Catching up with Canadian Icon and Legendary Singer/Songwriter Cathy Young at her home in Toronto, was refreshing and truly an experience, both musically and spiritually.
Long before playlists and streaming numbers, before most of today's music industry existed at all, Cathy Young was already a fixture of Toronto's legendary Yorkville scene, standing shoulder to shoulder with the artists who built Canadian music history. She's been credited as a Juno winner, immortalized on Yonge Street, one of the tallest music murals in the world, and quietly worked alongside icons for decades.
“My Scottish grandmother was an opera singer, and I know my love of singing came from her. I started singing at 3 years old, the first time I sang Jesus Loves Me and I got a round of applause I was hooked on performing, and my destiny was sealed,” Young shared with Cashbox Canada.
I also love Patti Page and I used to sing a personal favourite of mine “Cross Over The Bridge.’ I was also a huge fan of Ruby Murray (The Voice of Ireland), I also have a special connection with singing the Canadian hit by The Beau-Marks, “Clap Your Hands”. That song was one I loved as a kid and it has showed up many times in my life over the years.That is a story on on its own!"
With a huge career dating back to a Juno Award in 1974, Cathy Young has earned a spot in the Canadian Music History books. And now, with her deeply personal new single "I Don't Want to Lose You," Cathy Young proves she was never gone. She was simply waiting for the right story to tell.
Young first burst onto the scene when her debut album, 'A Spoonful of Cathy Young,' was named a Billboard Pick of the Week, an early signal of a talent that would soon become impossible to ignore. She won the Juno Award for Best New Artist in 1974 and returned the following year as a nominee for Best Female Vocalist, cementing her place among Canada's brightest new stars at a moment when the Canadian music industry itself was still finding its footing. She performed as Mary Magdalene in Robert Stigwood's production of Jesus Christ Superstar, lent her voice to award winning video games including entries in The Black Mirror series, and toured the world across the United States, Mexico, Hong Kong, Cyprus, Thailand, Australia, the Caribbean, and Hawaii. In 2017, she was honoured with a place on Toronto's towering 22 storey mural of music icons along historic Yonge Street, a permanent tribute to the scene she helped define. Her story has since been documented in Music from Far and Wide: Celebrating 40 Years of the Juno Awards and in Bill King's Talk: Conversations in All Keys, and she was inducted into the Friar's Music Museum in Toronto.
“Women who survived and thrived in the 70s really didn’t know there was a ‘glass ceiling’ or the existence of the ‘old boy’s club’ in the music industry. We were just out there living the life and loving the music.”
For all that history, Young has never been the kind of artist who simply rests on accolades. She has spent decades quietly recording, mentoring emerging talent, and staying connected to the music community that shaped her, even as the industry's spotlight moved elsewhere. That makes her return now, with a song this personal, feel less like a comeback and more like an overdue arrival, a legend who never actually left, finally ready to share a story only she could tell.
Young’s early influences for writing was a different take on the usual songwriters out there.
“It all started out when my family basically broke up, I didn’t run away from life, it ran away from me. So, I escaped into the life of fairy tales, The Brothers Grimm, poetry, I started writing in Grade 4. I don’t remember when I wasn’t creating and writing. Besides the release of this single, an upcoming EP and a book about my memoirs, I am actually in pre-production of my one woman show “If You Don’t Like My Gate Don’t Swing On It!”.
"I Don't Want to Lose You" was written by Young in 1974, though she says at the time it was written to no one in particular. "Songs just come to me when they come," she explains. "They come in a rush, and if I don't stop whatever I'm doing, even sleep, and write, I will lose it forever." It would take 50 years for the song to find the person it was truly meant for.
That person was a fellow musician, Ronnie King, who Young first met briefly at the Juno Awards decades earlier. Their paths crossed again years later when she recorded backing vocals for his band, then drifted apart until an unplanned social media post changed everything. "One day, almost on a whim, I posted a photo of a horse drawn Cinderella carriage on Facebook and wrote, ‘Now all I need is a groom’," Young recalls. "It wasn't something I would normally post. In fact, I nearly deleted it, but something told me to leave it." He saw it. His reply was simple: "I'm here! I'm here!" What followed, Young says, was the beginning of a beautiful love story.
Not long after reconnecting, Young sang him the song she had written half a century earlier. "When I finished, he looked into my eyes and quietly said, ‘How could I not love you,’" she says. "From that moment on, the song belonged to us." The lyrics themselves carry that same plainspoken devotion: "So come and put your arms around me, tell me you love me, tell me you need me, and no one else will ever do. I've given you my everything, and even more, I've opened up my heart and let you in."
Listen on Spotify here: open.spotify.com/album/46zvIkLkbH08xyt9HFbHl1
Young went on to join him on what would become his final tour before he passed away suddenly from a heart attack. "In an instant, my world changed forever," she says. "I truly believe he was my soulmate. This song is my tribute to him, to the extraordinary love we were blessed to share. I know that one day we will meet again. Until then, I will carry Ronnie in my heart and celebrate a once in a lifetime love that not even time can erase."
Written by Young and produced by John Zych, Ann Hunter, and Dennis Nieves, "I Don't Want to Lose You" is released through Bronte Road Music, with a new EP on the horizon. It arrives as both a deeply intimate tribute and a reminder that one of Canadian music's true trailblazers, a woman who shared stages and studios with legends and helped shape an entire era of Yorkville's music history, is still very much writing her story, one unforgettable chapter at a time.
“After all the heartbreak and disappointments in my life I remain positive and rely on my faith to get me through it all. True love came later in my life, but I am grateful I had the chance to experience it and love so deeply. Maybe the song was written in 1974, but I was meant to wait, finish and record it when I met Ronnie.”
What would you tell your younger self if the early days of success, Junos, touring?
"I remember talking to myself in Yorkville and I told myself “You are going to be star”. Leonard Bernstein told me, “You got this kid, but you need to practice, practice, practice.” That still stands true today, I continue to write and hone my craft every day."
What advice would you give a young up and coming artist?
“It’s never been harder or more daunting than it is in the current state of the music business, just believe in yourself, work hard and stay true to your path. Remember success is 10% and 90% perspiration, loosely quoted from Thomas Edison.”
Cathy Young is truly an indefatigable talent, and the joy she has for life, love and music is infectious. Look for more in the future from Cathy Young - she still has so much more to do with the talent she was blessed with all those years ago.
For more on Cathy Young visit:
facebook.com/Cathyyoungtoronto
facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063442639292
instagram.com/originalcathyyoung/
