- Title: VARIOUS: SINGER/SONGWRITER PAUL ANKA TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM
- Date: 13th April 1999
- Summary: HEMPEL HOTEL, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM (APRIL 1, 1999) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) PAUL ANKA SAYING: "Well there's obviously a difference in style and gender. The difference isn't that much when you look at it musically because in essence it's all real music and quality music. The only difference is you have the temperaments of maybe the way Sinatra is and what your t
- Embargoed: 28th April 1999 13:00
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- Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM, VARIOUS LOCATIONS
- City:
- Country: USA
- Topics: Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVAAQMYPTABFENYIE835EFU57IW1
- Story Text: Some thirty-five years after he wrote the English lyrics to 'My Way', legendary singer/songwriter Paul Anka is releasing his first album for fourteen years, which includes a haunting duet with the late Frank Sinatra.
Produced by Paul Anka with composer/producers David Foster and Walter Afanasieff, and set for release this week, Paul Anka's new album, 'A Body of Work', features duets with Frank Sinatra, Celine Dion, Tevin Campbell, Patti LaBelle, and Peter Cetera, together with five new Anka penned solo tracks.
Tom Jones lends new vocals to his worldwide hit, 'She's a Lady', and Anka's daughter, Anthea, joins her father for the duet 'Do I love You' which features Bee Gee boss Barry Gibbs on backing vocals, and world best-selling instrumentalist Kenny G.on sax.
Anka says: "It's a part of a reflection, the intent of the album was to kind of complete the circle of what I've done since the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, and I've taken songs from each decade to represent a part of what I've done, you know, through these five decades.I was kind of motivated by Rolling Stones and Billboard Magazine who had a pre-millennium statistic page, and they were saying if I had got, if I get a top fifty record in the nineties I would be the first artist in the history of the music business to do that."
Celine Dion teams together with her fellow Canadian on a potential new classic, 'It's Hard To Say Goodbye', recorded when the industrious diva could barely say anything because of a cold affecting her overworked vocal chords.
Frank Sinatra agreed for his original 1968 vocal track to be used on the duet of 'My Way', shortly before his death last year.So, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, old blue eyes is back, on a new recording featuring an orchestration by Johnny Mandel.The result is a slower, more romantic version with Anka's vocals and adapted lyrics providing a fitting tribute to the departed Chairman of the Board.
At 55, Anka is celebrating four decades in show business, and it is said that a song of his is played every eight seconds somewhere in the world.But Anka is no stranger to fame.He was a savvy teen idol in the 50's and could still draw hoards of screaming fans on tour last year.
He says "I was just at the right place for the right time, and I got lucky.I think people in life have to get lucky.You know, I know there's somebody out there better than me and there's somebody out there better than Sting and better than Elton John, they just didn't get the chance to get there".
But 'My Way' has been one of his biggest successes, becoming Sinatra's signature song.It has been recorded by over three hundred other artists.But whether or not Anka did it his way, 'My Way' has fulfilled it's destiny, making it onto Anka's millennium album. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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