Andrea Bocelli

old school, limo way old school. As I sat down with Andrea Bocelli, he told me about his early days in the piano bars, singing Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder songs, and also about recording his first album of newly written songs in fourteen years, which features Ed Sheeran, Dualipa and many others, and which was produced by Bob Ezrin, who also helped make Kisses, Destroyer and Pink Floyd's The Wall and many other classics of classic rock. Bocelli has sold

more than eighty million albums worldwide. He sings both pop and opera, sometimes not recognizing any difference between the two, and always bringing to mind a time and place other

than now. Often that's a pre rock world in which Broadway show tunes dominated the pop charts, and there's so much drama in sentiment in Bocelli's music that it's surprising it took him fourteen albums in twenty one years to get to a collection of songs from the movies twenty fifteenths Cinema, which contains not one, but two film themes made hits by Andy Williams, Moon River from Breakfast at

Tiffany's and Where Do I Begin? From Love Story. A global artist long before the music industry became focused on such things, Bocelli does Where do I Begin? As a bassanova with lyrics in Italian and then again with lyrics in Spanish Zila se carlaeare It sometimes seems Bocelli has done just about everything except record with Metallica, though I really wouldn't put that past him. And so I saw this clip of you on an Italian television show where

you make an entrance on rollerblade the Beatles yesterday. He has been a joke because it was a very stranger broadcasting. They asked me to enter in the studio in the most strange way. I tried to say, okay, I come with my horse about the studio. It was a little bit not enough, and uh, I said, okay, I tried with my roller blade. I know that you ride horseback, you ski, I know that you rollerblade. And still when I saw this, because the host actually bumped into you,

I thought, what's happening here? I was not a good skater, but he as well, he was not very good. I think it's better to sing for me. It's best idea. You had a childhood nickname for your fearlessness in English translated the earthquake me. Yeah. My mother called me like this because it was very lively, always in movement, never stopped. And then I liked the most dangerous things I like to do. So some of the spirit still survives into adulthood. Then, yes,

a little bit now a little bit less. But I did many stupid things in my life. I jumped with a parachutes or horses, and and many things. I was a little bit crazy. A lot of Bocelli's power comes from the bel Canto style of singing, which emphasizes emotion

and expressiveness as much, if not more than technique. Bel Canto translation beautiful singing has its roots in It'll close to two hundred years ago, so it's not exactly rock and roll or even pop music as we know it, but as I'm about to explain, it's had a crucial influence on both going back to a time when opera singers were still pop stars in America and continuing right up to the last power ballad you heard. Assuming that the last power ballad you heard was Aerosmith's I Don't

Want to Miss a Thing. The story of how Bocelli rose to fame in the early nineties is an interesting one that involves at least tangentially Bono. Bocelli was born in Tuscany in nineteen fifty eight with congenital glaucoma, though he didn't lose his sight until age twelve, when he was hitting the eye during a soccer game while keeping gold.

He started playing piano when he was six, won a singing competition at fourteen, and earned money while studying law at the University of Pizza by playing in a piano bar. But Bocelli was a lawyer for just one year. In the Italian rock singer Zukaro co wrote a song called Misserai with Bono, who was in those days wearing those wrap around shades and working a persona called the Fly.

During YouTube's Zoo TV tour, Zukaro had the idea of duetting with the famed Italian operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti, and in order to convince Pavarotti to do it, he cut a demo with an unknown tenor, Andrea Bocelli. When Pavarotti heard the demo, he said, why do you need me, You already have the right singer, at which point Zukaro reportedly responded, if I can't have you, I'd rather burn it,

and threw the tape into a fireplace. There were other copies of the tape, of course, but that soap opera worthy flourish worked. Zugaro cut the song with Pavarotti, and he showed his gratitude to Bocelli by taking him on tour in where the two duetit on Misserai. The tape in the fireplace bit is hardly the last too good

to be true detail in this story. Here's another. Zukaro also co wrote Il mare coma della sera, which Bocelli sang at the san Remo Festival, the Italian song competition in Bocelli won the Newcomers prize, but he didn't just win it, he did so with the highest scores ever recorded in that category, and that song became the debut single and the title track of his first album. The following year, he was back at san Remo, where he introduced Conte Potero, the Bocelli song you Know even if

you know nothing about Andrea Bocelli. That's the one that was everywhere for a long while, including in several episodes of The Sopranos. Sopranos creator David Chase explained at once this way, if Carmela and her friends were real people living in New Jersey, they would have loved that song, heard it all the time, and been playing it all

the time. And adding to the ubiquity of that song, Bocelli recorded an English version called Time to Say Goodbye with British singer and actress Sarah Brightman, which became a number two hit in the UK and a number one in Germany, where it holds the record as the biggest selling single of all time. An interesting thing about that song is the way it partakes of classical music without being it, and this gets to the heart of Bocelli's appeal. He has one foot in today and another in the

comfort of tradition. For me, I grew up with a dad who loved classical music and played opera on Sunday mornings. So I hear Contempartero as a childhood memory. I don't actually have. One. Definition of nostalgia is the memory of things as they never were, and again it's key to Bocelli's appeal. Here's how David Chase described the significance of that song and the sopranos. What that song meant for Carmelo was, I want to be anywhere but here. I don't want my life. I want a different life, and

that means nostalgia for the old country. Andrea Bocelli is always portrayed in the media as a gentle sweet man. He's blind, he could never hurt anyone. He's the complete opposite of Tony Soprano, someone she could mother, nurture and who would always say thank you instead of that's what we're having for dinner. That captures the way Bocelli's music can represent a world better, more full of beauty than

the one we live in. And it gets right to the emo appeal of Andrea Bocelli, the loving, the longing, the heartache, the romance, all the fields, all at once, all the time, which brings us back to the balcanto tradition and how it channels European operatic emotion into American pop music. Probably the clearest example of this is Elvis Presley's It's an Hour Never. Elvis cut that song in nineteen sixty after he got out of the army, and the song is really just a solo meo with different words.

A solo meo is a Neapolitan song written in eight which became a huge hit for the Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso in nineteen sixteen. And It's Now or Never isn't even the first time somebody put different words to a solo meo and turned it into a hit. That would be Tony Martin, who brought it to number two in nineteen nine when it was called There's No Tomorrow, And that's actually the version that helped inspire Elvis. So the bell canto style in American pop goes in all

sorts of directions. You can hear it every time a metal band makes a song your mom might like, like Motley Cruz Home, Sweet Home, Guns N' Roses, November Rain, bon Jovi is living on a prayer, but it also turns up in unexpected places. Here's Barry White describing its impact on him as a teenager after he was locked up for stealing tires in jail. He said, I heard It's Now or Never by Elvis Presley and it was an awakenings like somebody hitting me in the face with

a baseball bat. When I got out, I swore to myself never again. And thus does bell canto have an impact on disco. Once you start hearing things this way, all sorts of connections can begin to open up. Take the first single from Bocelli's new album, See fall On Me, a duet with his son Mateo. It starts off as

a slow and stately piano ballad. It's about a higher power, God loves something from above, and it reminds me just a little of Nick Cave talking about some of the same things at the same tempo fifteen years ago in

Into My Arms. That's ridiculous, of course, although so is the idea of Barry White having his life turned around by Elvis Presley's It's an now or never, but certainly an ever growing list of pop stars has lined up to record with Andrea Bocelli, Tony Bennett, Selene Dion, Arianna Grande, Jennifer Lopez, Nellie for Tado, Nicole Scherzinger and now Josh Grobin, Ed Shearon and do Alipa. There's a lot going on here, Artistic admiration, certainly, and in the case of Josh Grobin

debt being repaid. Grobin's break came at age seventeen what he stood in for Bocelli at Grammy rehearsals in singing the Prayer with Selene Dion, introducing his new duet with Bocelli, we will meet once again. Grobin called himself a terrified, pimple face and blissfully naive kid that day, as he put it on Facebook, he went on to the telecast and I went back to history class. But for a superstar like Ed Shearon, singing with Bocelli is a chance

to open up new territory, both stylistically and globally. Sharon reworked his song Perfect last November in two new versions, one with Beyonce and another with Bocelli, who we visited in Tuscany in order to record Perfect Symphony. That song has been streamed a hundred and fifty two million times on YouTube, which, if you're keeping score at home, is not quite half the population of the United States, but it's pretty close, and it definitely helped make Sharon the

most streamed artist of seventeen. Sharon repaid that favor by co writing Ammo sultan Otte, his duet with Bocelli on c Perhaps the most interesting tracks on Sea are to du alipa duet if Only, and Vertigo featuring Raphael Guilazzi on piano. If Only puts the reaching dance pop queen way in to share ballad territory. I mean, the lyrics are even about turning back time. As for Goulazzi, like Bocelli,

he's an Italian star who cuts across genres. Vertigo, though, starts small with just Bocelli's voice and Golazzi's piano, and then keeps climbing, grand staircase after grand staircase after grand staircase. We're gonna need another staircase. Bocelli and his son Matteo told me about working with these collaborators and also why it took fourteen years to assemble an album of new songs. There are definitely times when Bocelli prefers to let the

music do the talking, but here's what he had to say. So, Uh, Andrea Bocelli, welcome to inside the studio. Thank you very much, and we are joined by your son Matteo. Hi. Hey, good to have you both here. We have so much to talk about, so much to cover. See as your first album of all new songs in fourteen years. Many guests on it Ed Sheeran, Dual, Loupa, Josh Grobin as well as Matteo. How did you ever land this gift

shot from your own son? Well, honestly it has been the most easy operation, because Matteo said immediately yes, so it has been very easy. No, Matteo sings, would like to sing in future. He's a student now at the conservatory in in Italy. For me it was better to wait for some more. But we received this beautiful song, really beautiful song, and for the reason we thought, the occasion is this, and now we're here and of course

the song is fall on me. Matteo tell me you grew up obviously hearing your they're sing When did you start to take seriously the idea that you might want to pursue music yourself. Let's say that I am I've always been arounded by music in my life, and I started to play the piano since I was six years old, and I was singing, yeah, since I was a child.

And so let's say that I studied music since I was a little boy, and studying singing since three years because my dad always told me that it's important to wait the changing of the voice, because otherwise could be I mean, even dangerous for your vocal cords. And so yeah, let's say it's since I always, I mean always been arounded by music and studying singing since three years. You started piano at six Andrea, you also started playing piano around the same age, did you not, Yes, I studied

piano for many years. I stopped at sixteen, and then I think and again later and I finished just studied the program. But now there's no time to play. And unfortunately now I play only just for fun. I was interested to read you have said that this album is a return to some of the feelings of you said, being a young man playing at the piano bar. You played at a piano bar when you were younger. Is this right? I began to play in the piano bar

when I was eighteen years old. Then I continued during the period at the university and I studied and I played just for fun to stay with my friends the evening. It has been a really beautiful period for me, these piano bar years. You were singing and playing or yes, yes, yes, piano and voice, and so what kind of songs pop repertoire in general, Italian pop repertoire and some song of Frank Sinatra for example, uh Rich arts still wonder all

the classical pop repertore. So this album See was produced by Bob Ezrin, known for his work with Alice Cooper, Pink, Floyd Kiss Louis. You know, how did the two of you come to work together? And the idea of Bob being it comes from my label, but it has been a very good idea because we we were together very very well immediately from from the from the first meeting, good artistically and also friendly. I know, so I stated, piano singing, but I should have to study English and

it's difficult for me to speaking well. The recording, some of the recording was done at home, at your home studio. Is that right? Yes, yes, in my house. It's very important to do this because if you can record at home, you can decide the best moment to record, when your voice is in good shape, when you are in the best atmosphere too to record it. I see, what time

of day is your voice at its best? It depends on in general in the evening, uh huh okay, So then being at home is easier so I wanted to ask you about the album title See. I had read that you had said, this is a period we're going through right now where we too often say no. Yes is the word you say, you have your first kiss, you agree with somebody, you want to make someone feel good. Correct, tell me more about this. Everyone was looking for a good title for this album, and it's difficult to find

a title for an album like this. And Uh, a day almost my first song called me by phone and told me, Daddy, I have the name for the album. You have to call this see And I answered see, perfect, because it's really the most beautiful word of the world. Let's talk a little about the songs themselves. Let me ask you about we will meet again with Josh Grobin, who co wrote the song. He has called this a duet almost twenty years in the making. Going back to the moment in no I. I know Josh from a

long time. Yeah, somebody told me that he was a fan of me just before to become famous, and then we we met each other and now we are friends. So when when it's possible to work together, I'm very happy to do it. And tell me what was the recording of this song? Like no, I recorded in my house, so with all the calm possible, the res all is on the on the record, and of course do you

sing with that cheering on this record. But this is the second time you've worked with him, the first because he came to my house for perfect when he decided to make a duet with me of this beautiful and famous song. And uh, I remained completely surprised from his personality. He's a great musician, but he's also a very humble man, very simple man, and for me it has been a

beautiful surprise and beautiful experience to work with him. Matteo, your father said that you guys had to maybe explained to him who at Cheron was or why you were so excited he was coming to record this song. Yeah, let's say that before it was planned to do this duet between my dad and and children, I was already a big fan of him and I remember the first time I saw him life in life when he was opening the concert Taylor Swift Concert in Toronto in Canada.

And since that day I remained very surprised by him about him, about his talent, and he was saying, my dad, such a humble and simple guy. And that's the first thing that really impressed me at the first moment when I met him, because when you met him, it seems that you know him since a while. No, he treats everybody in the same way, and that I think that's amazing, especially when someone got a success so big. No, because usually people change, and I think what you feel is

that he remained completely the same person. And of course, I mean, he's an amazing artist. I love his music and right now he's my favorite artist. And he co wrote the song he sings with you on this new record at I'm going to do a very bad job of saying that, I think, Okay, almost okay, not as bad as I thought. Okay, okay, So tell me how this song came together. Did you approach him with the

idea of Colao? He said this song for me and I recognized immediately his style, and they said immediately yes, because the song is very beautiful and a typical at Shene song. You worked with the dual Upa on if Only, and this is a really wonderful moment on the record. I think so because she has a very beautiful voice, very expressive, and she understood very very well the song,

so with me, it has been a good idea. I think unlikely we didn't have the chance to meet her, but I hope they will be in future future hopes. So hope she was not able to come to the home studio to record. Okay, yes, well, I mean it was very interesting because she is known more for a kind of dance pop than this kind of singing. Correct. Yes, but sometimes the contrasts the difference bring good results. Yes. Absolutely. Let me ask you about Vertigo, which features Raphael thank you.

He's an interesting artist, another Italian performer who works in very different styles. Yes, his study is completely different from my style. But the song was very beautiful and for me it has been like a challenge because it has been very difficult for me to decide that way to perform the song. Finally, I decided to do like Raphael did so in his way, I tried to sing more

like him was possible. I heard his interpretation and I tried to do the same thing, to sing like him in his way, and the result is It's really curious because the result is another and another one, and of course another guest, the Russian soprano I eat a Garlfelina. This is another story because in this album, there is in this pop album there is a very beautiful piece that we can't call pop. Is a classical piece? Is

a prayer? Is an ave maria in Latin language? And uh, I think it has been a good idea to call Aida Califolina for this, because she's a very beautiful soprano, beautiful and good in a state of sense. We pray it together. Yes, quite a striking moment. Again, was this similar to the dua lupa recording? You worked together in the same place or you know, we recorded separately, but in any case I sang with her at the times.

For example, we performed together recently in Verona the Arena, the biggest theater probably of the world, in a great concert and in other occasions also. And do you have this right that both your sons are on this record? Is that correct? Yes? Amos plays piano. Yeah, Ammos played the piano. Yes, and Ma saying and Ma tello, you mean to follow your father into music, but Amos is a trained musician but does not intend to pursue it

as a career. My brother, like me, he started to play piano since he was very little, so six seven years old and he graduated like a year ago. But yes, he did this collaboration as well inside the album. But I think in the future he would probably take another way because he's studying aerospace engineer. He's doing his last year. So he did it because he loves music as as but probably in the future here pursue another job. Yeah, how long ago did you start to work on this record?

We are looking for songs from fourteen years and now finally we hope we found at least twelve beautiful songs. Now it's up to the audience. OK. And what do you hope that people will feel when they listen to this music? I don't know. When I recorded an album. I hope to become a good company for many many people listening to my music during the day, you know. I want to be like a good friend in their house. Yes. Well, I've had the record in my apartment and I'm happy

to have you there. All right, Well, guys, thank you so much, thank you, thank you. Inside the Studio is an I Heeart Radio original podcast. This episode was written and hosted by me Joe Levy. We'd like to give a big thanks to Andrea Bocelli and deck A Curve Records. You can follow inside the Studio on iHeart Radio, or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, M