Michael Bolton: 'How Black music changed my life.'

Ebony, Dec, 1995 by Lynn Norment

IT'S showtime at the Apollo, and Michael Bolton is a little bit nervous. As he waits just offstage, host comedian Steve Harvey goes into a monologue about the verdict in the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

For a few uncomfortable moments, Bolton, who already had expressed concerns about the racial tension and division exacerbated by the trial, wonders if the Black audience will turn on him. However, those concerns dissipate when the audience bursts into applause as Harvey introduces Bolton.

"Eight years ago, Michael Bolton launched his career at the Apollo with a tribute to Otis Redding," Harvey announces to cheers from the audience. "Mike's got soul!"

Without missing a beat, the singer performs his sensuous new tune, "Can I Touch You...There," from his Greatest Hits release, and another favorite, "Soul Provider," both to thunderous applause from the Apollo crowd.

During this third performance at the legendary Harlem theater that is noted for launching the careers of numerous Black entertainers, Michael Bolton wins over the audience with his first note. But that is not surprising, considering that he has built a sizeable Black following.

In fact, this tall, slim, blue-eyed, blond-haired Grammy Award-winning singer says he would not even be in show business if not for Black singers and Black music. He goes further to say that Black music has "greatly" changed and influenced his life. "A lot of my success comes from Black music," Bolton says during an interview at his home in Connecticut. "It's something I'm very proud of."

And for which he is famous. After a decade of disappointments in the music business, Bolton crooned his way into the hearts and souls of millions of Black fans with his 1987 The Hunger album, which contained his first two major hits, "That's What Love Is All About" and his version of Otis Redding's classic, "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay," which rose on the Black music charts as well as three other music charts. In 1989, Bolton's "Soul Provider" single and album became big hits and won him even more Black fans. That multiplatinum recording contains his memorable rendition of Ray Charles' "Georgia On My Mind" and the Grammy Award-winning "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?"

During a leisurely visit over several days at his Connecticut mansion and at Sylvia's Restaurant in Harlem, Bolton talks comfortably about how Black music is integral to the very essence of his career and life. He tells of growing up in New Haven, Conn., the youngest of three children born to a middle-class Russian Jewish family, and how the music of Barry White, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder greatly influenced his development as a teen songwriter and singer. His mother bought him his first guitar--a Kay--when he was around 12, and he had his first record deal by age 16.

"As a young kid, I listened to Ray Charles singing his a--off, and I was just 12," says Bolton, leaning back on the plush cushioned sofa in the family room of the spacious two-story home. "Yeah, I also went to the Beach Boys concerts and I was a British invasion fan--the Beatles, Stones. I loved them. I grew long hair, which got me in big trouble, because I was not allowed in some people's houses because of my hair.

"But anyway, what I really liked was a real singer of songs. That's why I was a Smokey [Robinson] fan and a Marvin Gaye fan," he says. "But if you really ask what record had the most impact on me, it had to be `Fingertips, Part 2.' I mean, Stevie was a 13-year-old boy wonder and I'd never heard anyone that spirited. My older brother brought that record home. So to sing along with that, you had to make your voice do things it was not accustomed to doing. Control, range. That was a wake-up call for an aspiring singer. Stevie Wonder taught us, with his incredible voice alone, the power of inspiration."

When the subject is music, in particular Black music, Michael Bolton is passionate, and he can talk...and talk and talk. He tells about how when he won a Grammy Award, he thanked Ray Charles for his music and influence. He tells how proud he is that Zelma Redding personally thanked him for recording "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay." (In a framed letter that hangs on the wall of Bolton's office, Zelma Redding refers to the record as "...my all-time favorite version of my husband's classic.") And there was the time Stevie Wonder came into his dressing room and spontaneously began singing Bolton's "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You." And he'll never forget singing that duet with Patti LaBelle on the Motown anniversary show. "God, she's awesome," he says of LaBelle. "She has a huge talent."

Bolton goes on about how nervous he was the first time he performed at the Apollo in the '80s when he did "Dock Of The Bay," before he realized that professional artists did not get booed and pulled off the stage with a hook. "I started thinking, `What if the audience doesn't like me?'" he recalls, adding he was relieved and grateful when the receptive audience applauded loudly.