Russell Watson 'Amore Musica' album

Russell Watson is back. After winning over legions of fans around the globe, including America, the “People’s Tenor,” took a hiatus from the spotlight. Many wondered what Watson had in store for his fans, and exactly where he had gone. The singer’s international career has been an unbroken string of triumphs since the breakthrough release of The Voice in 2000 – chart-topping, gold and platinum-selling sales for his recordings; sold-out concerts at such landmark venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall, and the Sydney Opera House to name a few; and the kind of adulation classical singers only dream of. Watson has sung for Queen Elizabeth, Pope John Paul II, U.S. presidents and world prime ministers, and – perhaps most gratifyingly – for millions of average people who hear something magical in his voice.

For Russell Watson, being back has a more profound meaning this time. Listen carefully to Amore Musica, his new Decca CD, and you can sense an almost poignant gratitude and feeling of renewal in his singing. This album is something quite special, passionate and deeply felt. Watson recorded it after confronting a singer’s worst nightmare – the possibility that his voice might be silenced forever. Riding a fast-moving career that had catapulted him to an unimaginable place, the carefree young singer was driving his voice to a dangerous point. He had encountered some problems with his high notes, and he decided to consult a doctor who told him what he dreaded most. A growth had developed on one of his vocal cords, and it would have to be removed surgically. The most heart-stopping aspect of this diagnosis was that there could be no assurance that his voice would survive the surgery intact. “I walked out of the place in a flood of tears,” Watson says, recalling his departure from the doctor’s office.

Today, the dark days before and after the surgery can be seen as a turning point in the tenor’s remarkable career. Not only has Watson fully recovered, his voice restored, he is a much wiser singer with a more careful technique, and he has learned just how much singing really means to him. Call it a new clarity. Sample some of the song titles on Amore Musica, and they tell the story – “You Raise Me Up,” “I Believe,” “You’ll Still Be There For Me,” “Pray For The Love,” “I’ll Walk With God” (the Mario Lanza classic) and “We Will Stand Together,” as well as the title track, which celebrates “Love and Music.” Watson called on the songwriters he thinks are the best around – Diane Warren, Gary Barlow and Elliot Kennedy – to provide him with material to match the intensity of his inspiration. The album’s closing number, “We Will Stand Together,” transforms Sir Edward Elgar’s noble “Nimrod” from the Enigma Variations into a soaring, reassuring hymn of hope, awash in the brilliance of Watson’s resurgent high notes.

Amore Musica is his fourth for the Decca label. The album’s style is a dazzling variation on the winning equation that inspired Watson’s three previous albums, each a blockbuster hit – a classical sense galvanized by a pop sensibility, forged in the golden sound of his voice. It is hardly surprising that Amore Musica has already conquered Watson’s native England. “All the songs are about love, music, peace, happiness and hope,” the tenor says. “That reflects the way I feel right now. It’s a record to hold hands to. I want this record to be something that people think about affectionately. I’ve never generated as much passion in my lyrics. It’s a different sound. It’s not about the way I sing it. It’s about me singing from the heart, and I don’t think I’ve really ever done that before.”

Russell Watson has never shrunk from a challenge. How else would a factory worker’s son from England industrial Northwest – who himself was a factory worker, in the beginning – be where he is today? When Watson was a lad, his passion for singing played out in pubs and nightclubs. There was always something special about his voice and his singing, and it was confirmed when he beat out 400 hopefuls in a local radio talent competition.

The promise was fulfilled when Watson got his big break. A lifelong fan of the Manchester United football club, he was invited in May of 1999 to sing in the Old Trafford stadium before the club’s Premiership-winning match. He was asked to sing the number that had become a favorite of his local fans – “Nessun dorma,” the glorious but daunting Puccini aria. The intoxicating standing ovation he got from the football crowd was just the beginning. More sports-related performances followed, and that summer he joined Sir Cliff Richard at an outdoor concert in London’s Hyde Park. Watson’s success eventually captured the attention of the Decca Music Group, which signed him to an exclusive contract to record his distinctive mix of opera, classical melodies and pop ballads.

The 2000 release of his debut album The Voice ruled, at No. 1, the classical charts in England for almost a year, and it even climbed to No. 5 on the pop chart. The U.S. release virtually repeated that success, and Watson became the first male English performer to hold the No. 1 slot on both British and American classical charts. He won a pair of Classical Brit Awards (voted by the British record-buying public), and The Voice lost its No. 1 spot on the charts only when Watson released his next album Encore. Its success exceeded even that of The Voice, with worldwide sales of a phenomenal 1.7 million albums. It also won the singer another pair of Classical Brits, for Best Classical Album and Male Artist of the Year. Watson’s third album, Reprise, brought more of the same – a platinum record within two weeks of its release in the U.K., reaching No. 13 on the pop chart and, of course, No. 1 on the classical chart.

Today, the success of “The People’s Tenor” means something more than numbers and records. And Watson knows what it is: “To give classical music back to the people – or, rather, to give it to people for the first time. Whether I’m singing in front of five or 100,000 people, I just love to entertain.” Amore Musica is more than an album title. It has become something of a personal credo. Russell Watson is back, all right, and better than ever.

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