Michael Bolton couldn’t turn down the opportunity. He’d worked his whole life for something like this—to meet the great opera singer Luciano Pavarotti. And to sing with him? Impossible to imagine. Especially considering those days before fame was a gold ring to even contemplate trying to grasp. When the reality of having to support a wife and three kids weighed quite heavily. But through hard work—indeed, cutting two career paths at once—everything shook out for Bolton. So much so that he not only shared some sonic space with Pavarotti, but the iconic opera performer even offered the pop star a compliment.
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Today, these are but a few of the moments Bolton carries with him as he begins a new decade in his life. (Bolton turned 70 years old in February.) First and foremost, he appreciates the steps he’s taken to be who he is now. And with the release of his latest LP, Spark of Light, which dropped on June 23, Bolton demonstrates what he’s learned and what he still holds dear.
“I didn’t want my kids to know how bad it really was,” Bolton tells American Songwriter of those early years when he was scraping to make ends meet. “We didn’t have the term ‘homeless’ back then, but we still had eviction notices. And we were facing those.”
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, on February 26, 1953, Bolton says he first became aware of pop music around 8 years old. Among his childhood friends, he was the one who could always remember the lyrics and the melodies of the radio hits. With a passion for it early on, Bolton began putting bands together beginning at the age of 12. Not long after, he started to play clubs he was otherwise too young to be seen in. Venue owners liked it because the kid was a draw. Later in his teens, he came across recording equipment and began figuring out the basics. Improvement was a natural process. Quickly, he found footing.
“I learned that if a song can stand up on its own just being a piano, guitar, bass, and drums,” Bolton says, “then you probably have a great song there.”
Above all, he loved singing. He particularly enjoyed walking up to the microphone and “bringing a vocal to life.” He looked forward to it, perhaps more so than anything else. It kept him hungry and wanting more. Amazingly, by 16, he’d signed a recording deal with Epic Records. His parents around this time also let him drop out of high school, so he traveled and worked. (Bolton was once Paula Abdul’s babysitter.)
He garnered publishing contacts and then earned contracts. He found homes in several music genres, from rock to pop. He grew up in the business. And in 1975, Bolton recorded his first self-titled album (using his birth name, Bolotin). That same year, he also married Maureen McGuire. The couple (before separating much later) had three daughters. And so, Bolton took on the burden of supporting his family, mulling and “trying to figure out what the next move was.”
Though he and his family were barely scraping by for a while, the singer/songwriter kept getting these intermittent, as he calls it, cups of “water in the desert.” Just enough to metaphorically keep him alive and pushing forward with his career. Whether it was a job here or a job there, a chance to share songs with an executive here or there—even ones like the iconic Columbia Records exec Clive Davis. A cup of water in the desert, just enough for the thirsty, parched lips of a young artist.
To wit, it took Bolton 18 years, he says, from when he began writing music to have his first hit song. That track was Laura Branigan’s “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You” in 1982. It was the song that finally led to more and bigger opportunities. Looking back on it, though, Bolton says he appreciates all of the work it took to get there, the entire “climb.” As a budding songwriter, he worked (and thus studied) at the feet of other veterans in the business. People who, he says, were driven simply by the love of the craft. The warmth and clarity of inspiration’s light bulb over your head.
“They weren’t hungry for solo careers as recording artists,” Bolton says. “They just were crazy talented songwriters who loved showing up to write a good song. I watched them and I learned from working with them. I got better, working with better writers.”
When people think about starting a career in music, there is often the hope that just one right performance on the one right day will cause the one right person to select them from the morass and elevate them to the big time. It’s the kind of stuff that comprises fantasies. Rare is the dream discussed in terms of grinding, of working hard for handfuls of hours a day, every day, for decades. But as Bolton pumped out more songs, some became foundational tunes for other artists. And so, record executives came calling to him, specifically. One call was from Geffen, who asked Bolton to write a song for Cher, who was just coming off an Oscar win for the 1987 film Moonstruck. The track Bolton gave her was one Branigan initially made a minor hit, but that Cher quickly took to new heights. That song, “I Found Someone,” also featured Bolton as a producer, which was yet another step forward.
“That gave me the belief that I could produce as well,” Bolton says.
Indeed, one foot in front of the other. From the days churning out songs for other singers in the beginning, Bolton knew there were no shortcuts to any important race. All the while, he says, supporting his family was his top priority. “There’s nothing funny about ‘the starving artist’ when you have kids,” he says. “It’s excruciating not knowing where the next rent check is coming from.”
But with each song written, he earned himself another chance at upward mobility, another cup of water. Perhaps eventually even access to a well of his own. Bolton became known both as a writer and as a singer with a flourishing voice. The slog and the toiling finally paid off.
“[Working so much] helped me develop my craft and my gift for songwriting,” Bolton says. “I got to write with writers who every day turned in a song that would get covered by somebody, even if it wasn’t a hit single.”
It would be an understatement to say Bolton has had a decorated career. To date, he’s released 25 studio albums and sold more than 75 million records. He’s been the face of a Disney movie soundtrack for the film Hercules. He has two No. 1 singles and eight Top 10 albums to go along with two Grammy Awards. He also once boasted long, luscious locks of hair that at one point in time made headlines if they were ever cut. (Now, his hair is tightly shorn.)
In many ways, he was synonymous with the 1980s and 1990s, his songs regularly on the radio, from rock stations to easy listening. While his career hasn’t been without its bumps, the artist has largely enjoyed a great deal of professional success. Today, more than anything, Bolton is known for his glowing voice. It defines “epic.” It’s a lightning bolt of sound that offers both clarity and rasp. It’s his instrument, and he’s mastered it.
As such, Bolton has thought about his voice often a lot over the years. He’s also studied the voices of other singers, including Pavarotti, from sound to timbre to power and upkeep. And when the two well-known singers were set to collaborate for a performance in 1995, some 20 years after Bolton had released his debut album and married his wife, the pop star wanted to make the most of it. Bolton even studied Italian to be better equipped to pronounce the lyrics he’d be vocalizing. Bolton also studied classical singing techniques, finding out acutely that it’s not about the notes a singer can perform, but it’s about how and when to do so perfectly. Restraint is often just as important as explosion.
“Being around Pavarotti taught me more about the value of discipline,” he says.
The day the two singers met, Bolton had just finished rehearsing the pieces they were going to sing together. They were in a little Italian town, preparing for the duet. At one point, Pavarotti said to him, “I can see you’ve been studying.” Bolton admitted he’d been studying the work and other singers from the past century—but even more, he said, he was also studying Pavarotti.
In so doing, Bolton began to think he’d been making mistakes with his own voice. Going as far as to call his practice a “mess.” That’s when Pavarotti stopped him. “You don’t sell as many records as you have if you’re not doing the right thing with your voice,” he told Bolton. The words calmed Bolton and they were the beginning of an extended friendship.
“I learned that I needed to put a bigger engine in the vehicle,” Bolton says, meaning he needed to strengthen his voice. “You have to have a big, powerful, clear voice that’s flexible.”
Not only that, he says, but you have to keep that powerful singing motor “under control.” A feat that might be the hardest of all. Yes, practice does make perfect. For example, look to Bolton’s new record. On Spark of Light, which is the singer’s first new original songs in some 14 years, Bolton’s voice soars, majestic with a bit of pop. Songs like the triumphant “Out of the Ashes” and reflective “Home” are torrential. The tracks display an artist who has seemingly found himself again, as well as one with a new outlook on life. The record, which was begun prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, actually earned momentum because of it. In a strange twist of fate, the shutdown pushed the band forward rather than making it wilt. That was not something Bolton could have predicted.
“COVID became an inspiration,” Bolton says. “That was highly unexpected.”
As a 25-year-old aspiring artist, Bolton wouldn’t let a title, thought, or theme slip his mind without writing it down on a scrap of paper or working it over briefly with a guitar or piano. If anything could be the kernel of a new song, he was going to keep record of it somehow or some way. And he held to that same mentality during the recent pandemic shutdown. He poured his thoughts into notes on his phone like an op-ed columnist might. He wrote “pretty much every day.” To do so, Bolton holed up in a mini studio where he could work around the clock and “keep the process moving.” For the new album, he collaborated with several younger writers, artists, and producers, and together, Spark of Light was born, and cultivated.
Since Bolton and crew had started the album prior to the shutdown, there was already something to draw from in order to keep it going into the strange unknown future. Thus, it was also something to cling to. For Bolton, the result is an LP filled to the brim with fresh songs that allow him to say what he needs to say in the moment. Belting out lines with his dusky horizon-like voice, Bolton echoes.
He offers, heart on sleeve, Been looking high and low inside my soul, noting that “I used to care a lot about nothing.” The album seems to mark an important point of reflection, but it is also one of clarity and admission. It’s rich with love and affection, too, as if the singer is witnessing life through new and rewarded eyes. Bolton sings the kinds of songs that someone who has found the love of their life might—songs like “Whatever She Wants” and “Eyes on You.” A banshee quelled, praising the heavens.
But as with all the greatest elements of creativity, that which we love—the fruit, the flowers, whatever metaphor you wish—is always the product of prior preparation and passion. For Bolton, who has also worked as an actor and director in Hollywood, the gift he cherishes most today is the breakthrough of inspiration in the writer’s room. Yes, he’s always loved bringing a vocal line to life. And he certainly has the prowess to do so. But when it comes down to it, the joy, the spark, to use a word, comes in the initial sketching out process. The breakthrough, he says, makes him feel that thing he needs to feel in order to keep coming back for more. To be a part of the molten creative process and later have something poignant, solid to show for it that fits a song perfectly—that’s bliss. Some turn of phrase that gives a song a meaning that makes it feel like it might somehow burn forever.
“Being part of that when it happens is an out-of-body experience,” Bolton says. “I’m not a religious person, but it’s a spiritual experience.”
Photo by Timothy White
