JOHNNY 99 (City and Colour’s John Sponarski) returns with “It Can’t Be Christmas” with more to come in 2025
John Sponarski is perhaps best known as the guitarist in City and Colour, but under his alter ego Johnny 99, he has been making original country music in a classic honky tonk style for much longer. After releasing the debut Johnny 99 LP Words Left Unsaid in 2021, his duties with City and Colour have kept Sponarski busy, but Johnny 99 is set to make a full-fledged return in 2025, with the first preview coming in the form of what could be a new seasonal standard, “It Can’t Be Christmas.”
Johnny 99’s “It Can’t Be Christmas” is available on all digital platforms via North Country Collective.
Backed by his C&C band mates Matt Kelly, Erik Nielsen, and Leon Power, “It Can’t Be Christmas” is a bittersweet lament in the spirit of Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas,” but performed in an intimate style that would make Willie Nelson proud.
Sponarski says, “This song was one of those magical moments you don’t have to work for or coax out of the ether. It leaped from my imagination as soon as I awoke early one morning with the holidays right around the corner. The previous evening I had spoken with a friend who was grappling with the loss of his mother. We talked about his grief, and how it weighed on him and took away the joy and comfort he normally felt during the holiday season. It’s really a song for anyone who has experienced loss around Christmas, and how that has changed what it means to them.”
“It Can’t Be Christmas” will be followed by another Johnny 99 single in January 2025, along with further songs slated to be part of a sophomore collection with a release date yet to be determined. In the meantime—when not on the road—he’ll be found every Wednesday at Toronto’s Bell and Beacon, hosting “Johnny 99’s Hippie Honky Tonk.”
It’s all part of John Sponarski’s unbreakable dedication to making a life as a musician. After earning a Bachelor’s Degree in music, John spent the ensuing years touring as one half of the acclaimed duo Portage and Main, whose legacy is two albums of heartfelt roots rock. After that project’s dissolution, John began building his reputation as one of Vancouver’s in-demand session guitarists, working on countless records and backing up artists such as Aaron Pritchett, Ben Rogers, and Elliot C. Way.
Johnny 99 made his debut in 2016 with a four-song EP as part of Light Organ Records’ Railtown Sessions. It showcased the first glimpses of his timeless songwriting, which fully bloomed when he recorded Words Left Unsaid for North Country Collective. At about the same time in 2021, John was invited to play on City and Colour’s The Love Still Held Me Near, and has been a touring member of the band ever since.
While getting to perform with Dallas Green on a nightly basis has fulfilled one of his primary ambitions, it is under the guise of Johnny 99 that Sponarski has been able to forge his own musical identity. After relocating to Toronto in 2023, he and Matt Kelly began working on a new batch of tunes, essentially music they’ve dreamt of making together for years: Songs that paint pictures of lovable losers, fallen friends, and the broken-hearted, set to the soundtrack of country music from a bygone age. It’s country music that doesn’t shy away from flashy guitar, pedal steel, and fiddle. It’s music that was made for dancing. Honky tonk music. And you’ll be hearing a lot more of it in the coming months.