Steve Bell received his 5th Juno award nomination for his latest album Wouldn't You Love to Know? that he released on November 1, 2020.  

"What a delight," Bell says.

The nominations for the 50th Juno awards ceremony were announced on March 9, 2021, at 11:00 am ET. Bell is one of five Canadian Christian artists nominated in the category of Christian Contemporary Gospel Album of the Year.

The story of how Bell got to this point relays swapping a Juno for a Juno, in a sense.

"This time last year when we were doing a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to record my new album, I had an extra Juno kicking around that my dad had, and we ended up auctioning off the Juno to help pay for this new album," he says. 

The award was an extra one Bell bought after winning, to give as a special gift to his father. Once Bell's dad passed away, he had this 'extra' award, which is the one he auctioned off. 

"[This new album] has a song about my dad on it, so not only is there a song about him, but my dad's Juno helped pay for the album, which is now up for a Juno award. There's a nice little poetic circle going on there."

Bell has taken home two Juno awards out of the four previous nominations, this new one putting him at five nominations total. 

"It validates the album in a sense. It's also a way of your peers saying, 'We notice you and we see you're doing good work,'" says Bell.

This year's half a century celebration of Canadian artists and musicians will be a virtual show with all nominees tuning in from home, on May 16, 2021. 

"I've been to four [Juno ceremonies] and they really are fun because as an artist you get to hang out with other artists. You know I met Bruce Cockburn when I was in a room full of other nominees. It's the one place everybody is a peer, and you can walk up to a guy like him and have a casual conversation. I'm sorry we can't go this year."