Charlie Major is no stranger to country music. Songwriting, singing and performing have been the staples of a music career that has spanned more than three decades. Major’s The Other Side 1993 record went double-platinum in Canada selling more than 200,000 copies. The record also featured six consecutive singles – all reaching number one on the Canadian country music charts. It was a debut that launched the 71-year-old Aylmer, Que. songwriter off and running, earning five Canadian Country Music Association Awards and three Juno Awards for country male vocalist of the year, three years in a row. On Friday, Major joined CTV News for a sit-down conversation sharing stories from the road, writers’ inspiration and a look back on many musical accolades shortly before he took the Club Regent Event Centre stage to a sold-out crowd. “I think I should have moved here a long time ago with the amount of times we’ve played here,” Major said as he laughed. Despite playing hundreds of concerts across the country, the singer-songwriter said he still gets nervous in the leadup to entertaining fans. “It’s an energetic nervousness, you know, it kind of just all fades away after, you know, you’re singing the first few lines,” Major said. Recently, Major said he had a chance to reconnect with some of his famous American friends, opening for Sawyer Brown for a couple of shows in eastern Canada in November. The American country music band rose to fame in the 1980s, around the time he would be performing at coffee shops and bars between the Quebec and Ontario border. “It was great, we’d already played together, back in the 90s, actually, and we played with them across Canada, and I got to know Mark (Miller) and the guys. “It was good to see them again and hang out.” He said AM radio stations he could listen to from Ottawa growing up, served as an inspiration to build a background in music. He didn’t limit his listening to country. “Where I’m from in Ottawa, we’d get Detroit, we’d get New York, you’d get Motown, you’d get country, you’d get Nashville, so I listened to all that stuff you know,” he said. “Johnny Cash was great. I loved listening to (him). Neil Young, you know, was another one and, James Taylor. I really gravitated towards songwriters, you know, because that was my calling.” Major said it was difficult trying to make a name for himself as a musician during those years in the late 1980s. “Some days I woke up wondering, ‘what the hell am I doing in my life?’” he said. “The long grind, you know, playing bars for 15 years and then finally, you know, getting some success, but it was worth it.” Major found success as a songwriter for other established recording artists before he released his debut album. In 1992, American artist Ricky Van Shelton cut Backroads, which became Major’s first number one hit, but only as a writer. 12 years later, Major recorded his own version of the up-tempo track and it became a regular addition in the encore of his setlist. “I’ve always joked, you know, that I live in a house that Ricky built, you know, because it was pretty lucrative,” Major said with a smile. Recording The Other Side and songwriting inspiration from family A year later, Major released The Other Side and found quick success when his first single I’m Gonna Drive You Out Of My Mind hit the airwaves. Five singles later - including the likes of Nobody Gets Too Much Love, I’m Somebody and the title track – Major became the first Canadian country artist to have the distinction of six number one consecutive singles on the charts. “I had some great players,” he said on Friday. “Just the A-list guys, you know, I mean Steuart Smith played on the album. I know they were good songs. Even back then in Canada here, it was like, I was kind of a country rocker, you know, and, I remember at the label they were like, ‘well, what are we going to do with this?’ “I said, ‘just put it out.’” Growing up in a middle-class family with seven siblings, Major said he grew up gravitating towards the working class for songwriting inspiration. It Can’t Happen To Me has become one of Major’s signature hits. He said the story behind the track came from a personal loss in his family with substance use that struck a chord when he sat down to write it. “A nephew of mine died and at his funeral, a bunch of his buddies from school were sitting around and chatting, and they were talking about how, we’d tell them, you got to stop doing what you’re doing, and it’s going to kill you,” he said. “His famous answer was ‘it can’t happen to me.’ When I heard that, I was like, ‘that’s just universal.’ It doesn’t even matter if you’re 16 years old or you’re 55 years old. I’m not going to have a heart attack. That doesn’t happen to me. You know, my house doesn’t burn down. It’s always somebody else.” With more than 30 singles released to radio, Major said the track has had a profound impact on those who have followed his career for decades. “This is the one that’s made the most difference in people’s lives,” he said. Memories at Dauphin Countryfest and a tribute to his brother Major has been a regular at Dauphin Countryfest since the music festival began in 1990. He took their stage for the first time in 1996 and has entertained crowds over the weekend celebration 11 times, most recently in 2023. “Playing up in Dauphin is pretty special, we’ve always loved playing there,” Major said. “You’re talking about young people and there’s so many young people in the audience, like 16-year-old, 17, 18-year-olds, you know, they’re singing along and it’s like, they weren’t even born when this music came out, you know.” He said there is a great appreciation for the 1990s era of country music now more than ever. Major said there was an edginess in the sound, both on the Canadian and American side that helped bring the genre into a new era. “It was a transitional era, you know, like, Steve Earle had just come out, in 87’, 88’, you and then you got your Brooks and Dunn and Diamond Rio who are just doing a little rockier stuff,” he said. “People would come up and realize, ‘oh, my mom and I used to drive around listening to your tapes and that’s a long-ago cassette tapes.’ But, I mean, it gets handed down from generation to generation and it’s great to see.” In 2004, Major wrote and recorded a B-side track My Brother and Me as a tribute to his older brother Paul. He said he sat on the idea for almost five years stuck on where to go after the first line, ‘Early November 1963, out in the front yard, my brother and me’. The track became a personal favourite for Major occasionally playing it in his setlist. He said the song holds a special place for his family looking back on a time in life, when life was simple. “It was my brother’s 50th birthday, and I said, ‘what can I get him,’” Major said as he laughed. That gift was this song. “My brother and I would come home and we’d throw our bags in the door and grab a football and go out in front yard and start playing football,” he said. “We were living in a moment. We weren’t living, thinking of the future or thinking of the past. We were just in that moment and not a care for what happened, what’s going to come or anything, which I think is, you know, was a great place to be.” Major has not released a new album since 2011. He said songwriting is always still in the back of his mind. In 2019 he was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame. Now he enjoys being able to pick and choose performances in a lighter schedule. Major has a few upcoming concerts lined up in Saskatchewan before more gigs in the summer. Looking back on his career, Major laughed while saying he was proud for sticking it out after years of patience working his way to success. “It’s a passion, but it’s a job, you don’t learn to write songs by playing guitar one hour a week, you got to be in your basement 12 hours a day for seven days a week, learning the craft and stuff,” he said. “I became an overnight sensation after 15 years.”
