Vancouver television audiences might not know that Breakfast Television's Dawn Chubai is an award-winning jazz singer, and yet without her dynamite pipes, she might not be a TV personality at all.
Back in 1999, Chubai was an up-and-coming jazz vocalist working Edmonton's music scene. She'd just released her début CD, New Chapters for an Old Book, and garnered some pretty impressive acclaim, including the award for Best Jazz Artist from the Alberta Recording Industry Association.
Performing meant constant promotion, and Chubai made frequent appearances on local television shows to sing her heart out and entice people to buy tickets to her gigs.
But something about Chubai — perhaps her warm smile, or her swirl of energy, or her genuine interest in other people — caught the attention of an Edmonton station manager, who encouraged her to audition for a weather/traffic position. "I had no television experience at all, so I totally was brutal," she recalls during a recent phone interview. But not so brutal: she got the job.
Fast forward 14 years and it's hard to believe there was ever a time when Chubai wasn't in front of the camera. Today she's well known as the amiable Live Eye host on Breakfast Television, but over the last 14 years, she's kept her music career going as well with a steady stream of performances including frequent gigs with legendary band leader Dal Richards.
"I've been out here [in Vancouver] going on 10 years and I have never stopped singing, but it's still amazing to me when people who have been watching me on Breakfast Television the entire time go, 'Oh, I didnt know you sang,'" she says.
But this is likely to change come January, when Chubai finally releases her sophomore album, entitled Under the Covers. "Time just got away from me, and all of the sudden, it's 14 years later," she says, laughing.
Recorded in The Garage — a studio on the Sunshine Coast owned and operated by Larry Hennessey of Larry and Willy fame — Under the Covers features an eclectic mix of songs, including three originals, two of which were penned by Chubai herself.
How eclectic? Among the 12 tracks is To Love Somebody by the BeeGees, which Chubai performs with a gospel twist; a dark version of Cyndi Lauper's Time After Time; a bossa nova spin on All My Loving by The Beatles; Tennessee Whiskey by Gary Moore; The Spinner's I'll Be Around; standards Route 66, Come Rain or Come Shine, and Fly Me to the Moon.
"There's lots of variety on there, but the songs somehow all fit together," says Chubai, who describes her sound as funk- and country-flavoured jazz. "I just want them to sit there and go, 'Man, oh, she did that song?! What a cool way of doing it.'"
Under the Covers will go on sale in January, and in the interim, Chubai is releasing her take on the Mel Torme classic The Christmas Song.
"It'll really get people in the spirit," she says. The Christmas Song will be available free of charge to anyone who signs up for Chubai's newsletter before December 7.
"People ask me periodically, 'Do you wish you were just doing music, or, would you ever quit TV for music?' I'm really lucky that I get to do both."
