Interview on CBC Montreal with Duke Eatmon and Sabrina Marandola

CHRIS BIRKETT INTERVIEW CBC Montreal Aug 13th 2024

Chris Birkett Bio 

Chris Birkett is a multi-talented, award winning producer, singer/songwriter, composer and sound engineer. His music collaborations with A-list international artists like Sinead O'Connor, Alison Moyet, Dexys Midnight Runners, Talking Heads, The Pogues, Bob Geldof, Quincy Jones, Mel Brooks and Steve Earle have sold over 100 million records and earned four Canadian Junos, a Grammy, a Polaris Music Prize and three international AMPEX Golden Reel Awards for excellence in the music business.
Chris is no stranger to Canadian music, having co-produced five award winning albums for the legendary Buffy Sainte-Marie, including her comeback album “Coincidence and Likely Sto-ries” (1992) and the Juno winning “Running for the Drum” (2009). He received a Canadian Screen Award for best sound on the 2022 feature biograph “Buffy Sainte Marie: Carry It On”.
His career began as a guitarist, playing in London clubs before touring with Memphis artists Rufus Thomas, Ann Peebles and King Floyd. At 23, Chris was performing with the pop group Love Affair, whose song "Everlasting Love" ruled the UK charts. The following year, he joined the band Omaha Sheriff who had just signed a major recording deal with Tony Visconti, man-ager of Good Earth Records and producer for David Bowie and the Moody Blues.
With Visconti as a mentor, Chris expanded his career to include producing, engineering and mixing many UK and international hits including Sinead O'Connor's #1 song “Nothing Com-pares 2 U”. His London studio was a beehive of activity that was rated #2 in the world on Bill-board's top studio charts.  At the same time, Chris' own single “Where Do We Go From Here?”(1992) was picked by Ed Bicknell (Dire Straits' manager) to play alongside U2, Peter Gabriel, Bob Marley, Tears for Fears and Queen on Polygram's “One Voice One Love” al-bum.
In 1993, Chris left the UK for France and built a recording studio inside his chateau near Bor-deaux. There he produced albums with the Buena Vista Social Club and other world-class musicians, including Etran Finatawa, whose debut album was nominated for a BBC Radio best world music award. In 2006, he moved his studio to Paris, where he released his second album, “Freedom” and received growing acclaim for his work with world musicians like Alger-ian sensation Ali Amran.
In 2012, Chris moved to Toronto and finished work on his third album "Be Creative" featuring performances from many talented Canadian artists including Glen Milchem (Blue Rodeo) and Rick Emmett (Triumph). Now a Canadian citizen, Chris' latest album credits include co-pro-ducer of Buffy Sainte-Marie's Polaris and Juno award winning album “Power in the Blood” (2016) and the recent Juno winner, “Medicine Songs” (2017), both for True North Records. In 2019 he released 11:11, his fourth album under the band name The Free Spirits. 

Chris is currently creating new recordings for a range of talented Canadian and European mu-sicians and mentoring and producing Inuit artists through the Hitzmaker's label. He's also im-mersed in his own upcoming albums and has been releasing singles that include “Precious Love” for his documentary filmmaker wife Joan Prowse, “2022” an upbeat refllection on 2 years of social isolation, “Icky Cottage Blues” a summertime sing-along song with his fun-lov-ing band The Happy Campers, and “Everyone Deserves a Home”, which earned a provincial community service award and a spot on Global News with Susan Hay.
www.chrisbirkett.ca