Jason McCoy | |
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Jason McCoy performing with the Roadhammers, April 2009
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Background information | |
Birth name | Jason Dwight Campsall |
Born | August 27, 1970 |
Origin | Anten Mills, Ontario, Canada |
Genres | Country |
Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter |
Years active | 1989–present |
Labels | Airstrip Music MCA Canada Universal Open Road Recordings |
Associated acts | The Road Hammers |
Website | www.jasonmccoy.com |
Jason McCoy (born Jason Dwight Campsall, August 27, 1970) is a Canadian singer/songwriter who performs country music.
He has won many awards including the 2001 Male Vocalist of the Year at the Canadian Country Music Awards, 3 SOCAN Song of the Year awards, 19 CCMA nominations and 5 Juno nominations (all for Best Country Male Vocalist). He also won 6 awards at the 2004 Ontario Country Performer and Fan Association awards. In 2006, he was awarded with the Global Artist Award at the CMA Awards in Nashville.
McCoy was also one of the three members of the group The Road Hammers, which has released two studio albums, in addition to charting four singles in Canada and one in the United States before parting ways in 2010. The group later reunited in 2013.
He was born in Barrie, Ontario and was raised for a time in Camrose, Alberta before his family settled in Anten Mills, Ontario. At around the age of 5, his family moved to Camrose, Alberta, returning three years later. "The cowboy culture really stuck with me. I just fell in love with the music. For some reason, as a little kid, I had some sort of connection with these guys who were singing about these depressing things," McCoy said, citing Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash to lesser known artists like Ed Bruce and Wynn Stewart. "I just didn't have a voice for rock 'n' roll." Jason started playing guitar at age 7 and wrote his first song when he was 12.
In his teens, Jason owned a rock 'n' roll guitar and was partial to AC/DC. In the 1980s, he joined a band called Three Quarter Country, which performed at legions, Saturday night dances, and clubs in Barrie, Midland, Orillia and other small towns. Jason won a talent contest in Barrie,Ontario where he was discovered by country music writer Henry McGuirk who later became his manager and arranged for him to travel to Nashville to record an album with producer Ray Griff. He later signed with MCA Records in 1995.