He had two major international hits with his songs "Sometimes When We Touch" and "Can't We Try", a duet with Vonda Shepard, as well as a number of other charting singles in Canada and the United States.
At one point Hill was working for the Ontario provincial government sorting mail and delivering supplies, while performing at the Riverboat at night.
Before finishing high school, he recorded a demo tape with the assistance of his boyhood friend Matt McCauley, later a well-known composer and arranger.
In 1987, Hill returned to the Billboard Hot 100 with the Top 40 hit "Can't We Try", a duet with the then-unknown Vonda Shepard (her last name was incorrectly spelled "Sheppard" on the label).
2 on the Adult Contemporary chart and set the stage for Hill to have three more top 10 U.S. AC hits through to 1991's "I Fall All Over Again", though he did not make the Hot 100 again after "Never Thought".
Hill was a lifelong friend of writer Paul Quarrington, and the two also occasionally performed together as a folk music duo, billed as Quarrington/Hill.
A summary of his career, published in 2021, added some specifics:[5] "throughout the 1990s, he focused on penning lyrics for some of the most prominent singers of the era, including Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and Reba McEntire ... he returned to his singer-songwriter roots with the 2020 single "What About Black Lives?"
part of the yet-to-be-released studio album "On the Other Side of Here".The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (CSHF) announced the induction of Dan Hill on February 10, 2021.
[15] Hill wrote an article in the 14 February 2008 edition of Maclean's entitled "Every Parent's Nightmare", about the terror he experienced from friends his son brought home.
[16] On 14 March 2008, CBC Television's The National aired an in-depth interview with Hill discussing his son's involvement with Toronto gangs.