For believing in excellent live music venues

Music is the one constant in Mike Campbell’s career. It’s what brought him into millions of households as a host of MuchMusic and part of his present incarnation as a Halifax restaurateur. Born in Vancouver to a father who worked with the Canadian Forces, Campbell’s family moved every two years. He finished high school in Prince Edward Island and formed an instant attachment to Atlantic Canada. “There was something about the region that was welcoming,” he says.

Wanderlust kicked in after university, and Campbell found himself in Ottawa managing a record store and owning a promotion company for big-name acts visiting town. Around this time he met Moses Znaimer, who was launching MuchMusic. He signed Campbell and his friend Mike Rhodes to co-host Mike and Mike’s Excellent X-Canada Adventures, which broadcast weekly from different Canadian locales. “There was no budget,” says Campbell, “but it was the best job in the world.”  

While touring with Mike and Mike’s, Campbell rekindled his East Coast love affair. Drawn in part by the lively regional music scene, in 1992 he moved to Halifax to host Much East, a MuchMusic program covering Atlantic Canadian music, which morphed into Going Coastal. His next move was to open a music venue.

In 2008, with former co-host Rhodes, Campbell opened The Carleton in downtown Halifax. “I knew people would expect me to have a live-music component,” he says, “and because of my personal relationship with artists, I could convince musicians to play here.”

Campbell has lived in Halifax longer than anywhere else, and The Carleton is proof of his commitment to the city he calls home. What keeps him rooted here? “The people and the place,” he says. “It’s potentially one of the most exciting places in the country to live.”