Home by Michael Bublé (Bub-lay)

[johnfowles]

My ears pricked up this morning when I heard for what I thought was the first time what was to me a great sounding record on New York's 1067 Lite FM. Checking their on-line playlist I found that it was:-
"Home" by Michael Bublé
which strongly reminds me of Keith Urban's hit,"You'll Think of Me",which is no bad thing in my book.
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000088E6D.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
hear a Windows Media clip at:-
http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/clipserve/B00070Q7VO001005/0/ref=mu_sam_wma_001_005/104-2772395-3690363
Compare with the Aussie/New Zealander's ditty clip at:-
http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/clipserve/B00006JOG7001005/0/ref=mu_sam_wma_001_005/104-2772395-3690363
I decided to Google and was suitably astounded to find that he has sold over 10 million CDs
and the song I had heard had been number 1 in Canada and a hit also in the UK and even Australia. Moreover he is a Vancouver native and checking his discography I noted that he has covered an eclectic mix of standards, many by Sinatra but also including Queen, Van the Man, The Beatles and Bee Gees and even fellow Canuck (and mentor) Paul Anka's old hit "Put Your Head On My Shoulder".
Yet despite having been taken under the wing by David Foster I could find no cover of any Lightfoot song
I read
"Michael was duly signed to Foster’s own 143 Records through Reprise and work began in the spring of 2001 on his major label debut"
so I am amazed that hitherto this artist was unknown to me
John Fowles
any comments/opinions anyone??

[SilverHeels]

John,
I've been a fan of the gorgeous Michael for a long time and 'Home' is a fave track of mine.
I'm astonished that you did not know him before this. Shame on you, Sir John. ;)

[charlene]

shame shame shame Sir John!
lol
.....unfortunately I have been overwhelmed with the over exposure of Buble and am now sick of him....i enjoy (enjoyed) his stuff but like Josh Groban I found a little went a long way....

He's with David Foster - master of the over-done/over-produced and often already perfected material. Lord help him if Paul Anka gets too much influence on him...ugh. Look up arrogant and egocentric in the dictionary and Anka and Foster both have pics there....hopefully Michael will not follow their lead that way. They are the antithesis of the Lightfoot humility.
He is damn cute tho....
lol
:
;)

[<Reminder>]

It just so happens that I find myself in Mr. Fowles
camp regarding this subject. I just heard his name this past week and visited his website to see what all the buzz was about.

There's a lot of info (videos, etc) that seem to provide an insight into his character. His humility at the time appeared to be in tact. I believe he wrote the song
"Home", but his covers do nothing for me. For example, I'll take The Drifters version of "Save the last Dance for Me", or Van Morrison's original "Moondance" anyday. Perhaps he's great in concert, I don't (and will never) know. I do admire his respect for the older standards, but I still don't get it.

RMD

[SilverHeels]

He has a great voice and so far there is no sign of any arrogance ... not that I have seen anyway.
And he looks real cute. :)

[charlene]

voice is great and he is still a young pup-humble and shy really when i've seen him in interviews from local canadian stuff to Entertainment Tonight with Mary Hart...I hope he stays that way....
he's up for a few JUNO awards on Sunday night..... http://www.junoawards.ca/

and he is adorable looking. puppy dog eyes and he wears his clothes really well...
just what a mum would like to see her daughter bring home....
lol

[Sheryl]

I have his CD and love it. I even bought one for my dad and sent it to him because of all the older songs he covered on it. I first heard him sing "Home" during a movie I saw last year (which name I forgot -- it was that forgettable), but, the *song* stayed with me. I immediately (read: right after the movie) ran over to Tower Records and bought his CD. Yessirrree, he's a cutie-pie. And young enough to be my son, darn it!

[stationmaster]

Yes he is a great singer, just like my fellow countryman...
http://www.rexgoudie.com/images/promo_album_now.gif

[geodeticman]

my wife says he got first or near first exposure playing a small club singer on "Days of Our Lives".

He built his earlier career she heard on a much "gentler" approach to old standards 40's - 60's, but in my and my wife's opinion, does not hold a candle to Harry Connick Jr. who started out the same way, and CAN do a mean Sinatra tune.

Buble sings well, but you'd be embarrased to be listening to him down at the construction site when the boys there say "whad da he** is dat stuff, uh?" ;) j/k

He does sing well, I just prefer a more robust sound like Lightfoot. Q:

Do we try to hear (as men anyway) an alter ego of ourselves in our favourite music ? I dunno. I think I have many times heard, astonishingly, my own feelings and what-not in Lightfoot's music. I don't hear it in Buble.

To each his own though, and I hear he is very popular, especially in one way with the ladies, and for gentlemen who appreciate a quality standard sung well. - Steve

[charlene]

I remember hearing about PM Mulroney telling David Foster how great BUBLE was when he sang at his daughter's wedding (Caroline) and Foster was there. Buble seemed to have caught all the right breaks.....
from 2003:

Michael Buble delivers the old-fashioned goods
Updated Mon. Mar. 10 2003 6:41 PM ET

Canadian Press

TORONTO — Listening to Michael Buble croon classics like Sway and Fly Me To The Moon conjure up memories of an era when tuxedo-clad hepcats sipped vodka martinis in casino bars.

He's got Dean Martin's good looks, Sinatra's dreamy eyes (green instead of blue) and he snaps his fingers like any full-fledged member of the Rat Pack.

At a recent showcase at Toronto's Reservoir Lounge - a popular hangout for swing fans -- the 25-year-old Vancouver vocalist wowed the audience with an earnest performance that earned him three enthusiastic encores.

In an interview the following day Buble says he only left the stage at the insistence of his manager.

"I would have stayed up there forever," he says wide-grinned, bouncing excitably in his chair in a meeting room at a downtown hotel where he's making the media rounds to promote his first major label album, simply entitled Michael Buble -- pronounced Boob-lay.

The CD, 13 perennial favourites sung in velvety baritone with big band support, has generated a surprisingly loud buzz since it hit stores in early February.

His tour manager explains the success on Buble's delivery of the music.

"It's honest, there's a lot of integrity in it," says Vancouver-based Joe Jackson, who's managed tours for Anne Murray and Bryan Adams. "He believes what he's doing. Everybody's saying 'How does this voice live inside this 25-year-old young man?' "

The son of a salmon fisherman, Buble started singing as a young boy at Christmas.

"I'd just be ecstatic because Bing Crosby's White Christmas would be playing in the house. I drove my parents nuts. Five years old and I listened to that thing through July," he says, cheerfully slapping his knee for emphasis.

He began learning more about music from the Sing Era of the 1940s and '50s at the request of his Italian grandfather.

"Grandpa got a real kick out of the fact that I liked the music so much. We'd start singing at the dinner table together, like Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime," he says, breaking into song.

"He started saying to me 'Hey Sunshine, before grandpa dies could you learn Stardust?' So I'd go and learn the songs word for word, sit with him at the table and I'd sing him the song."

From there the young singer entered talent shows and paid his dues working conventions and even cruise ships. He did a stint performing across the U.S. as part of the Red Rock Diner and a musical revue titled Forever Swing. In between, he recorded two independent albums, one as a gift for his grandfather's birthday.

But his real break came wrapped in a gig as a wedding singer at the wedding of Caroline Mulroney, daughter of the former prime minister, in the fall of 2000. That's where famed producer David Foster caught his act from the back of the room.

"Brian Mulroney was standing next to David Foster with his arm around him and he was shaking him saying, 'Come on, David, watch him. Sign him,' " Buble recounts. "I can just imagine David thinking 'What do I want with a nerdy wedding singer like this?' But it turned out."

Perhaps Foster saw in Buble what he saw in vocalist Josh Groban, whom he pushed into the spotlight in 1999.

"Michael, not unlike Natalie Cole or Diana Krall, has lived this music. While everybody else his age was listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam when they were growing up Michael was listening to Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin and Louis Prima and that's what his music reflects. He's not a copy of any of those people but he's a healthy combination of all of those people from that genre," Foster gushes in Buble's electronic press material.

For his part, Buble is adamant that he's not trying to duplicate a bygone era.

"I don't want to be a copycat. What you see is who I am. It's just me and how I grew up and what I thought was cool," he says. "There was always something special about that music to me. It just stood out. I always felt like I was born in the wrong time."

He credits Harry Connick Jr. for pushing him to perform the music in high school talent shows.

"I remember all of a sudden seeing this guy's picture on girls' lockers . . . He kind of made it cool, made it OK for me to come out of the closet and say I love this music, too."

And he thinks with the recent success of Norah Jones, more people are open to music not found on mainstream radio.

"There was a void in the market for a long time. Now people are getting a chance to get their hands on some nice stuff. There's room at the top for everything."

Fellow Canuck Paul Anka was brought in to help produce the album. The result is a lush collection of songs from Sinatra's Fly Me To The Moon to George Michael's '80s hit Kissing a Fool and the BeeGees' How Can You Mend A Broken Heart. Barry Gibb sings backup vocals on the latter.

Buble is touchingly sincere in his renditions of the classics. That enthusiasm, coupled with the big-name talent pushing him into the limelight -- including Madonna's publicist Liz Rosenberg -- puts the former wedding singer on the brink of international stardom.

He performed on NBC's Today Show on Valentine's Day. He appeared as a lounge singer on the daytime soap, Days Of Our Lives. He was part of the pre-game show at the Super Bowl. His version of Come Fly With Me is featured on the soundtrack for the Sandra Bullock-Hugh Grant film Two Weeks Notice.

Some quick facts about Michael Buble

Born: Vancouver, 1975.
Big break: Caught working as a wedding singer by David Foster.
Albums: Babalu, 2001; Dream, 2002; Michael Buble, 2003.
Awards: Received two Genie Award nominations in 2000 for songs he wrote for the film Here's To Life, starring Eric McCormack.
Acting: Played a karaoke singer in Gwyneth Paltrow's Duets, played Elvis in touring troupe for Red Rock Diner, and a touring musical revue in 1999 entitled Forever Swing.
Quote: "You can try to trick the people and me come out wearing a fedora and a tuxedo but that's not me. I was born in the late '70s, I wear jeans. I don't hang out in casinos. The lifestyle isn't my thing. I don't drink martinis and I don't smoke cigars."

[charlene]

Michael did very well at the JUNO awards last night:
http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=99697eab-3554-42e4-9efa-091147e00085&k=43818

[Cathy]

Originally posted by charlene:
shame shame shame Sir John!
lol
.....unfortunately I have been overwhelmed with the over exposure of Buble and am now sick of him....i enjoy (enjoyed) his stuff but like Josh Groban I found a little went a long way....

He's with David Foster - master of the over-done/over-produced and often already perfected material. Lord help him if Paul Anka gets too much influence on him...ugh. Look up arrogant and egocentric in the dictionary and Anka and Foster both have pics there....hopefully Michael will not follow their lead that way. They are the antithesis of the Lightfoot humility.
He is damn cute tho....
lol
:
;) You have permission to shame me too, Char. I'd never heard of him until last week. Someone was talking about him on the acoustic guitar newsgroup. Or maybe I had heard of him but he's stuck somewhere in my short term memory. I suppose I'll have to go out and buy a CD or something.