Corey Hart to be inducted into Canadian Music Hall of Fame at 2019 Junos

Thirty-five years after “Sunglasses at Night” catapulted Corey Hart to synth-paved superstardom, the Montreal singer-songwriter is being inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

“I am deeply humbled by this invitation into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame,” Hart said via press release. “It’s an incredible honour to be acknolwedged alongside so many other talented and venerable Canadian artists. My career goal since the beginning has always been to remain 100 per cent authentic to my artistic vision while embodying the highest respect and dedication towards the craft I love so much.”

Hart will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at the 2019 Junos, which will take place on March 17 at London’s Budweiser Gardens and will be broadcast live at 8 p.m. ET on CBC, CBC Radio and globally on cbc.ca/junos.

He’ll join the ranks of 51 past Hall of Fame inductees, including Barenaked Ladies, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morissette, Anne Murray, k.d. lang and Leonard Cohen.

When Hart was 16, he saw Billy Joel perform at Montreal’s Forum. Hart was so impressed that he sent a cassette of “six or seven piano/vocal demos” to each of Joel’s band members, asking for help getting a record deal. The band’s sax player did actually call Hart, and the Montrealer spent his following summer playing with the Billy Joel Band.

Hart released his first hit single, “Sunglasses at Night” off his debut album, First Offense, when he was just 21 years old, and the song’s video won the first-ever Juno Award for best video, in 1984. His followup album, Boy in the Box, hit diamond sales status and had four hit singles, including “Never Surrender,” which won the Juno for single of the year in 1985.

With more than 16 million records sold worldwide, a Grammy nomination and nine consecutive singles on the U.S. Billboard Top 40, Hart has also written for other artists: Celine Dion’s 1997 Let’s Talk About Love album featured two songs written and co-produced by Hart, “Miles to Go (Before I Sleep)” and “Where is the Love;” and on Dion’s 2002 album, A New Day Has Come, Hart wrote “Prayer.”

This year, Hart will release his first new music in 20 years: the Dreaming Time EP, out May 3, 2019. He’ll also kick off a cross-Canada tour, the Never Surrender tour, on May 31, starting in St. John’s.