Award-winning Canadian performer Jason Blaine is one of the nation's most popular country artists, balancing traditional sounds and down-home themes against an up-to-date, rock-oriented approach. Blaine was born Jason McEwen in Pembroke, Ontario, Canada on April 19, 1980. McEwen drew inspiration from his father and older brother, who loved country music and played in a band as a hobby. When he was eight years old, McEwen began playing guitar, and at 16 he took up songwriting, soon joining his father and brother in the group. After completing high school, McEwen studied business at Algonquin College in Pembroke, but he hadn't given up on his dream of becoming a professional musician, working as a guitarist and backing vocalist for singer John Landry. In 2002, McEwen became a contestant in Project Discovery, a nationwide talent search sponsored by the Canadian branch of CMT (Country Music Television). McEwen was the first-place winner in the contest, and adopted the stage name Jason Blaine to avoid confusion with another Project Discovery winner, Jason McCoy. In 2003, Blaine released his debut single, "That's What I Do," and in 2005, he issued an album, While We Were Waiting, on the independent Jay Bird label. In 2006, the Universal-distributed Canadian label Icon Records reissued his debut LP, while Koch Entertainment signed Blaine for his second album, 2008's Make My Move, which featured two minor Canadian hits, "Rock in My Boot" and "Good Day to Get Gone." By the time the album was released, Blaine had relocated to Nashville, Tennessee in hopes of expanding his career. He landed a publishing deal with Anchor Down/New Millennium Music, and scored a new record deal with eOne Records. Blaine's first album for eOne, Sweet Sundown, arrived in 2010, while Life So Far followed in 2011; the latter included the tune "They Don't Make 'Em Like That Anymore," which was named Single of the Year by the Canadian Country Music Association. Arriving in 2013, Everything I Love was the album that established Blaine as a major country star in Canada; three singles from the LP -- "Rock It Country Girl," "Feels Like That," and "Friends of Mine" -- reached the Top 20 of the Canadian Country Singles chart. In 2014, Blaine signed a new publishing deal with Word Country, the country-music branch of Christian music giant Word Music Publishing. Released in 2015, Country Side was another major success in Canada, spawning three hit singles: "Dance with My Daughter," "Spotlight," and the title tune, which became 2015's Most-Played Canadian Country Song of the Year. (The performance rights organization SOCAN declared Blaine had the Airplay Single of the Year in Canada in 2014, 2015, and 2016.) In 2017, Blaine moved to the Canadian label Wax Records, and his first release for the label, the six-song EP Boy with a Guitar, appeared in November of that year. The EP included the Canadian hit "Born to Love." ~ Mark Deming
