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All Music Guide:
Singer/songwriter Michael Bolton had an extensive (though not very successful) career under his real name, Michael Bolotin, before emerging in the mid-'80s as a major soft rock balladeer. He first turned up on RCA Records in the mid-'70s, singing cover tunes and his own blue-eyed soul songs in a gruff, Joe Cocker-like voice. Neither record buyers nor critics were much interested by the result. He then became the lead singer of Blackjack, a heavy metal band that made two albums for Polydor before splitting up in the early '80s. Looking to relaunch his career, he changed his name to Michael Bolton and signed to Columbia Records as a solo artist in 1983.
The self-titled Michael Bolton was released in April 1983 and made the Top 100 best-sellers, as did its lead single, "Fools Game." At the same time, "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You," a ballad Bolton had co-written with Doug James, became a Top 40 hit for Laura Branigan. Nevertheless, Bolton's second album for the Columbia label, 1985's Everybody's Crazy, was a commercial flop. He finally broke into the mainstream with his third release, The Hunger, which appeared in September 1987. On this album, Bolton abandoned the hard rock sound of his previous records and concentrated on blue-eyed soul singing, both on his own songs ("That's What Love Is All About") and on covers like Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay." Those two singles became his first Top 40 hits.
Soul Provider, released in July 1989, turned Bolton into a certified superstar. Featuring songs co-written with hitmakers like Dianne Warren and Desmond Child, it reached the Top Ten, sold four million copies, and spawned five Top 40 singles, including Bolton's number one version of "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You," as well as the Top Ten hits "How Can We Be Lovers" and "When I'm Back on My Feet Again." "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" also won Bolton a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Time, Love & Tenderness, released in April 1991, was even more successful, hitting number one, selling six million copies, and featuring four Top 40 hits, including a chart-topping cover of Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman" and the Top Ten hits "Love Is a Wonderful Thing" (later the subject of a successful plagiarism suit brought against Bolton by the Isley Brothers) and "Time, Love and Tenderness." The album sold over eight million copies in America alone. Worldwide, it sold twice as much.
Bolton won another Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, this time for "When a Man Loves a Woman," but he had to put up with abuse from two camps of detractors at the February 1992 ceremony. Just after Bolton had finished performing, pre-rock songwriter Irving Gordon won the Song of the Year award for "Unforgettable" and pointedly attacked songs that "scream, yell, and have a nervous breakdown" and singers who "have a hernia" when they sing. Then, backstage, Bolton faced a hostile press corps of critics unhappy with his tendency to mimic great soul singers like Redding, Ray Charles, and Sledge. Bolton suggested they apply their lips to a certain part of his anatomy. He further responded with Timeless: The Classics in September 1992, an album made up entirely of classic cover songs. It went to number one, sold three million copies, and featured a Top 40 hit in Bolton's version of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody." Bolton's next album of original material, The One Thing, came in November 1993. It hit the Top Ten, sold three million copies, and featured the Top Ten hit "Said I Loved You...But I Lied." Bolton celebrated his decade-long string of hits with a best-of compilation, Greatest Hits 1985-1995, which debuted in the Top Ten. This Is the Time: Christmas Album appeared one year later.
After topping the adult contemporary charts with "Go the Distance," a song he produced and recorded for the Disney film Hercules, Bolton returned in late 1997 with All That Matters, his first album of new material since 1993's The One Thing. Instead of continuing his success, however, it was a surprise flop, failing to generate a hit single and barely cracking the Top 40. It fell out of the charts altogether after 15 weeks. Even so, its lack of success didn't stop Bolton from turning his attention to My Secret Passion, a collection of opera and arias that he released in January 1998. By classical standards, the album was a hit, and the record received a great deal of press and surprisingly good reviews. He supported the two albums with a summer tour co-headlined by Wynonna Judd. Bolton then voluntarily stepped back for almost four years, disappearing from the public eye until the spring of 2002 when he began promoting Only a Woman Like You, his first album for Jive Records.
After a brief sabbatical, he returned with Til the End of Forever, a hybrid album of seven new recordings and a live greatest-hits concert. In 2006, he released Bolton Swings Sinatra, a 12-song tribute to Ol' Blue Eyes that included a duet with fiancée/actress Nicollette Sheridan. One World One Love, an album featuring collaborations with Ne-Yo and Lady Gaga, arrived three years later in the U.K., followed by an American release in 2010. Bolton took part in the 11th season of Dancing with the Stars later that year, having already endeared himself to reality TV fans with 2007's Clash of the Choirs. He also collaborated with comedy troupe the Lonely Island by singing on the hip-hop parody "Jack Sparrow," which debuted as a digital short on Saturday Night Live before appearing on the Lonely Island's second album, Turtleneck & Chain. Keeping the collaborative spirit alive, he released 2011's Gems: The Duets Collection, an album featuring duets with vocalists (Seal, Delta Goodrem), country groups (Rascal Flatts), and instrumentalists (guitarist Orianthi). Two years later, Bolton saluted the legendary Motown Records with the full-length album Ain't No Mountain High Enough: A Tribute to Hitsville USA.
Wikipedia:
Michael Bolotin (born February 26, 1953), known professionally as Michael Bolton, is an American singer-songwriter. Bolton originally performed in the hard rock and heavy metal genres from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, both on his early solo albums and those he recorded as the frontman of the band Blackjack. He is best known, however, for his series of soft rock ballads, recorded after a stylistic change in the late 1980s. He is noted for his distinctive tenor/countertenor voice and "strained" vocal style.
Bolton's achievements include selling eight top 10 albums, achieving two number one singles on the Billboard charts, and receiving awards from both the American Music Awards and Grammy Awards.
Early life [edit]
Bolton was born Michael Bolotin in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Helen (née Gubin) and George Bolotin. He has a brother, Orrin, and a sister, Sandra, both older. His family was Jewish, and all of his grandparents had been immigrants from Russia. His parents were divorced when he was very young and his father died when Bolton was 13 years old.
Career [edit]
Musician [edit]
Bolton began recording in 1975. This first album was self-titled using his original surname, Bolotin. Early in his musical career, he focused on hard rock. His band, Blackjack, once toured with heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne.
Michael gained his first major hit as a songwriter, co-writing "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" for Laura Branigan, previously best known for singing the pop hit "Gloria". Narrowly missing the Top 10 on the US pop chart, Branigan took the song to number one on the Adult Contemporary chart for three weeks in 1983. The two sought to work with each other again, and their next collaboration was when Bolton co-wrote "I Found Someone" for Branigan in 1985. Her version was only a minor hit, but two years later, Cher resurrected the song, and with it her own singing career. Bolton co-wrote several other songs for both singers.
Bolton would achieve his greatest success in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a singer on the adult contemporary/easy listening charts. One of his first major hits was his 1987 interpretation of the Otis Redding classic, "(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay." Always interested in soul and Motown classics, Bolton's success with that song encouraged him to tackle the standard "Georgia On My Mind," with which he had another hit. In 1991, Bolton released the album Time, Love & Tenderness which featured his Grammy Award winning cover version of "When a Man Loves a Woman".
As a singer, he has performed with other artists such as: Lucia Aliberti, Patti LaBelle, José Carreras, Tony Cetinski, Ray Charles, Céline Dion, Plácido Domingo, Renée Fleming, Wynonna Judd, BB King, The Lonely Island, Luciano Pavarotti, Percy Sledge, and Zucchero. As a songwriter, he has written and collaborated on several songs for other artists as well.
Bolton's last Top 40 single in the US in his own right was the 1997 hit "Go the Distance" (featured in the Disney animated motion picture Hercules), which peaked at No. 1 on the US adult contemporary chart. He hired conductor Larry Baird (orchestral musical director/conductor/arranger for The Moody Blues, Three Dog Night, Al Jarreau, etc.) for his 2001 tour.
In 2006, Bolton and his then fiancee Nicollette Sheridan sang a duet, "The Second Time Around," for the album Bolton Swings Sinatra. In March 2007, Bolton toured South Africa for the first time. He was the headline act at Jacaranda 94.2 FM's two-day concert.
For Over the Rainbow, an album which was recorded in five days, Bolton recorded the song "New York, New York" (also on his Bolton Swings Sinatra album). This was for an episode of the TV series, Challenge Anneka. The proceeds from the album went to children's hospices across the UK.
Bolton performed a duet entitled "Il Mio Amico" with the Italian singer Anna Tatangelo at the Sanremo Music Festival 2008. The song was originally sung by Tatangelo alone, but the duet version contained English lyrics as well. It is a song about the difficulties of being gay in Italy, written by Tatangelo's partner, Gigi D'Alessio.
Bolton's album Only A Woman Like You was released in 2001. The title song was co-written by Shania Twain and with background vocals by Skyler Jett. Bolton released his album One World One Love in the UK on September 21, 2009. The first single, "Just One Love," was released one week earlier.
In 2011, Bolton was featured as a guest vocalist in The Lonely Island's song "Jack Sparrow" on their Turtleneck & Chain album. His performance with the notorious comedic hip-hop trio focused on his (intentionally) off-topic chorus and miscommunication with the group, and the video featured him dressed in costumes as Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, Forrest Gump, Erin Brockovich, and Tony Montana from Scarface.
Bolton is currently working on his new studio album. He has collaborated with Indian musician A. R. Rahman for a song which was recorded in February 2011 for Gems - The Duets Collection.
Acting [edit]
Bolton has made a number of cameo appearances in feature films and television, usually appearing as himself, such as in Meet Wally Sparks and The Nanny. Although he has been rumored to have appeared as an extra in Dune as a "spice-eyed" drummer, Bolton has stated in interviews that it is not him.
Bolton was a contestant on the eleventh season of Dancing with the Stars. He and his dance partner Chelsie Hightower were the second couple to be eliminated, on September 28, 2010.
Legal troubles [edit]
On May 9, 2000, a US Court of Appeals affirmed a jury's 1994 decision that Bolton's 1991 pop hit, "Love Is a Wonderful Thing," infringed on the copyright of the 1964 Isley Brothers song of the same name, and let stand the jury's award of $5.4 million against the singer, his co-author, Andrew Goldmark, and their record company, Sony Music Entertainment. This was the biggest payout in musical copyright infringement to date.
Personal life [edit]
Bolton was married to Maureen McGuire, but they divorced. They are the parents of three adult daughters: Isa, Holly, and Taryn. Taryn gave birth to a daughter in October 2010.
Bolton was introduced to actress Nicollette Sheridan in 1992 by adult contemporary/jazz saxophonist Kenny G. Bolton and Sheridan dated until 1995, stopped dating, then reunited in 2005 and became engaged in March 2006; however, it was confirmed in August 2008 that they had broken off their engagement. Bolton also dated Sheridan's former Desperate Housewives co-star Teri Hatcher in the early 1990s. Hatcher featured in the music video for "Missing You Now", one of the songs from Bolton's Time, Love & Tenderness.
Charity work [edit]
In 1993, he established the Michael Bolton Foundation (now Michael Bolton Charities) to assist women and children at risk from the effects of poverty as well as emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. The foundation has provided over US$3.7 million in funding to local and national charities.
Bolton also serves as the honorary chairman of Prevent Child Abuse America, the national chairman for This Close for Cancer Research, and a board member for the National Mentoring Partnership and the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital.
In March 2003, Bolton joined with Lifetime Television, Verizon Wireless, and many others to lobby on behalf of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, urging legislation to provide more assistance for victims of domestic violence, such as affordable housing options.
Bolton has received the Lewis Hine Award from the National Child Labor Committee, the Martin Luther King Award from the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor from the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce also recognized Bolton with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his musical and charitable contributions.
