| 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 turned up on RCA Records
in the mid-'70s singing in a gruff, Joe
Cocker-like voice both his own blue-eyed
soul songs and cover tunes. Neither
record buyers nor critics were much
interested by the result. He then became
the lead singer in Blackjack, a heavy
metal band that made two albums for
Polydor at the end of the '70s and the
start of the '80s. In 1983, he changed
his name to Michael Bolton, signed to
Columbia Records as a solo act, and
re-launched his career.
Michael Bolton was released in April
1983, and made the Top 100 bestsellers,
as did its single, "Fools Game." At the
same time, "How Am I Supposed to Live
Without You," which Bolton had
co-written, became a Top 40 hit for
Laura Branigan. Nevertheless, Bolton's
second Columbia album, Everybody's Crazy
(1985), was a commercial flop. His
breakthrough came with his third album,
The Hunger, released in September 1987.
On this album, Bolton abandoned the more
hard rock aspects of his style to
concentrate on blue-eyed soul singing:
both on his own songs, such as "That's
What Love Is All About," and on covers
like Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The
Dock of the Bay." Those two songs became
Top 40 hits.
Soul Provider, released in July 1989,
turned Bolton into a superstar, reaching
the Top Ten, selling four million
copies, and spawning five Top 40
singles, including Bolton's number one
version of "How Am I Supposed to Live
Without You," and 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" 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 the 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."
Bolton won another Grammy Award for
Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, 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
performed, 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 copy 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 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 released Greatest Hits
1985-1995 in the fall of 1995, which
debuted in the Top Ten. The following
year, This Is the Time: Christmas Album
appeared.
Bolton returned with All That
Matters, his first album of new material
since 1993's The One Thing, in the fall
of 1997. Instead of continuing his
success, it was a surprise flop. Not
only did it not generate a hit single,
it barely cracked the Top 40 and fell
out of the charts after 15 weeks. 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 which were
co-headlined with Wynonna Judd. He
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 on Jive Records. |
