Vancouver Sun

A five-year overnight success

Michael Bublé's rise to the top of pop charts included a little help from Brian Mulroney

- MARK DANIELL

“The truth is, man, Wikipedia's not right.”

In a late November interview, Michael Bublé and I were chatting about all things Christmas and his new holiday-themed bubly drink. But as our conversati­on neared to a close inside a board room at Toronto's Eaton Centre, I asked Bublé about his big break.

My mother had told me it was an interestin­g story that involved the late prime minister Brian Mulroney, who was laid to rest over the weekend, his daughter Caroline and one of music's most wellknown producers — David Foster.

Even though we had spoken before, I didn't know it.

“Ask him about it,” my mother urged.

Bublé had a tight schedule and our time was up. “It's a huge, long story,” he said. But he indulged me.

“People say, `He was a wedding singer that got discovered,' but it isn't true,” Bublé recalled. “I worked from when I was 16 years old. I sang in nightclubs and I moved to Toronto.”

But his career as a jazz vocalist and standards crooner wasn't taking off. At 25, he had decided he was going to go back to school.

“I was going to Simon Fraser University or the University of British Columbia to take journalism,” he said.

At one of his last gigs he handed one of his CDs to a guy named Michael McSweeney, who happened to be a close friend of Mulroney.

Unbeknowns­t to Bublé, McSweeney had passed along the album to the Mulroneys.

The former prime minister and his wife Mila heard it and they were hooked. They reached out to hire Bublé to sing at their daughter Caroline's wedding in September, 2000.

“McSweeney gave it to Mulroney, who hired me to sing at Caroline's wedding,” Bublé said of the lucky break that changed the course of his life.

At the nuptials, Bublé met Foster, who said to him, “`Great, kid, you're on my radar.'”

Most versions of the story charting Bublé's rise to the top stop there. Foster, who had an establishe­d name in the music business having worked with artists like Celine Dion, Michael Jackson, Madonna and countless others, went on to produce Bublé's multiplati­num 2003 self-titled debut.

He eventually became the king of Christmas. The rest is history. End of story. But not so fast.

“The truth is Foster had no intention of ever signing me or ever producing my record,” Bublé said. “For years, I worked for him doing little things. Finally one day I asked him, `Are you going to produce (my record),' and he said, `Get lost. It's not going to happen. Literally, get out of my house. I love you, you're on my radar kid, just like all these other young kids who are trying to get in there.'”

Undeterred, after self-financing a 2001 album all on his own, Bublé pressed Foster to help him land a record deal with a major label.

Half-a-million dollars. That was what it was going to take for Foster to produce Bublé's record.

“He priced out how much a song and said, `You'd have to come up with all that money and maybe then, if you can come up with the money, I would do it ...,'” Bublé said.

Home in Vancouver, Bublé went from one bank to another to raise the money. When he finally came up with it all, there he was back on Foster's doorstep.

Foster brought Bublé to Las Vegas where he opened for comedian Jay Leno. One day, pop icon Paul Anka was in town. Bublé got the Canadian crooner's seal of approval.

Bublé was recording in Los Angeles, well on his way. Happy ending, right?

But Foster again got cold feet. “`I'm not going to do this with you. Don't worry, you're going to make it somehow with someone else,'” Bublé recalled Foster saying to him.

In a last-ditch effort, if he was a cat this is the part where he's down to his ninth life, Bublé pleaded with the 16-time Grammy winner to let him make his case to the president of Warner Bros. Records directly.

“He brought me to Warner Bros. and I met with Tom Whalley (who was then chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Records). Tom sat down and said, `Why should we sign you? We have Frank Sinatra.' I said, `All due respect sir, he's dead. Let me be a part of keeping this music alive. I'll work my ass off for you.'”

Two days later he got a call from Foster welcoming him to Warner Bros.

With four hit singles, How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, Kissing a Fool, Sway and Spider-Man Theme, his debut CD was a hit and Bublé became a “five-year overnight sensation.”

But it all started with the late Brian Mulroney listening to Bublé's music and being convinced he was hearing a star being born.

“That's the really short version, but that's kind of how it went,” Bublé said, smiling.

`Why should we (Warner Bros.) sign you? We have Frank Sinatra.' I said, `All due respect sir, he's dead. Let me be a part of keeping this music alive.'

 ?? GREG SOUTHAM ?? Vancouver crooner Michael Bublé says he “owes” some of his musical success to the late Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney.
GREG SOUTHAM Vancouver crooner Michael Bublé says he “owes” some of his musical success to the late Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney.

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