MOVING WITH THE TIMES
Smooth-voiced singer has embraced change and technology in music
Born and raised in Montreal, Gino Vannelli was 22 when he landed his first hit, People Gotta Move, in 1974. In 1978, I Just Wanna Stop, off his album Brother to Brother, hit the Billboard Top 10. Vannelli stopped touring for 12 years, but kept recording; in the 1980s, he scored two more hits, Black Cars (1985) and Wild Horses (1987). In 2000, a collaboration with jazz pianist Niels Lan Doky led to the song Parole Per Mio Padre (A Word to My Father). In a well-publicized move, Pope John Paul II heard it and liked it. Following up, Vannelli recorded Canto, a 2003 pop/classical album that marked a new direction for the singer. Since then, he has released a book of poetry, a live CD/DVD, and other projects. We talked to the expat Canadian, who now lives in Oregon, about changes in the music industry, the ’80s, and what to expect from his upcoming Vancouver show.
Q: You didn’t tour over a decade. Had you grown disillusioned by the music industry?
A: I think disillusion comes to all of us. Disillusion is more like
taking stock of yourself, the world around you, the people around you. Or with whom you’ve surrounded yourself. Disillusion led me to take stock. I had been in the record business since I was 17, 18 years old. The reckoning, the pivot point, didn’t come until Nightwalker (his 1981 album), when I was 29 years old. A lot of people are just getting going by then. For me, it was a matter of deciding on priorities. What was going to give me well-being, and good physical as well as mental health? I decided to go back to college. That led me to take courses in the humanities. I ended up studying theology. That was really good for me. I could then approach life and the music industry in a more logical, clear-headed way. The old model had run its course.
Q: Yet during that time you kept recording.
A: Yes. I was very interested in technology and change. I started understanding how to work with computers, and how the old school was growing into new school thought, or a new kind of delivery system. It was in its infancy in the ’80s. Now I’m perfectly at home recording any which way, with a band or just sitting by myself in the studio and playing various instruments.
Q: What was that like, being a recording artist in the ’80s?
A: It was nothing like the ’70s. In the ’70s, with artists like James Taylor and Cat Stevens and Stevie Wonder, music had reached a height as far as songwriter and recording. You had to be a pretty good singer and songwriter. In the ’80s, the visuals came into play a lot more. Looking like you were a good singer or songwriter took precedence over actually really being one.
I struggled with it a little bit at first. But I decided to record albums like Black Cars and Big Dreamers Never Sleep (1987) and had pretty good success with those. You might say it was playing that game, but it was more than that. I wanted to have success, but I wanted to be creative in the process.
Q: What can you tell us about the set for your upcoming shows?
A: I’ve got a Portland band. I’ve been playing with them for seven or eight years, and they’re really the best band I’ve ever had. We’re eight people onstage. Horns, rhythm section, and we reach all the way back to 1973. It’s an eclectic potpourri of everything I’ve written since that time — 40 years. And maybe one or two brand new things. I’m working on a record, and it’s going to be finished this Christmas. I wanted to write an album that was acoustic-guitar based. So it’s a very different kind of album for me.