Troubadour

And you won't find a more charming one that Johnny Favourite, the adventurous, debonair, and silver-tongued raconteur who has returned from self-imposed exile with Troubadour, the finest jazz interpretative pop album this side of Bublé.

If you've seen or heard him, you know a) Johnny Favourite's mellifluous tenor knows its way around the American songbook, b) that he looks good in a suit and c) that he does great impressions...usually a few seconds before he dives into song (his Christopher Walken is a favourite.) But it's a favourable impression you'll get from his new Curve Music/Sony Music album Troubadour, a seamless collection of 10 familiar and not-so-familiar soon-to-be-etched-into-your-memory classics led by the brilliant first single "22 Steps," that only confirms his must-hear status to fine jazz pop aficionados.

You're wondering about the exile.

"I've been away from Canada for six years, living in the South of Portugal, auctioning art and singing on cruise ships," says Favourite, a Juno Award winner and multiple ECMA Award nominee best remember for the gold album Holiday Romance.

Doesn't sound like much of a tough life, does it? But friends, affairs of the heart and searches of the soul can cause considerable stress to the human condition, regardless of the paradise that serves as your backdrop. Turns out he had enough of the music business. Check that: not the music...just the business. Promises were made and broken, and a disenchanted Favourite decided enough was enough, and left Canada to regroup.

Throw in some romantic heartbreak, and you can understand the need to leave, ponder life and reassess. "I have been kicked in the teeth and had my still-beating heart ripped out of my chest," Favourite declares. "But I still climb back in the sandbox hoping next time it will be different." Well, consider now to be the time.

Johnny Favourite is back, singing better than ever and channeling that new intensity on Troubadour, using his gift of passionate and tastefully restrained delivery to redefine Leonard Cohen's sacrificial anthem "I've Come So Far For Beauty," upgrade Ruth Lowe's immortal "I'll Never Smile Again" and deliver a saucy duet with Jill Barber on the W.C. Handy nugget "Careless Love" finding him laying it vocally all on the line. It's a long way from art auctioneering...one of the many skills he's picked up from singing on cruise ships. "I met a guy who did art auctioneering for a living. He told me I should try it. So I've sold $200 lithographs by Thomas Kincaid all the way to Picasso etchings from the 1930s and Peter Max originals on canvas." But it's music that makes his heart go boom-boom the most, and Johnny Favourite is using the North American songbook to tell it like it is, open his heart and let it bleed a little. "For me, American popular song has always been the beauty, because the lyrica

l conversation quality is so replete, and it's a story," Favourite explains. "So whether you're listening to Bobby Darin or Mark Murphy or Sandra Dee, the words of these song are telling a story. It's got to be personal."

With Troubadour, Johnny Favourite has made it personal. He's figured out what he wants, who he wants to be, and is here for the long haul. "I've poured all my blood, sweat and tears into this album, and you can hear it in the music," says Favourite.

"This is it for me. I'm here to stay." The underdog rises.