number two two decades after the multi-platinum Living Under June. A year later she issued the Top Five holiday collection A Jann Arden Christmas. Following her 2017 induction into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame, she returned with her twelfth studio album, These Are the Days, in 2018. Many of its songs were co-written with fellow Hall of Fame inductee Bob Rock, formerly of the Payola$.