The Soul of It All

by Michael Bolton

  Recently, I was walking down the street in Frankfurt, and was listening to a young man play a piano beautifully, right there on the street, for money. Oftentimes as I travel, I stop to listen to street musicians, and I think back on my own days struggling to make ends meet and knowing only one way to do it. Even amid the hardship, the love of music was present. Today, when I cross the bridges in Prague where people play guitar with their cases open on the ground, I remember my early days on the Berkeley campus playing guitar and singing in hopes of collecting enough dollars to buy dinner for the band. It’s hard to believe that over forty years ago, that was me.

  At fourteen, when I was hitchhiking across the country to California, burrowing between bushes at night to stop the cold wind from killing me, I wasn’t exactly thinking, I better get home safe soon because in about twenty-five years I’ll be receiving calls from the president, Pavarotti, Bob Dylan, and Rodney Dangerfield! Or that Mayor Bloomberg’s office will invite me to the inauguration of New York’s first Family Justice Center, or that Ethel Kennedy will ask me to play golf on her compound. Back on Route 66, all I knew was that it was freakin’ cold and I was hungry and searching for something I wouldn’t find for many years.

  TALENT DEVELOPMENT

  You need to have that deep-seated, DNA-encoded love of music to build and sustain a life in the music industry. It’s almost a supernatural force that drives you to keep performing despite rejections, lean times, and criticism. Because of my experiences in the entertainment business, my friends and fans often ask my views on the current crop of television talent shows, such as American Idol, The Voice, and The X Factor. These days, my television viewing time is very limited, but I started watching Idol for a while because two of my buddies from way back, Paula Abdul and my former bass guitarist Randy Jackson, shared judging duties.

  These shows are good entertainment, as their high ratings attest. I have had concerns about whether they are the best way to begin a career in music, but it’s undeniable that some amazing performers might not be discovered except through this process. As my journey illustrates, though, most aspiring performers need more than one quick television season to fully develop and build an identity as an artist. If I ever served as mentor on any of these shows, I would have an off-camera conversation with the contestants about career development.

  It is true that there are few better places to showcase your talents than those prime-time competitions. Wondrous things can happen for an artist when he or she is allowed to perform for several weeks in front of thirty million viewers. Some of them step up in amazing ways. Every season there are radiant moments when the gift of music visibly flows through the bodies and souls of truly talented contestants, allowing them to rise to the occasion despite stage fright, stress, and even serious medical issues. I love to see performers totally possessed by musical forces that animate, energize, and elevate them. I know the feeling, and I live for it.

  Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson, and Kelly Clarkson are among those with great gifts. They have clear artistic identities and strong teams. I have no doubt they will continue to work hard, find innovative ways to promote their music, and enjoy long careers.

  I do worry, though, about those other contestants who lack support and guidance and seem to fall off the face of the earth into the waiting-for-a-break purgatory I occupied for eighteen years. I’m sure some who come up short in the competition will eventually find their audiences if given more time to develop their gifts under less pressure. Overnight success is overrated, as well as all but impossible to achieve, and even harder to build upon and sustain in the long term.

  There are no shortcuts for fully developing your natural gifts and preparing for a long career. My first vocal coach let me know that after my first few lessons. The brilliant David Sorin-Collyer, a former Broadway performer turned voice coach to the stars, declared that while I showed promise, he could not continue to teach me if I came to him only once a week. I wanted to be there more often, but at that point I could not afford to pay him more than once weekly. I believed I couldn’t get where I wanted to go as a performer without proper tools. I felt as though I needed greater range and power to stand out when I took the microphone.

  I left David’s Manhattan studio that day with my head down, feeling like my chances of becoming a truly great singer were out of reach. I was convinced that David held the key to developing my voice skills fully. I felt very small walking among the skyscrapers outside his office that day. Years later, my friend Valerie Simpson told me her husband, Nick Ashford, who’d once been homeless, was feeling much the same way as he walked through Manhattan’s concrete canyons of stacked skyscrapers one day in 1966. He countered his despair by throwing a challenge at New York City in the form of a song he and Valerie wrote. It was called “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”

  Valerie told me her husband was initially inspired to write it as a man determined to capture his dream of success as a singer and songwriter despite the intimidating world around him. That wonderful song captures the essence of what it takes to keep believing in your dreams—and Ashford & Simpson became one of the most celebrated songwriting teams in R & B history and in the history of pop music.

  In my case, I vowed that one day I’d return to David’s classes because I didn’t want to settle for being simply a good singer. I wanted to be a great singer. (Again, as David Foster always reminds me, “good is the enemy of great.”)

  Ten years after David Sorin-Collyer challenged my dedication to that dream, his studio wall was covered with photographs of us together. He had become my proud teacher. As we worked then toward my goal of singing opera, David helped me build my vocal strength and range to the point that one day he said, to my lasting joy, “That is some voice you’ve got, Michael!” By that time I’d been singing “Vesti la giubba” in Italian.

  BUILDING A CAREER

  I have had far more second chances than the music business usually allows. As a result, I tend to root for the underdog. My advice to those who don’t make the final cut on Idol, The Voice, The X Factor, or America’s Got Talent is to follow your passion as long as it truly remains your passion and not just your fixation or an obligation. The road may be even harder than the one I encountered. Besides having a lot of talent, artists need to be disciplined and focused and they’ll need to be surrounded by the right team of champions to guide them through obstacles and to recognize and create opportunities.

  The refining of raw talent into professional artistry was once an integral part of every record company’s business plan. Most spent a great deal of time and money coaching artists, preparing them psychologically and emotionally, and sending them out on tours to hone their talents and build their audiences. In the process, the performers learned how to handle all areas of the music industry, from the constant travel and long hours to dealing with promoters, publicists, radio station programmers, deejays, reporters, critics, fans, managers, lawyers, and accountants.

  I’m grateful that my longtime manager, Louis Levin, schooled me in all of this. We eventually agreed to part ways but we had an incredible run together. He will always be like a brother to me. We shared every aspect of my work, which is my life—and Louis almost gave his life to the cause after getting hit by a line drive in one of our charity softball games.

  Louis was my guide into the business side of the music business. Building an artist’s brand and promoting records is like strategizing for a military operation. In my own campaigns, the record company executives had chalkboards set up in their offices plotting which stations or territories we were going after next. I came to understand that we were all part of the same team. I was the artist, but if I wanted to continue to thrive and sustain a career over many years, I had to help the promotion and marketing people build my brand nationally and internationally.

  STAYING POWER

  All the groundwork I laid early in my career has allowed me to travel the world, keeping and expanding my fan base. One of the great rewa
rds of my concert tours is looking into the audience and seeing so many diverse people singing my music back to me. Part of an artist’s staying power lies in reminding people of the hits.

  I’ve been happy to discover that in countries ranging from Indonesia and the UK to right here at home, new artists who have grown up with my music are performing my songs on TV shows such as The X Factor, The Voice, or American Idol. I love singing duets with artists around the world and am always grateful and humbled to experience the way my songs have been shared through cultures and generations. If in real estate it’s about location, location, location, a career in music is about songs, songs, songs.

  Consider the all-important signature hit song, such as Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” Celine Dion’s “The Power of Love,” or the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.” Building a long career as an artist, however, requires a continued commitment to finding or writing great songs that will keep engaging fans while attracting new ones. What Clive Davis and Whitney Houston achieved together is a great example of this, from “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” to one of the biggest records of all time, the Dolly Parton composition “I Will Always Love You.”

  Motown founder Berry Gordy certainly knew hit songs and created a hit-making machine in Detroit. I recently attended the commemorative unveiling of Motown’s original Steinway piano, which Paul McCartney generously offered to refurbish. Gordy recalled the year 1963, when the hot new group known as the Beatles asked to record three Motown songs for their second studio album, which would be their first release in North America. For Gordy, this would be Motown’s first real introduction to the rest of the world. Gordy and McCartney, two of the greatest, most influential sources of music on our planet, both had one shared realization: songs, songs, songs. It’s a testament that Lennon and McCartney, one of the most prolific and celebrated songwriting teams in the history of music, wanted to tap the great well of R & B music coming out of Hitsville USA. If there are any two people who can speak about what makes a successful, enduring career, McCartney and Gordy can. They’ll still remind you that it always comes back to the right songs.

  After my long climb and many years as an artist, today I serve as the president of my own multifaceted corporation, which runs on a 24/7 basis—both a blessing and a curse, but mostly a blessing. This requires constant vigilance for incoming opportunities from around the world—there’s always someone awake somewhere! From Singapore and Sydney to Moscow and Dubai, London and Germany, South Africa and Brazil, Canada and New York, and Beijing and Shanghai, my corporation is multinational, multilingual, and multifarious. My calendar is a jigsaw puzzle with not a minute to spare and fitting in all of my scheduled activities is no small feat. Then there are the unscheduled but all-important tasks of reaching out for new opportunities, alliances, and allies across many platforms. My hunger has not waned since my first successful album, and there are still many “firsts” on my wish list, including starring in my own television show, creating feature films and musicals, and writing this, my first memoir.

  As much as I struggled in my climb, there were lessons learned that have helped me sustain my career over the years. I worked and I fought for nearly two decades to make what I believe is truly a great body of music. And I’ve never stopped working to achieve that goal. These days, I seek out strategic allies around the world, creative thinkers who understand who I am as an artist and how to stay true to my core audience while expanding my fan base.

  I’m always so moved when people tell me that my music has become a sound track to their lives. Yet after all these years, I feel I’m just beginning. I’m motivated and excited to reach new audiences. People in every corner of the world still want to see live performance and still value the experience of live music.

  My drive for success really emanates not from a desire for wealth or fame but from an inherent need to create and make music on my own terms. Maybe I’m not so different now than I was hitchhiking back on Route 66—fiercely independent and completely focused on fulfilling my full potential.

  Recently, there’s been a complete shift in the way the music industry operates. Album sales are diminishing as we move into a digital world. Fortunately, there are some very exciting new platforms as well, like YouTube. I was surprised and thrilled when the Captain Jack Sparrow video became the third most watched of 2011. We just may be at 100 million views by the time you read this!

  The amazing extended life of that video serves to remind me that as long as you stay in the game, anything can happen. Andy, Kiv, and Jorm shot for the moon and spared no expense on the video. Of the one hundred video shorts they’ve done, ours will likely be near the top in views. Now fans at my own concerts chant for “Jack Sparrow! Jack Sparrow! Jack Sparrow!” It’s the gift that keeps on giving. I continue to hear from professional athletes, elementary school kids, business executives, and people in show business who tell me that it’s their favorite video and they just can’t get the song out of their heads. A noted author told me it’s her “happy place” to go when she needs a lift. The video has been viewed heavily in regions from Russia and Dubai to Australia and the UK. I’ve just returned from Shanghai, China, to find that even there (where YouTube is very difficult to access) people in their teens and twenties are huge fans of the video. It’s so great that this project with the Lonely Island geniuses has been enjoyed by so many millions of people.

  That experience tapped into something I’ve always enjoyed—bringing a cast of funny characters to life (which those who know me will confirm is something I do on a daily basis). I’ve previously had cameos in several films and scripted TV shows, and I felt right at home while recently appearing as a guest on the season premiere of the hit network television comedy Two and a Half Men. It helped that director Jamie Widdoes understood how to make a newcomer comfortable. The entire cast and crew made it a great experience and got me thinking about how much fun it is to show up to work surrounded by people like Ashton Kutcher, Jon Cryer, Sophie Winkleman, Holland Taylor, and Conchata Ferrell, who are all talented and funny and an absolute pleasure to be around. All that, while the genius of Chuck Lorre and his fellow creators raised the bar for the show’s team of brilliant writers, who gave us the most hysterical material, which seemed to get funnier by the minute.

  GIVING BACK

  It’s when you’re at your peak that you look back at where you came from and gratitude compels you to give back. After my first hit records came out in 1987, invitations began to pour in from organizations and individuals I’d never heard from in the frozen-broccoli days. Other performers and nonprofit groups suddenly had me on their lists as someone who might attend fund-raising events. At first I couldn’t understand why I was being invited to perform—or sometimes simply to attend.

  After attending a few, I got it. Without even being aware of it, I’d been thrown into the Celebrity Pool. I’d never before been aware of this part of the entertainment universe. I sang at local bar benefits in New Haven, but it was not quite the same. Champagne, not shots and beer, was served at these events—major black-tie, high-society benefits conducted by or on behalf of leading philanthropic, mentoring, and service organizations, including the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the Nancy Davis Foundation for Multiple Sclerosis, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Center for Child Protection, and many, many others.

  There was something special about performing at these events and knowing that they would benefit more than your own bottom line or those of concert promoters, booking agents, and T-shirt vendors. In my first few charity events, I was amazed at the array of talent assembled to entertain. I’d find myself backstage with Ray Charles, Whitney Houston, and other stars who were there generously donating their time and talent.

  One year, attending the Carousel of Hope fund-raiser to benefit the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes, I found myself in a very surreal setting. Nicollette and I were seated at a table, staring at Nancy
and Ronald Reagan to the left of President and Betty Ford, and to their left was Roger Moore with his wife, and Sean Connery with his wife. Two 007s, two presidents, and two first ladies. I spoke of that night recently with Barbara Davis, a beloved friend who hosted the event with her remarkable late husband, Marvin. I attended several of the Davises’ charitable events, and was introduced to many incredible people there.

  After singing at several such events, I was inspired to create my own nonprofit foundation for causes that resonate with me. I was brought full circle to a sense of responsibility, a sense that somehow I needed to make a difference. My original plan was to find families who were struggling in the state of Connecticut. In the process I discovered that many women and children who had suffered from domestic abuse and violence were in shelters throughout the state. I wanted to leverage my success to help them in meaningful ways.

  There was a substantial learning curve to running a charitable foundation. It’s difficult to track even my own business affairs when my work keeps me on the road and in the studio. Fortunately, I found a great guide into that world, Jackie Smaga, a professional in the nonprofit field, who helped launch Michael Bolton Charities (MBC) in 1992.

  I met Jackie when she was helping to run a cancer-cure fund-raiser for my family friend Joel Brander, a great guy with a wonderful spirit and a wonderful family. He had been diagnosed with leukemia and, sadly, later passed away, fighting the good fight. Joel was a mensch and beloved by everyone who knew him. I performed at several events for Joel and the New York Medical College. In the process of doing these benefits, I saw firsthand that the funds raised would go straight to work in the hands of dedicated doctors and scientists who reported amazing breakthroughs in treating various types of cancer. This reinforced my feeling that we have to arm the right people with the resources needed. The list of worthy causes and issues is almost endless.