The Soul of It All

by Michael Bolton

  Those loving relationships aren’t always the case. I’ve often witnessed combative tug-of-war power struggles between couples. On the road, when I eat alone, writing or reviewing projects I’m considering or in the midst of, I notice couples around me, sometimes with admiration and other times with horror. I’ve observed those who barely speak to each other during the meal. They seem disconnected and uninterested in each other. I would prefer to be alone than to be in that type of relationship.

  TORN IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS

  My relationship with Nicollette, and probably every woman I’ve been involved with, ran up against the fact that I can’t just go into the studio, sing my parts, and go home. I’m involved in every aspect of the production, including recording the guitars and adding layer upon layer of keyboards and other instruments and backing vocals. While I was living with Nic, I was so immersed in recording and producing and delivering an album on time (as I’d done for the past twenty years) that my best efforts to be there for her really weren’t enough. I’d go into the studio until 3:30 a.m., drive the forty minutes back to her house, and try to quietly fall into bed without disturbing her. Then she had to leave at 7 a.m. to go to the studio for Housewives. She would still be working when I’d awaken, have breakfast, and head back to the studio.

  The time required to make records and perform on tour was not all that kept us apart. Spending time with my daughters is also important, so when I had a break in my work schedule I would often try to spend some time with them in Connecticut. Nicollette and I were living together, but we didn’t get to see nearly enough of each other. Building a relationship is challenging enough for people who actually have time to talk about their issues. We didn’t.

  The best part of living together with Nic was having dinners with her, staying in bed on those rare days when we both had some time off, and waking up with her. In the first year or so our connection did grow deeper, and I finally had the fulfilling awareness that I was sharing my life with someone I cared about. I am not immune to the joys of that, but just as I’d begin to settle in and embrace it, the car service would show up at the front door and it was time to hit the road again for months of touring and promoting.

  Working on our relationship and dealing with the issues that came up, as they do with any couple, proved to be impossible. Little things grew into big things because we never had a chance to talk through them. Sadly, we agreed to end our engagement.

  It may be true that the final break with Nicollette was made a bit easier by the fact that it coincided with my leaving for a South American tour. The distance between us, and performing for excited new fans in beautiful venues and countries, created the temporary illusion that I was turning a new page. But there would also be many reminders of our relationship as I toured cities we had visited together. I relived walking hand in hand with Nicollette along a certain beach or street. The memories were as clear as a digital snapshot in my mind. Even when I returned home, a memory would be triggered when I passed a restaurant where we’d eaten or a movie theater where we’d once laughed and recited lines from a film. I would revisit these places, which held such vivid memories, and in a second my heart would be in pieces. The memories would bring me back to the best part of what a relationship offers, which can’t be found in creating a new song or performing in front of ten thousand people. At times, all you need is for that one person to hear one word from you, and just get it. That experience was gone for me. Even after getting clear and moving on from our breakup, I would occasionally hear that line in a film that would pull at my heartstrings so immediately my eyes would well up. But then I’d smile, recognizing what my heart ultimately wants—the connected power between two people. For now, intellectually and practically, I forge on and derive my gratification creatively, and with my friends and loved ones. For now.

  Anyone who knows both me and Nicollette will tell you that there was a deep well of mutual love left untapped by our breakup. She knew all of my secrets and she was my best friend, the one person who knew the entire story; the one who could deftly read every nuance, tone, and expression. Nicollette was my home base.

  I most recently saw Nicollette at a mutual friend’s home. She said she’d been riding her horses more, which is something she has loved to do since childhood, when she competed in equestrian events. We also talked about Oliver, her beautiful golden retriever.

  When Nic first walked into the kitchen, I was talking to a friend. I wasn’t sure how I would feel meeting up with her that day, but she looked great and my heart skipped a beat. It may have been just the feeling you get when seeing an old friend for the first time in a while. I’ve come to realize there are many layers beneath that “happy to see you” feeling.

  I wished her luck in her endeavors. I wanted her to know how I was pulling for her in every way, and I think she knew I was sincere. We had a brief, friendly conversation. There will always be respect and love between us, and something incredibly special, too.

  When you have been so close with someone for so long and then break apart, you can’t deny all of those important powerful moments and experiences that you shared. They are still part of you. The heartbreak is that when you split up, you’ve lost your best friend, too. The memories remain, and when you pass restaurants or other places where you had great times, those memories stir deep emotions.

  Some people don’t consider their spouses their best friends, but my experience is that the person you are so intimate with becomes your best friend and you build up shared moments. I often thought that I couldn’t ever imagine us not being together or spending our lives with someone else. A friend once asked me after my split with Nicollette if this time we were really done forever. Other couples actually placed bets on whether we would or wouldn’t eventually ride off into the sunset together. I know that I will never replace our deep and rich experiences. We really did try to make it work again and again. The sad irony of the lyrics I continue to sing night after night is that I’ve been so close to what I have described a thousand times onstage.

  Credit: Michel Linseen/Redferns/Getty Images (1990)

  Chapter Fourteen

  Reaching Higher

  I was in a car in London in early 1995 when I received a life-altering phone call that expanded my musical universe beyond anything I’d ever imagined as a boy back in Connecticut. My reps at Sony in Italy had hinted that something was up a few weeks earlier. They’d asked me to block out some time in September to come to their country for a benefit concert. To entice me, they dangled the possibility that I might get to perform with one of my heroes. Then they’d told me, rather mysteriously, that a call to confirm everything would be coming.

  The caller asked: “Mr. Bolton, are you available to speak with Mr. Luciano Pavarotti?”

  I asked my driver to pull over so I wouldn’t lose the cell connection. This was one call that I did not want interrupted. The question of the caller was still sinking in when this excited, booming Italian-accented voice blasted from my phone.

  “MICHAEL!!! We are very happy you are coming to perform with us.” (The event was to take place in Pavarotti’s hometown, to benefit the children of Bosnia.)

  Pavarotti was off and running. He quickly suggested two arias we might perform. I’d known about his annual concert benefit in his hometown of Modena, Italy, so I’d done a little homework, buying and listening to his greatest hits collection. Neither of the arias he named was among them. I was surprised. I had never heard of either of them, so I just asked him. “Well, how would you feel about performing ‘Nessun dorma’ and… ‘Vesti la giubba’?” I suggested timidly.

  Aside from being two of the most well-known tenor arias in opera, the first was Pavarotti’s signature song; its title fit my lifestyle. The English translation is “None Shall Sleep.”

  I thought I’d come up with some winners. But there was a disturbing lack of sound on the phone. Had I pissed off Pavarotti?

  My heart sank. My blood pressure shot up.

&
nbsp; Did he hang up on me?

  Then came an explosive outburst from the other end of the line.

  “BRILLIANT! GENIUS! We will do these…. What key?” asked the maestro.

  “Whatever key you performed them in is fine,” I said.

  “EXCELLENT! I will see you in a few weeks!”

  I had never simultaneously felt so excited and so out of my league. I had some work to do. Aside from listening to my mother’s endless playing of Mario Lanza on our home stereo system as a boy, my operatic singing had been limited to faking it in the shower. I’ve always had cold sweat nightmares about standing onstage and realizing I am not prepared to perform. Flubbing an appearance with Pavarotti was unthinkable. Actually, it was thinkable, but terrifying. I tracked down every recording and video of him I could find and went to work.

  I practiced for hours and hours to strengthen my voice and to expand its reach. My mother’s records must have had a subliminal impact because opera had always intrigued me. Other singers and singing coaches had told me over the years that my natural range was suited to opera, but I’d never tried to perform it in public.

  I was not about to join the great Pavarotti onstage and insult him by doing karaoke opera. I wanted Luciano and other serious opera fans to be surprised and pleased. Once again, maybe more than ever, I had to hit the ball out of the park. The one major challenge was removing the rocker’s rasp. All of my singing career I had cultivated the natural rough edges on my singing voice, which is perfectly suited to rock, R & B, gospel, and pop, but not opera. There is no rasp in opera.

  Being invited to sing with Pavarotti ranked up there with the day Joe DiMaggio asked to sit in my team’s dugout for a charity softball event. Actually, the Pavarotti event was up there with singing with Ray Charles, but was even more pivotal in my future love of singing. They were all moments that I was grateful for, but after each I felt I had to up my game to a whole new level. In the weeks that followed, I continued to train my voice and work on my performance as never before.

  Still, performing extremely challenging operatic arias like “Nessun dorma” demanded far more of my voice than any other style of singing. As I sold more records, the stakes grew higher. I could not live with myself if I failed to deliver my best for the fans. They’d paid for their tickets and taken time from their lives to see me. I owed it to them. So I set some boundaries and rules for myself and I became more protective of my voice and my overall health over the years.

  Retraining my voice for opera was an incredible challenge, but all the work brought lasting benefits. I discovered methods for protecting and preserving my vocal cords that would help me to improve the quality of my singing in general, and to both broaden and extend my career as a performer. My opera training and vocal health were aided by David Sorin-Collyer, Seth Riggs, and Bill Schuman, all great vocal coaches. I had sung higher than even opera demanded, but I’d never had to hold a high C and vibrate it, as operatic singing demands. The difference was akin to driving a car with a 400-horsepower engine and then dropping in a 600-horsepower engine.

  Operatic singing also demands a much higher level of vocal care. Young tenors burn out at a fast and furious rate because many take on entire operas that are too demanding before they’ve fully developed their vocal cords. The more I learned about preserving the voice, the more I realized what a miracle it was that I hadn’t burned mine out with all the rock ’n’ roll I had sung in smoke-filled bars.

  Whenever I think about all that it takes to protect and build upon my singing career, I’m reminded of some advice that came from a great athlete, a celebrated “Iron Man” who knows a little something about long-term achievement. Former Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. performed at the highest level in major league baseball for twenty-one seasons, was an All-Star for nineteen years, and broke Lou Gehrig’s “unbreakable” fifty-six-year record for consecutive games played. Cal was still playing for the Orioles when, during the off-season, he shared with me his thoughts on sustaining a career after one of my softball game fund-raisers. I was playing third base and Cal was playing shortstop; I was deeply honored to be on the field with him.

  The future Baseball Hall of Fame award winner told me that instead of taking it easier in the off-season in the final years of his career, he’d work harder each year. He didn’t ever put his career on cruise control because he understood that good is the enemy of great. Good is not good enough. Cal Ripken Jr. wanted to always step on the field knowing that he’d prepared himself to perform at the highest level possible. His example has inspired me to always strive to do the same.

  I’ve always been my single toughest critic, which is both a blessing and a curse. I knew early on that I could never be the guy who steps up and gets a base hit. I’m the clean-up batter and my job is to hit it out of the park. Setting my sights and goals so high propelled me to better understand and work with my instrument, to make it greater. I studied with vocal coaches and learned techniques that integrated many different genres of music, stretching me both physically and mentally. I was trained in the classical approach to arias, studying some of the most vocally challenging, centuries-old compositions in Italian or French. Then I would delve back into the bluesy rasp and phrasing of classic R & B songs, breaking all the rules I’d just been taught.

  One of the things I’ve done over the years is to become more vigilant about protecting my vocal cords. It helps when you have the best people in their fields looking after you, and I do: Dr. Joe Sugerman on the West Coast in Los Angeles and Dr. Gwen Korovin on the East Coast in New York. I have photographs taken of my vocal cords with a scope every eight or nine months to make sure they are in good shape. Sometimes it feels like I’ve simply become a life support system for my two vocal cords, but when you do eighty to ninety shows a year, technique, respect, and protection are critical.

  I met the amazing young singer Adele when we both performed on a television show in 2011. She was already having trouble with her vocal cords then, so she had to cut back to just one song for that appearance. She later had surgery to repair damage from a vocal cord hemorrhage, which she described as “like having someone putting a curtain over my throat.”

  Fortunately, Adele’s surgery appears to have been successful and her amazing voice has returned. For a singer, this kind of operation is nothing less than terrifying. I experienced this almost twenty years ago, when my doctor discovered a node low on one of my vocal cords. The unusual location of that node made its removal a particularly challenging procedure, because of the risk of creating a web at the bottom of the cords that would prevent them from ever properly functioning again. My doctor at the time, Dr. Scott Kessler, removed only three-quarters of the node as a precaution.

  For a week prior to the surgery and then two weeks after, I wasn’t allowed to speak or even whisper. I was writing notes to people to communicate. I didn’t find out whether my voice would return for four weeks. Those four weeks felt like an eternity. This could’ve meant the end of my singing career. It was one of the most traumatic times in my life. It also put a lot of things into perspective.

  About seven months earlier I had had surgery on my knee when I tore my ACL during a ski tournament in Lake Tahoe to benefit cystic fibrosis research. I underwent arthroscopic knee surgery in Vail with Dr. Steadman of the famed Steadman-Hawkins Clinic. What followed was about a nine-month rehab with a physiotherapist. During the process, I was left wondering whether I would ski again, play softball, or participate in any other sport, for that matter. Still, all of that was nothing in comparison to the operation on my vocal cords. This one node made everything else seem insignificant.

  TEAM TENOR

  When the September day for the Pavarotti & Friends concert arrived, I scheduled an early rehearsal run with the orchestra. Luciano surprised me by walking onstage as I sang in the outdoor venue. After I’d finished my rehearsal with the orchestra, I realized Pavarotti had been listening in the wings.

  “I see you have been studying
the tenor,” he said, his eyes fixed on mine.

  I didn’t hesitate: “Actually, I have been studying you. I don’t know what I’ve been doing with my voice all of these years.”

  Then he gave me a huge smile—similar to that of Ray Charles when I hailed him as “the master”—and Pavarotti said in a soft, kind voice, “Ah, Michael, you do not sell as many records as you have if you have been doing the wrong things with your voice.” That was the beginning of our relationship.

  To me, Pavarotti was the greatest tenor ever. His power, his magnificence, his tone, and, behind it all, his personality were combined in a way I’d never heard elsewhere, even as I studied, as Luciano put it, “the tenor.”

  I will forever hold that experience in the bank and guard it as a cherished memory. I did perform with Luciano again, on Late Night with David Letterman and once more when he was performing in New York City, but nothing quite compared to that first night in Modena.

  Other Pavarotti “friends” who performed for the concert, which was recorded and released as an album, included Brian Eno; Michael Kamen; the Chieftains; one of my favorite performers (despite my vegetarian lifestyle), the funny and humble guy known as Meat Loaf; and Bono and the U2 guitarist David Howell Evans, known as “the Edge.” Bono told me his father was a huge fan of mine. I replied, “Tell your father I’m a huge fan of his son.”