Singer Dee Daniels started singing in her stepfather's church choir in Oakland, British Columbia. Never did she think that she'd become an award-winning and world-renowned jazz singer.

"The whole time I was growing up, my passion was art," Daniels said during a phone interview from Vancouver. "That's why my degree is in art education.

"I always sang, but it's just something I could do and I enjoyed it, but I just never thought of it as a career."

Still, Daniels said, she responded voluntarily when she realized that singing would be her career.

"After I graduated from college and began teaching in Seattle, I ran into one of the bands I used to sit in with at the end of a New Year's Eve party," Daniels said. "They asked me to come and do some background vocals and asked me to join the band."

Daniels turned it down because of her teaching gig.

"I told them I have a real job and know I'm getting paid every month," Daniels said with a laugh."

But the band kept asking Daniels, and she agreed to sing with them on the weekends. "But it wasn't long until I was working with them six nights a week," she said with another laugh.

Throughout her career, Daniels has performed with Toots Thielemans, Ed Thigpen, Monty Alexander and Johnny Griffin. She has garnered a number of awards, including the Commemorative Medal for the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2003. This year, she was given an honorary doctorate in fine and applied arts from Capilano University in North Vancouver.

Her 2007 CD, "Jazzinit," was in the top 10 of various music polls.

Daniels has also toured the world, performing and holding workshops and master classes.

"I always felt that I had a responsibility, one that I assumed gladly and happily, to share information," Daniels said. "I enjoy sharing information. And in doing so, I took it a step further. Not only do I enjoy and feel the need to share, but I feel the obligation to give back to young people who want to experience this life."

That's why Daniels started the Dee Daniels Jazz Vocal scholarship at Capilano University in 2001.

"Somebody helped me at different points of my life in all kinds of ways," she said. "Sometimes it was just word of encouragement from a stranger."

Daniels remembered a few times of her career when she sang in bars and nightclubs.

"In a bar it's hard getting people's attention," said Daniels, who also plays violin. "You start to think, 'Why am I here? Can I make it through this song, the set?' and then on a break someone who didn't know me would touch my arm and say something very encouraging, and I would say to myself, 'Oh, yeah. That's why I'm doing this.' "