The Soul of It All

by Michael Bolton

  Laura sang “How Am I” as a pop ballad, very much as I’d performed it on the demo. I’d written quite a few love songs already, along with a ton of rock songs, so I was comfortable with them, even though I hadn’t recorded any myself. People often ask if my songs are based upon personal experiences, and I believe they all are connected in some way. Most writers of songs, novels, or poems tap into their well of emotions and past and present experiences. The funny thing is that “How Am I,” which probably has impacted my life more than any other song I’ve written, was not inspired by an event in my life. I wasn’t going through a breakup when Doug and I wrote that heartbreaker, but we both knew what losing a relationship felt like.

  Not every song comes directly and completely out of a life moment, but I have no doubt that moments from my life are in each song, whether it’s just a situation I’ve observed, empathy I’ve felt for a friend, or something deeper within me in a place where I don’t care to consciously go. Many times, a song will begin with just a phrase or a theme and then, in a sense, write itself while I ride along taking notes or running the tape recorder. I love the creative flow that occurs when songs reveal themselves and you feel as though other forces are at play. I’ve heard of other writers and artists being caught up in the flow. Doug and I certainly were fully engaged in our first series of songwriting sessions and in all that followed. We’d spend hours and hours in our little room playing off each other, testing riffs and lyrics. There were times when the maintenance crews threw us out so they could finish their work, but we wised up and began slipping cash to the security guards so we could work through the night to complete songs and polish the demos.

  At some point, though, nearly every song becomes work. The wind isn’t always in the sails. You aren’t always coasting along. Even when you feel inspired, you have to stay focused and keep the song rooted in reality. The story must be believable and relatable and accessible. Doug and I seemed to have the right recipe with our very first song.

  I was touring with Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band when Laura’s recording of “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You” was playing on radio stations everywhere we traveled. The fact that a song I’d co-written was soaring up the charts lifted my spirits because, at the same time, my own single “Fool’s Game” was losing steam. There was something else nagging me as well. Every night after I finished performing with my band, I listened to the headliner sing and I had to wonder whether there was room for me, another white rock and soul singer with a gritty voice, because Bob was so talented, already established, and cranking out one hit after another.

  With all those doubts dogging me, you can imagine how I welcomed the success of Laura’s recording of our song and all the good things it was bringing my way. Louis Levin called me every day, often several times a day, with requests from other artists and record companies looking for songs. Just knowing my name was out there and my songs were respected gave me hope and the strength to continue as a singer, too.

  Laura’s emotional performance of our song was beautiful, and her success with it was a game changer for me—a major boost for my songwriting career, which, like my jingle career, took off at a pace that left me wondering what I’d done to deserve it. Once again, I’d always been told that you were lucky if one of every ten songs you wrote was recorded by another artist. Doug James and I went on a fast roll with our songs. They were snatched up, one after the other, by top-echelon performers who didn’t have to beg for material.

  My songs were being picked up and even custom-ordered by the Pointer Sisters, Kenny Rogers, Thelma Houston, Bill Medley, and another former jingle singer, Patti Austin. I managed to stay focused and keep writing, because this sudden change in fortune had me really fired up.

  I’d been banging on doors in the music industry since the age of fifteen, never expecting that one day they would fly open and welcome me in with such warmth and enthusiasm. Top executives, producers, and performers were calling me with requests to write for them or their artists. The industry I had been chasing all those years was now chasing me.

  In truth, I’d been writing songs for nearly as long as I’d been singing them. I just never thought that I could make a living writing for other artists. I’d always thought I’d be known for singing rock songs, not writing them. As they say, “Men plan. God laughs.” It is kind of funny that I could barely make a living as a rock singer but did so well singing jingles and writing songs for other artists. As it turned out, my work as a songwriter eventually helped open the door to my singing career and the realization of my dreams. I was bullheaded and focused for many years, determined to stick exactly to the path I’d mapped out to be a rock star. I generally refused to listen to suggestions or advice from anyone about diverting from that path. There is a lesson in that. There can be more than one path to a dream, and it’s rarely a straight path that takes you there. My experience is that if you fully commit yourself to your dreams, the path and the destination are one and the same.

  Credit: Bolotin Family Collection

  Chapter Nine

  Songwriter Shangri-La

  Writing songs came naturally to me. Giving them away was something I had to get used to.

  The fact that my music was something I could create for other performers took a while to sink in. Being a songwriter was part of being a singer for me. I’d always done both; I’d just never thought of myself as someone who wrote compositions for other people to sing.

  My mother recognized early on that while I expressed my opinions freely, my feelings were another matter. I tended to lock those up. I spent a big part of my childhood in closets. The songs poured out of me there. Writing songs has always provided me with a way to express what is in my heart or eating at my soul. Over time, I grasped that songwriting helps make me a more compelling singer because I’m more aware of all the components of the song. Actually, every detail involved in delivering the power, which is the emotion and the sentiment of the song, needs to be embraced and learned in order for an artist to become better at both writing and singing. The singer is the messenger and the song is the message.

  When you write for other artists, you do demo recordings that lay out the blueprint for them and the record producers, and that process also helps you become more thoroughly engaged as a singer.

  I’ve had vocal performances that I would just as soon forget—especially from the early days—but I have affection for every song I’ve written. They are like my children. I love every one of them in a unique way, even though I have a few hundred songs to love. From the time I first learned to play the guitar, I’ve composed songs. Some of the most peaceful and fulfilling moments of my childhood and teen years were spent in my closet or another solitary place, where I could put together words and music in peace. I’d go to a place in my mind where there was no time and no distractions, and I’d lose myself in the creative process.

  I barely knew what chord changes were in the early days. I didn’t have an inkling about the craft, really, because I was just beginning. I was insecure about playing in front of others until I was sure I could play without making a lot of mistakes. I do still seek out quiet, private spaces when I want to begin a song. In that space, I try to craft something that will truly resonate. I draw on my emotions and experiences and observations, so I have to be alone or working with a trusted co-writer to reach into all of those places and then express musically what emerges.

  I usually begin writing songs alone but team with someone to complete them. I’ve found that it takes me longer to write one song by myself than to write four in collaboration. A good pianist or keyboard player can help me, because the voicings on a piano are more emotionally powerful for me. I’m a big fan of the songs that came out of Motown, as you probably know or certainly will when my next CD comes out.

  For that album I also wrote an original song with my longtime friend and collaborator Lamont Dozier, a member of the incredibly prolific Motown songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, whose so
ngs were recorded many times by many artists, and they often had a song hit No. 1 more than once because of that. This was not my first collaboration with Lamont. In 1997, Lamont, Ken “Babyface” Edmonds, and I co-wrote “Why Me” for my All That Matters album.

  To date, Lamont has written and produced fifty-four No. 1 hit records on the Billboard charts. While widely known as a songwriting legend, he also has produced every No. 1 song that he’s written. Incredibly, Lamont has written more than 1,000 published songs and probably another 5,000 that are not published. He writes new songs every day, completing only those that he feels reflect his best work. At Motown and on his own, he’s been involved in the creation of hundreds of classics, including “Stop! In the Name of Love,” “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “Baby Love,” “Heat Wave,” “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” “How Sweet It Is,” and “Baby I Need Your Loving.” That last song alone has been performed nine million times, according to Lamont.

  This Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and Grammy winner signed on with Berry Gordy at Motown in 1962. Writing with him is both a humbling and an inspiring experience—and I’m not kidding about the humbling part. I thought I’d done pretty well writing more than two hundred songs, but Lamont has written more than ten times that, and so many of them have been hits it’s mind-boggling. A historian at the Motown museum told me that the writing team of Holland-Dozier-Holland has had more number one hits than the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Elvis combined.

  Working with Lamont is like attending a master class in songwriting. I was floored by his melodic instincts and the way he plays with lyrics with such great style and class. Lamont gave me a taste of what it must have been like to work at Motown with songwriters of his skill. He and the other Motown writers created songs that have been recorded, sung, and loved by generations of fans around the world.

  Lamont described “being in the zone” with his songwriting collaborators during those Motown years. One of their secrets was to know when to get out of the way creatively when great lyrics and melodies were revealing themselves. There is a real thrill experienced when a song begins to write itself and the lyrics and melodies fall into place. You believe there is a greater creative power at work in those moments where you feel immersed in the soul of it all. You become both a participant and an observer in that time of creative flow. You come out of that spell feeling as though all of your gifts and talents and energy have been fully expressed and fulfilled.

  SECRETS OF THE MOTOWN SOUND

  Most of the Motown songs I’m familiar with were written on keyboards, and there is a little additional element in the chords of these songs that bears mentioning. When you listen to the chord structures, the hooks sound simple, but there is always something else going on that is a little tricky or clever, a variation that is more complex. In listening to multiple tracks of original Motown recordings, I noticed that some of the string arrangements seem to be in an entirely different form than you’d expect—more classical than pop, but they are truly part of the Motown sound.

  Then I found that in the keyboard parts of many Motown songs there is an unusual combination of minors and majors. Now, in my little corner of the songwriting world, you usually don’t hear a major and a minor chord played simultaneously because they tend to fight against each other. The notes conflict and if you play just the keyboard parts, the notes have a certain amount of dissonance that sounds unpleasant. Yet the Motown songwriters realized that underneath the more pleasant harmonies going on—the hooks that were delivering these songs—the dissonance isn’t perceived as dissonance. It creates a kind of tension that makes the release of it more appealing and compelling. It’s an interesting little element; not a trick, but a skill.

  In “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” the chorus has a minor and a major going on. When we were starting to lay down the tracks for the song, which is on my latest CD, I asked my co-producer, Paul Mirkovich, if he noticed the wrong chord was being played. “It’s not the wrong chord,” he said. “That’s how it is written.”

  It is almost like one guy didn’t tell the other that he was playing an E-flat minor to the other’s E-flat major. Normally you would fix that chord. But the Motown songwriters knew what they were doing, and it’s not like they were trying to create an alternative sound that was out of the mainstream or not commercially viable. The songwriters from Motown were delivering hooks that were impossible to get out of your head, but underneath them they had some unusual and complex movements going on.

  Paul is classically trained and can write out orchestra charts. But even he didn’t realize how complex some Motown tracks are. Discovering elements like that in songs can’t help but inspire me as a songwriter. I can’t imitate what the writers did, but understanding their techniques makes me want to elevate my game. I’ve played golf and tennis with professionals, and they have the same impact on me. You just hope a little of their superior talent rubs off. When I hear Motown songs even today I get excited about the greater possibilities for my own songwriting.

  Writing songs is a craft, and there is a process I follow with each one. I first find the initial spark or theme to be developed and then build on it. Songwriting 101: make each verse compelling enough to keep people engaged and listening and get them emotionally involved so they follow you into the chorus—but don’t take too long doing it. My mantra is “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus.”

  There also has to be a hook in the chorus that stays with the listener. The legendary Quincy Jones, who has worked with an incredible list of performers, including Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, and Michael Jackson, is the master of record production and creating memorable performances. His line on the topic of songwriting is among my favorites. When listening to a song without a strong chorus he’ll stop the singer and say, “I’m offering a twenty-five-dollar reward for the hook. Can anyone find it?”

  The “work” of songwriting is in mastering such details; building a great bridge (the middle eight bars, which set up the final chorus), telling a story in three minutes, and then conveying the power of the composition in a studio. Early on I wrestled with the pressures of composing to order for a specific artist. I locked up creatively at first. When I first began working with Doug James in the CBS Songs office, Deirdre O’Hara would check in with us from time to time and tell us what performers or bands were looking for songs and what kind of records they wanted and what the hottest producers were calling for. I found it difficult to sit down and write a song with one artist or act in mind. I tried to do it many times. I have a good ear for artists and their voices and vocal ranges, and I know instinctively if a song is suited for a certain artist, but I can’t tailor-make a song for an artist to save my life. What works for me is to try and write a great song alone or with a collaborator, and determine which artists it is best suited for. I’ve often had great success in matching songs to artists, but not in writing with a particular artist in mind.

  Fortunately, when I received a “custom” songwriting request for a huge star in 1987, I already had a perfect song in my pocket. The request was from the team working with a Grammy-winning goddess of pop music. Cher had taken five years off for an equally successful career as a movie star and now wanted me to write songs for the album that would reestablish her singing career.

  The initial call came from legendary A and R executive John Kalodner, who was then with Geffen Records.

  “Michael, Cher needs a comeback smash record,” John said.

  A rock star since the ’60s, Cher was coming off a five-year stretch in which she’d proved herself also as a gifted actress. She’d been widely praised for her roles in Mask and Silkwood, for which she received an Oscar nomination (and would later win). Word was that she’d get another Academy Award nomination for her role in a movie due to come out at the end of 1987, Moonstruck.

  Having conquered Hollywood, Cher signed with Geffen Records to make a roaring return as a singer. Geffen was assembling a team of songwriters, musi
cians, backup singers, and record producers to make it happen—fast. They wanted the album released just before Moonstruck opened in December, so they were shopping for hits in a hurry.

  They chose three songs that I’d co-written—“I Found Someone,” with Mark Mangold; “Working Girl,” with Desmond Child (who would have five songs on the album); and “Hard Enough Getting Over You,” with Doug James. Other songwriters whose songs made the cut were Diane Warren, Richie Sambora, and Jon Bon Jovi. Laura Branigan had recorded the first song, “I Found Someone,” previously for her 1985 album Hold Me. She released it as a single and hit No. 25 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart in 1986. Laura also had performed it on The Tonight Show on New Year’s Eve in 1985.

  I didn’t tell Cher about all of that at first. Songs are often picked up by several artists, but I wasn’t sure Cher would want to perform a song recorded by another artist on her comeback album. Keeping the song’s history to myself proved to be a good move. Cher loved it, and she released her version as the first single. It broke the Top 10 of the Hot 100 on the Billboard charts. Of course, Laura hadn’t done a music video to support the song, while Cher made a smoking-hot video that was a finalist for the Best Female Video of the Year at the 1988 MTV Awards.

  The high-dollar video also starred Cher’s boyfriend, dancer Rob Camilletti. This was supposed to mark his debut as an actor but few people noticed him, through no fault of his own. Cher wore a black leather coat over a fishnet body stocking and thong for most of the video. Male viewers may not have realized she was even singing. Cher did not look like a typical forty-four-year-old mother of two children.