THE ONE & ONLY
Since fans across a wide demographic had responded so well to “Dock of the Bay,” I thought it would be great to put another classic R & B song on Soul Provider as a tribute to another of my heroes.
The fifth single from Soul Provider was co-written in 1930 by lyricist Stuart Gorrell and the great composer and performer Hoagy Carmichael. Named for and written about Carmichael’s sister, Georgia, it became the signature song of my biggest idol, Ray Charles, and the official song of his home state, too.
Predictably, I took some heat for covering “Georgia on My Mind.” Some critics held that it was wrong to cover “a Ray Charles song,” even though Ray recorded it thirty years after Hoagy Carmichael’s original version. Over the years, “Georgia” has been recorded by scores of artists, including Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, and Willie Nelson, to name just a few. Still, Ray did set the bar incredibly high with his perfect and definitive rendition. He owned the song, without a doubt. I wasn’t attempting to outsing him, only to pay homage with my own interpretation. What singer doesn’t want to perform great songs? And “Georgia” was another of the classics that I’d learned while just starting out. I’d performed it thousands of times. People had been comparing my voice to Ray’s since I was twelve years old.
Jamie Foxx did Ray Charles proud in his movie portrayal. His Oscar-winning performance in Ray was staggering. When I told Jamie that at an event, he kissed my hand. Jamie may just have been setting the trap for our next Ping-Pong duel. We’ve had some heated matches, and he once told an interviewer that I was the best celebrity Ping-Pong player he’d ever taken on. I feel the same way about him.
When the critics groused about my singing “Georgia,” I tuned them out. The opinions that mattered to me were the fans’ and Ray Charles’s. You can imagine how thrilled I was when I was asked to perform “Georgia” with Ray for the 1991 television special 50 Years of Music Making: A Tribute to Ray Charles. I nearly lost it while standing onstage with him at the piano for that performance. Maybe the biggest thrill of all, though, was when I was first introduced to Ray for our rehearsal. I walked up to him and said: “The student finally meets the master!”
At those words Ray flashed an ear-to-ear grin, and, honestly, the memory of his delighted expression is one of my most cherished moments as a performer. Making Ray Charles smile so joyfully felt almost as good as singing a duet with him. He was such a powerful influence and teacher for me and for countless other performers, especially with his masterful back-phrasing.
MY SOUL NOURISHED
My cover of “Georgia on My Mind” reached No. 6 on the Adult Contemporary chart in October 1992, and brought my second Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.
With five hit singles one after the other, Soul Provider began selling at the rate of 300,000 albums a week, reaching No. 3 on the Hot 200 chart for albums.
I learned with Soul Provider that scoring high on the Billboard charts is not nearly as important for an album’s sales as how long it remains on the charts. The incredible staying power of Soul Provider transformed me into a superstar, and my first No. I album—Time, Love & Tenderness—was just around the corner. The key to the success of Soul Provider is that so many singles released from the album became hits—one after the other, with each receiving extended airplay—which translated into continued sales over a long period of time.
This album, a landmark for my career, remained on the charts for an incredible 202 weeks, nearly four years, thanks to its many great songs, my many great fans, and the massive support team from my record company. They conducted the sort of marketing and promotional campaign that is increasingly rare these days in the music industry because budgets are so tight and artists seldom have champions to help their careers. I benefited greatly from a record label that stood behind me, helped me grow as an artist, and then supported my work with all of its resources. That sort of artist development, which allows young people to develop their gifts, forge their identities, and build their characters as well as their brands, is also rarely seen anymore.
So if you’ve ever doubted the simple magic of never giving up on your dream, consider my eighteen years of singing for my supper on street corners while one record deal after another failed to generate interest or sales. I paid a price, to be sure, and so did many of the people I loved. There is always a price.
All those years, I kept in mind the words of encouragement from my father. Bullet Bolotin never gave up on me, so I couldn’t give up, either. I drew strength from the encouragements I received along the way from people I respected, and I kept fighting. If that sounds like self-help-speak, all I can say is: Soul Provider sold more than 12.5 million albums worldwide and was certified six times platinum in the U.S. alone!
This album certainly did provide many soulful thrills and surprises. In 1989, I was nominated in the Grammy Awards Best Male Pop Vocal category for “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You.” My fellow nominees included Billy Joel, Prince, Richard Marx, and another of my heroes, the late Roy Orbison, who had died the year before. Incredibly, the selection committee chose me for the award, and at the 32nd annual Grammy Awards, I took home my first gilded gramophone statue, which was a very gratifying experience. Accepting the award was a surreal moment that my mind played out in slow motion, especially because the presenter who read my name was the grown-up little girl from my past, Paula Abdul. She cracked a huge smile when she opened the envelope and saw my name, which made me think, That’s a good sign. Given our friendship and long history, Paula’s presence gave me the sense that something cosmic was going on that day.
I high-fived Louis Levin (my “date” that night), and then walked to the podium. If it’s possible to be in a daze but have your mind racing and your emotions swirling, that was my situation. Overwhelmed, I forgot most of what I’d sworn to remember if I won. I tried to thank everyone involved in the album, but, maddeningly, I left out my producer, Michael Omartian, who was in the audience with his son. Afterward, I spoke about my slipup with my friend and fellow Grammy winner James Ingram. James is one of the greatest singers in the business and he’s inspired me since the first time I heard his voice on the Quincy Jones recording of “Baby Come to Me,” a duet with Patti Austin. I told James I messed up because I was afraid of jinxing myself if I came to the Grammys with a list of people to thank in my pocket. James and I agreed that I definitely could have used a list.
That was an emotional night, as you might imagine, given the long and rough road I’d traveled to that stage. After the Grammy Awards ceremony, Louis and I went to Wolfgang Puck’s Spago restaurant in L.A. for a party. I’d never been to such an event with so many stars, celebrities, and music industry movers and shakers. It seemed like everyone who’d attended the Grammys was there. I was overwhelmed by their congratulations and kind words. Quite a few of them expressed an interest in working with me in the future, which eventually would happen in many cases. I began to feel more comfortable in the company of people I had admired for so long. I should not have been surprised to see my touchstone friend there. I don’t know what it is that draws us together, because we’ve never spoken more than a few words to each other, but Kris Kristofferson—who had offered me encouragement while I sat on a street corner singing so many years before—has a habit of appearing at key moments in my life. Maybe one day I should ask him what that’s all about.
A year later, I returned to the Grammys courtesy of another song on that same album. My cover of “Georgia on My Mind” was also nominated for a Grammy in the same category. I was in great company again, as my fellow nominees included Phil Collins, James Ingram, Rod Stewart, and, again, Billy Joel and Roy Orbison. This time, Roy’s recording of “Pretty Woman,” used in the sound track of the Julia Roberts movie, won. I was happy to see Roy honored posthumously. His wife, Barbara, a producer and philanthropist who died in 2011, was also a friend of mine. Roy was a sweet soul of a man with such a unique gift and a wonderful career. I heard him per
form not long before he passed away and I thought that his magnificent voice was as strong and beautiful as it had ever been.
Soul Provider certainly had provided for me. With this album, I truly could say my father’s prediction had come true. I’d made it big, big, BIG!, and I owed a debt of thanks to my parents, my daughters, and all of the family, friends, fans, and fellow travelers in the music industry who encouraged and supported me along the way. As sappy as it may sound, you just can’t ever give up on your passion, because sometimes a simple adjustment in your approach or a change in circumstances can produce a dramatic transformation. During this period in which the universe suddenly shifted in my favor, I did all I could to enjoy the moment and seize the day, but honestly, I was often just in a stunned trance as a result of all the good fortune that came my way.
Never had I experienced such a series of incredible moments and mind-bending events. Kenny Rogers left me speechless when he walked up to me and said, “Pound for pound, you’re the best singer in the business.” Gladys Knight stepped into my elevator and lavished me with praise all the way to the lobby. Another night, I found myself locked in a warm and hilarious conversation about music and cars with Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa.
But my greatest success was yet to come.
TIME, LOVE & TENACITY: THE SONG STAYS ON THE ALBUM
With the multiplatinum success of the Hunger and Soul Provider albums, I felt we’d developed a finely tuned hit-making machine, thanks to our team of songwriters, musicians, backup singers, and producers. We were on a roll, selling millions and millions of records, and so we took much the same approach to the next album. This time, however, we unleashed Diane Warren in full force. I did make her promise not to bring Butt Wings into the studio, but other than that, I asked her to give us all the songs she could. Diane responded by writing or co-writing six songs chosen for the album, including the title track, “Time, Love & Tenderness”; “Missing You Now,” co-written with Walter Afanasieff and me; “Forever Isn’t Long Enough” and “New Love,” co-written with Desmond Child and me; and “Now That I Found You” and “We’re Not Making Love Anymore,” co-written with me.
We put the new song I’d written with Bob Dylan, “Steel Bars,” on the album as a final track, but we also included an R & B classic, as we’d done in the two previous albums with great success. This time, I chose to cover Percy Sledge’s soulful hit “When a Man Loves a Woman.” When I delivered the master copy of the Time, Love & Tenderness album to Columbia I thought we had a giant hit. I thought they would be ecstatic at what we’d produced.
My manager told me that the word on high was that we had a great list of hits—and one miss. The song they wanted to scratch from the album was the single that many record-business insiders had predicted would be its biggest hit. It was a solid thumbs-down to my cover of the Percy Sledge song. I felt like my dog had been kicked and then run over by an Escalade. I put everything I had into that track. Percy was another one of my longtime favorite R & B singers, and I’d been singing his songs for years.
Everyone else I’d talked to after hearing my rendition said it honored the original while adding a new flavor to it. Most thought it was a surefire hit.
I didn’t understand what the objections to the song might be. Louis Levin reported that there might be resistance from radio stations about playing a song so closely identified with Percy Sledge, because there was still recurrent airplay of the Percy Sledge recording, which I personally loved and acknowledged as the definitive version.
The irony was that the head of Sony, Tommy Mottola, had just suggested a few weeks earlier that I record “When a Man Loves a Woman,” without knowing that I had already recorded it.
Later, the Sony chief visited the studio and listened to my version. He was thrilled and joined the chorus of people proclaiming the song a smash.
Still, I thought it wise not to bring up Tommy’s endorsement. Instead, I questioned myself.
Maybe I’m missing something?
I decided to try some other approaches to performing the song to see if another version worked. That meant calling up the record producer with whom I had just started working, Walter Afanasieff—the music industry’s equivalent of James Bond’s gadget guy, “Q.” For our first songwriting session at the Sunset Marquis, unofficial West Coast headquarters of Michael Bolton, Inc., Walter came with a cartload of music-making gear. He was not only an amazing pianist, but a phenomenal technician.
Walter assured me that killer hits were his target. Somehow that day in our hotel room, Walter turned out a song demo that sounded better than most high-fidelity records. When my career took off, I asked Walter to produce my albums whenever possible. I was the burden he bore in long days and nights in the studio. The result was scores of killer hits.
When I called him to make another attempt at “When a Man Loves a Woman,” Walter sacrificed his weekend and drove down to L.A. from his home in the Bay Area. He brought along Dana Chappelle, the studio engineer who recorded all of the vocals, to see if I could surpass the earlier version I’d done, which Walter and I had selected as my best.
I attempted seven or eight versions of the song. At one point, Walter looked as though he might pass out from exhaustion at the mixing board. He was also frustrated because he thought we’d already nailed a fantastic track. So I left the sound booth and went into the control room.
“Michael, you could sing this song one hundred more times, and there would still be nothing I’d change from the absolutely perfect way we recorded it the first time!” he pleaded. “There is nothing we should change from what we have on the album now.”
He then flipped a switch to play the original recording. Sitting side by side, we listened without a word, shutting our eyes to focus on the music and the vocal. When the song was over, Walter turned to me and stared as if to say, How could you do any better than that?
I caught his meaning. I promptly apologized to Walter and Dana for dragging them away from their families and told them to go home. I then called Louis Levin and said: “I’ve made up my mind. The song stays on the record.”
The song stayed on the record.
In the weeks that followed, Columbia picked up on the positive buzz for my performance of “When a Man Loves a Woman,” and pulled out all the stops to promote both the single and the entire album. They brought it home in a huge way. My cover of Percy’s song shot to No. 1 on the singles charts, later winning me a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance of the Year. The success of my cover led to an opportunity to perform the song live with Percy in Chicago for a VH1 Center Stage show, creating another unforgettable moment in my life. The Time, Love & Tenderness album was also a major No. 1 hit, selling more than fourteen million copies worldwide.
The huge success of this project gave me a jolt, because I’d almost removed the song from the album. Later, Louis Levin heard a rumor that the objection to my version may have been triggered by a three-page critique written by one of the secretaries at the label.
I do think of that experience, though, on the many, many occasions when someone in an airport—including the security folks—or backstage at a concert sings it to me or tells me that it is a favorite song, or the song played at their wedding. This is the very same song that nearly didn’t make it past one person’s critical assessment and onto the biggest album of my career.
Everything worked out for the best. Donnie Ienner, one of the all-time great record executives, helped me sell more than fifty million albums. After all, we followed Time, Love & Tenderness with five more huge albums that went gold, platinum, or multiplatinum around the world, including my only classical album, My Secret Passion: The Arias, which went to No. 1 on the classical charts and remained there for six weeks.
I heard from another critic just prior to the release of that Time, Love & Tenderness album in 1991. This one was a professional, Stephen Holden of the New York Times, who’d once been an A and R executive for RCA and a longtime friend of mine, even
though my dad once insulted him without knowing he was standing right there. Dad’s hearing was shot, so he talked in a loud voice, and once when he joined me backstage after a live performance in New Haven, he said, “I hear some big shot from New York is here,” referring to Stephen, then a producer, who was standing behind me. Knowing Stephen had heard my dad, I joked, “He’s probably a nobody who just thinks he’s a big shot.” But then Dad chimed in, “Yeah, that’s what your brother said.”
Stephen, who’d obviously forgiven me, or forgotten that incident, remained a friend. He told me that he’d heard a pre-release version of Time, Love & Tenderness and thought the album was the best I’d made so far.
“It will be your biggest album to date, but I want to give you a heads-up,” he said.
“What for?” I asked.
“The other critics are going to crucify you,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
Stephen, who is no softy as a critic himself, explained.
“It’s a mainstream album and it will be huge, which means they’ll annihilate you because they didn’t make you a star, your fans did.”
Holden was dead-on. My war with the critics had begun.
One of the most striking examples of this was a show at the Blossom Music Center near Cleveland. All three of my daughters were there, seated in the front row. I sang a song to them that I’d written with Diane Warren and Walter Afanasieff. The lyrics always made me think of my girls: “Soul of my soul, heart of my heart. / Some kind of miracle of my life / that’s what you are. / Blood of my blood, light of my life. / You mean much more than you know, soul of my soul.”
The Soul of It All Page 20