Deborah Cox's Canadian Soul

Canada produced many of the musicians and singers who are popular in the U.S., including Joni Mitchell, Bryan Adams, Guess Who, and k.d. lang. But there has never been an R&B artist out of Canada with the kind of success that one 25 year old is having. Her name is Deborah Cox, and her latest album, One Wish, is tearing up the charts.

"Soul music comes from the soul, so it doesn't matter where you're from," Cox tells CBS This Morning Co-Anchor Mark McEwen, adding, "I think that as long as you exemplify soul, it'll come out in the music."

Her greatest role model is singer Gladys Knight. Cox, the child of Guayanese parents, recalls her mother playing the music of many black artists when she was a child. "I was six or seven when I heard Gladys Knight's Help Me Make It Through the Night," she recently told Out magazine. "My mother used to play that record all the time. Lou Rawls, Joe Tex, Al Green, those were the records my mom used to play. Also Bob Marley and Billie Holiday. But when I heard Gladys, that's what sparked interest for me."

Cox was singing professionally by age 12 and moved to L.A. in 1992. Before becoming a solo artist, she sang backup for performers including fellow Canadian Celine Dion.

Cox's new album hit stores Sept. 29, and her first single, Nobody's Supposed To Be Here, has since gone gold and reached No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart. The dance remix made it to No. 1.

As a matter of fact, Cox does very well in the dance clubs. Her self-titled first album was released in 1996 and included such songs as Sentimental and Who Do You Love? But it was her dance hit, Things Just Ain't the Same, that created a buzz for the new R&B diva after it was included on the soundtrack of the movie Money Talks in the summer of 1997.

She was nominated for Best New R&B Vocalist at the American Music Awards in 1997 and won back-to-back JUNO awards in Canada as Best R&B Female Artist.