Michael Bolton - Singer

By: Dominick A. Miserandino

Singer Michael Bolton prides himself on taking risks as an artist. He’s not afraid to take a chance with his work, having covered everything from Otis Redding to Frank Sinatra.

And Michael's own work has been embraced by a wide range of artists, from Kiss to Kanye West. He's written songs for superstars like Barbra Streisand and collaborated with legends such as Bob Dylan. He's even sung with the renowned opera singer Luciano Pavarotti. Here, he talks about his new album, taking risks with his music, and how stepping out on a limb has paid off for him throughout his career.

DM: To start the game running, your recent album, Bolton Swings Sinatra, I read one article that struck me, which described it as a dangerous thing to risk because in a sense, doing the Sinatra tribute, comparing to Sinatra, the article said was almost dangerous of Michael Bolton. You're copying a legend, or doing a tribute to a legend, and inevitably that's tough to do.

MB: I think that this is an interesting subject matter because we're not even talking about the album all of a sudden. We move on to perception and the funny thing is that whenever you enter into a new area-another stage-if there's not an element of danger, you're not being an artist.

DM: Okay, now what do you mean by that?

MB: If you make a record that sounds like it's chock-full of hits, you'll be accused of being safe. But when you look at my history, the music I was raised on and grew up to was Motown, basically Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder-Ray Charles was my single greatest influence and I've said that in about a million interviews. And then, whenever I would cut big records with "Georgia on My Mind"-and I was nominated for a Grammy for that. And I did "Dock of the Bay" and we were off to a great start. People really didn't know me that well as an artist. I'd had only one hit, called "That's What Love Is All About," in '87. My second single was "Dock of the Bay" and I was being embraced by the black community. I was doing shows where I was the only person at the show who wasn't African American. And I was very proud of it. Those vocalists were my heroes growing up. And this was one of them. I never thought, "Wow, this is a dangerous thing."

DM: You never saw it as a risk.

MB: I thought, "Wow, this is such a great song." Not only is it performed by Otis, but it was written by Otis. And a white guy, Steve Cropper-he's a good friend of mine. And this is all part of the amazing story that no one, unless they are in the music business long enough, that no one can grasp, is the back story. We grow up admiring and being inspired and influenced by masters, and when we meet them, or get to sing with them, there's a certain kind of respect and a reverence that we have for their body of work. Otis is no longer here, tragically-he was far too young.

DM: Tell me about performing Otis's "Dock of the Bay."

MB: And I performed "Dock of the Bay" on Showtime at the Apollo. I was a nervous wreck because I remembered that show. If they don't like you, not only do they let you know, but they come out with a hook to get you off stage. And they loved me, so they invited me back. And I was very honored by that. Then when we released "Dock of the Bay" as a single, we hit a wall. It was off to a good start, but it hit this wall of people who said, "Should a white guy from Connecticut be singing an Otis Redding classic? I mean, what's up with this?"

DM: And how did Otis's family's feel about you covering "Dock of the Bay?"

MB: Otis Redding's widow, Zelma Redding, saw the Showtime at the Apollo performance and raved about it. So they asked her if they could print her quote in the trades, and she said yes. And they printed her quote, and all those walls came down. Radio just started playing it on four formats: black radio, Top 40, Adult Contemporary, and AOR-rock 'n' roll radio. That's because there's this phenomenal guitar solo.

So I watched this thing unfold and I was thinking, "Wait a second, what's wrong with this picture here?" Almost every group I grew up loving, from the Stones to the Beatles-as many songs as they wrote-they would cover an American icon, whether it was Chuck Berry, or Little Richard, or in the Stones, everything from Muddy Waters to every blues artist, basically.

DM: And those were all seen as acceptable artistic choices.

MB: Right. I don't remember anybody saying to them, "Hey that's a dangerous thing." You know what I mean? It's like, it was accepted, because it was a choice, it was an artistic choice. And then when you look at-really look at-the masters you see that they all chose material and recorded material that was written, or written and performed by some of their iconic heroes. A lot of people don't know Billie Holiday wrote "God Bless the Child." They just think she recorded it. She was one of the writers.

She probably had no idea it was going to be recorded by every artist for a hundred years to follow. But all of this leads me back, and I'm not trying to avoid the question, but come back to the heart of it: that you have your writers and artists who interpret. I've written several hundred songs and had 150 songs recorded by other artists. I've had some pretty big hits recorded by other artists. No one told me that was a dangerous thing to do.

DM: It sounds like there's a difference in perception between you as a songwriter to a performer.

MB: To try to write for a legend, or try to write rock 'n' roll. I've had KISS cover my songs. Kanye West and John Legend sampled my songs, and I'm proud of that. I'm not afraid of it. I long for it and I'm grateful for it. So when you step up, basically, you get into this area where the only danger, really, is somebody else's perception that you don't have the right as an artist to say: "I love this guy's work, I love this woman's work, I love this artist's work. Here's my interpretation of it." You never go out there-unless you're out of your mind-thinking, I'm going to blow their version out of the water. You always go out there thinking, "Hey, I'm never going to outdo the definitive version. But here's my take on it."

DM: So do you do a lot of research into a piece before you start making decisions about covering and recording?

I assure you that when I do a record like this, it's the same as I did when I did an aria. I started studying, all the way back to Caruso's 1920-something recordings. Enrico Caruso's version of "Una Furtiva Lagrima," which to most people sounds like an Italian dish.

DM: So you really went back to studying the classics.

MB: I've studied his version and I've studied Gigli's version, and all of the ten greatest tenors of their time, through Pavarotti's version, because I was about to sing with Luciano Pavarotti. My knees were just about banging together. If I was too afraid to do it, I would never have had that life-altering experience. And it was life-altering-musically, for sure. So, the things that I think are exciting in life should be a little scary, but not for that reason, as you said, that somebody might say, "How dare you." That means they're not an artist or they don't understand a heart of an artist.

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