Hey, ya'all. Do you love Celine as much as Britney. I do! She is so GREAT. Below is an article about her new album. What do you think?
Alex
Source: Billboard Magazine Jan 26 2002
A New Day Has Come,
Exclusive: New Epic Album Due In March
Montreal – Céline Dion has a cold. And With Tissue in hand she waves it of.
Since then, Dion, 33, has now concentrated on the role she now considers the most important in her life: Motherhood, with the birth of her first child, René – Charles, Jan 25, 2001. She has preformed only a handful of times, including Sept. 21,2001, when she sang a stirring live rendition of “God Bless America” at the America: A tribute to Heroes telethon honouring victims of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and Sept. 28 for Montréal’s companion fun-raiser. “ A Show for life ”In fact, this is the first interview Dion has granted since her colossal farewell millennium concert Dec. 31, 1999, in Montréal.
But this spring she will attend to her other baby – show business – With the worldwide release March 25 (March 26 in the U.S) of A New Day Has Come her eighth English-language album, on Epic/Columbia Records.
A Helping Hand
“I want this album to be soothing,”Dion suggests “If people need a partner, a helping hand, to cry, to dance, whatever it is, I want to be a little shoulder to lean on. As we all know, the world is going through a lot.” Husband René Angélil, who has steered Dion’s business affairs as her manager for 20 years, adds, “Céline felt great singing this album. Our baby was always next room while she was recording, so she had a good feeling about the experience. To me, she has never sounded better; the quality of her voice is at best.” Tommy Mattola, chairman/CEO of Sony Music Entertainment, also notes a spirit of rejuvenation. “I Sense that Céline is more comfortable with her success and herself, which has given her a new freedom in her voice,” he says. “I certainly consider her one of the greatest singers all time and I consummate musician – that voice is an instrument – and this album offers such a wide range of listening options to her fans. It’s not at all. Of Course I hope the album is going to be a successful for the record company as the one before. I’m certainly not going to give any less; if anything, I have more to give, because I have something new to talk about.”
On one hand, the set’s title, A New Day Has Come, acknowledges this new chapter in Dion’s life and in her career. But she was also deeply affected by the event of Sept. 11 and wants the world to serve as a reminder of the tragedy as well.
“It represents my child, because I gave life, and that is beautiful,”Dion says. Obviously, it also marks my return with a new album. But a new day has come is the lives of other people because something bad has happend, because we’ve lost lives, because there’s a scar on our world now.” Dion was at home in Montréal when she saw the event of Sept 11 unfold on TV. Trough tears, she describes the anguish she felt that day: “I was watching this thing and thinking, ‘It’s not happening for real. ‘I honestly thought it was the end of the world. René-Charles was sleeping and I rushed upstairs to his room and took him in my arms and said to my husband, ‘How can we bring children into this world?’ Thank God my baby is not aware of what’s going on’
Because of Dion’s unwillingness to either leave her baby to tow him around the world at only 7 months old, the album’s collaborators flew to her, a move that few artists have the cloud to demand. All but one of the producers brought on board has worked with the singer before/
Dion sounds at ease and eminently confident throughout the set, whether soaring trough the quintessential sky scraping ballad “Surrender”; romping across the playful positive “I’m Alive,” “Coulda Woulda Shoulda,” and dance floor rocket “Sorry For Your Love” ; or gently singling the album finale “Nature Boy,” a song originally recorded by Nat “King” Cole that features a jazzy Dion accompanied only by piano.
She also covers “At Last,” a gospel tinged number first recorded by Glenn Miller in 1941.
As has become traditional, different versions of the album will be released in various territories; unique track listings are likely fore North America/ Europe, Japan, France and Latin America.
A first single will be released worldwide in the first week of February.
The label’s radio platform remains true the past releases: “It seems that our best approach in readdressing radio is to just deliver great music and remind radio that their listeners love Céline ,” Epic VP of Promotion Hilary Shaev says. “So many times we’ve heard, ‘We can’t play a ballad, ‘or ‘ we’re rocking right now,’ or ‘We’re playing R&B,’ We’d like to think that after so many years of ‘I told you so,’ they know that there are huge fans out there.”
An ac staple
,N.J., says. “The industry could really use a bump right now, and I thin Céline is the one to do it,” Trough the cautions that “Focus in the industry has changed a lot in the last three years. How Sony puts it together and markets it could be significant.”
“I’ll sing the songs people want to hear again, plus the album, and some surprises,” Dion says. “But the big difference will be that it will be a visual show, like theatre. O changed my life, and said to René ‘There is no way I can come back onstage and not do something like this.’ Every song can now become a visual experience, witch I think puts it all on a higher scale. And it will be fun for me, something new.”
It also allows Dion to balance career with the role of mother that she so cherishes, “Can you imagine? My sin is going to be at home, I’ll leave in the afternoon around 5, do my show five days a week, come in and kiss my kid, and sleep in my own bed.” She grins. “No travel. Oh yeah. O yeah.”Rehearsals for the show begin in October.
After that, “Maybe we do something unplugged, something light,”
Dion continues. “Along the way, we’ll have good times together the fans and I. Hopefully, there will be many more new days to come.”
‘Heroes’ Telethon: ‘It was a Responsibility’
Producer David Foster wrote a dramatic new arrangement for the Irving Berlin standard on Tuesday, Sept. 18, and gathered musicians on Wednesday in Los Angeles, where the instrumental track was recorded. On Thursday Dion recorded the vocal track in a session at Piccolo Studios in Montréal, where she was also working on material for her upcoming album, A New Day Has Come. A video crew had been hired to shoot her lip-synching the track that night, and the tape would be in the hands of the producers Friday morning for the broadcast that evening.
But then the unexpected telephone call came. “Joel told me that Céline had to perform the song in either New York, Los Angeles, or London, that she had to be there; a decision had been made that no tapes would be shown – they wanted everybody to sing live,” Angélil says “I’m saying to myself, ‘They’re right. What can I say? I won’t argue with them. But, ‘As I told them, ‘now I have to convince Céline.’ “
“Maybe this sounds stupid,” Dion says, “but it was the first time I was going to leave René-Charles (The couple’s then –7- month-old child). That was my world, holding him in my arms I was crying because I thought something bad was going to happen in New York. I did not want to leave.”
It didn’t help me that couple’s paediatrician advised Dion to wear a gas mask and to shower before she touched her baby after the concert. She says. “Everything was just so dramatic.”
At 5 p.m. Dion and Angélil boarded a plane for the 90-minute flight from Montreal to New York City. She entered the candlelit studio stage and, as one of the last performers of the night, sang the passionate, soaring version of “God Bless America,” with Foster on piano and a gospel choir assembled behind her.
She recalls, “I sang it just like we recorded it, but I was so tired emotionally. I was out of voice, out of strength, but I did it.”
As soon as the telecast was complete, the couple high-tailed it to the airport and flew straight back to Montréal, arriving at home after 1 a.m. Dion says “I tell you, I would have walked back home to get my child,”
In all, the telecast reached 60 million viewers in America, and it ultimately raised some $150 million in plagued for the United Way to aid victims of the tragedy.
“Every time I talk about this, I get tears in my eyes because the whole world, a part of us, got lost and scarred,” Dion says. “I realize that we have to move on, but this thing is there with us all. Every time you step on a plane, for a moment, you think, ‘this is serious.’ But we can’t stop living. We have to go forward
Chuck Talor
Source: Billboard Magazine Jan 26 2002