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Desert Island Discs

Michael Bublé

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Music, Society & Culture, Personal Journals, Music Commentary

4.314.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2016

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway is the singer, Michael Bublé. Born in Burnaby, British Columbia, as a young boy he spent hours listening to his grandfather's record collection which featured the stars of the Great American songbook - Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Ella Fitzgerald. At sixteen he was singing at venues often in exchange for the free plumbing services his grandad offered to get him on stage. But it took ten years of plugging away at restaurants, clubs, and corporate gigs before he met David Foster, a music producer at Warner Brothers.

His released his first eponymous debut album in 2003. Since then he has won four Grammy Awards and sold 55 million records. He is married to Argentinian actress Luisana Lopilato and they have two young sons.

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is the BBC.

0:03.0

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young.

0:05.0

Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Highland Disks from BBC Radio 4.

0:10.0

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

0:14.5

For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co.uk.

0:20.0

UK slash Radio 4. My castaway this week is Michael Buble, a four times Grammy Award winner. He is a blissful anachronism. An artist,

0:44.8

intriguingly at odds with the rappers, grudge bands and hip-hop artists his

0:48.8

generation produced. Instead he is devoted to the smooth swing and restrained glamour of the great American songbook.

0:57.0

He's been called the Canadian Frank Sinatra so often it must now surely great.

1:01.0

Maybe we'll find out.

1:02.0

But the fact remains that his velvety vocals and kick-ass timing

1:05.5

are redolent of a gentler musical moment. As he steps out onto yet another stage in some

1:11.1

far-flung corner of the world for yet another sellout concert.

1:15.3

Those early years of crooning on cruises and corporate conventions must seem a long way off.

1:20.7

He has now sold 55 million records. He says when I get to interact with my

1:26.7

audience from the stage and have actual conversations by jumping into the crowd,

1:31.1

I'm a happy man. I know how they're feeling and I can relate to them.

1:35.3

I think of myself as a real guise guy who somehow ended up wearing a suit and singing love

1:41.1

ballads. So welcome Michael Boupley. That sense then of

1:44.3

interacting with your audience of relating to them. It comes across so strongly when we

1:48.7

see you in concert. What is the essence of a really good gig for you?

1:54.3

Oh, I think having enough sensitivity so that you can actually connect with your fellow

...

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