The Pop Strikes Back: The Return of Gino Vannelli

Gino Vannelli ‘updates’ himself, returns to pop on new album
By Angela Pacienza
TORONTO (CP) — Gino Vannelli, the curly-haired pop star known for smash hits like Wild Horses and Black Cars, has resurfaced with an album that contains old hits as well as seven newly penned tracks.
“It was a kick to do. A big learning experience,” said the singer, 53.
“With an open mind, a little humility . . . You can really actually update yourself.”
The Montreal-born singer, famed for his funky grooves, had sworn off the pop genre after his early ’90s album received lukewarm receptions.
He turned to jazz and big band and later classical, releasing Canto in 2003, an album which had him singing romantic arias in French, Spanish and Italian.
“Never say never,” said Vannelli of These Are the Days, out next week in Canada. It’ll be released in Europe and the U.S. later in the year.
The album features seven new songs and seven remastered old ones. The first single, the jazzy-pop track It’s Only Love, has Vannelli back on radio waves.
“It seemed to me that after Canto that I didn’t want to go and record another classical album,” he explained.
But then Universal Canada called to suggest a “best of” album. The label wanted to include one or two new songs as is now tradition on greatest hits album.
Vannelli, who settled in Portland, Ore., more than a decade ago, said he ran into some trouble when he sat down to pen new songs having spent time dabbling in jazz and classical genres, as well as updating his music theory degree from McGill University.
“It was quite a task I found to come up with something very contemporary. I really wanted the songs to be as good in their own right as some of the hits were in the past,” he said.
“I found that my skills were more inclined to lean towards a complex, different kind of material. It took a few months to align myself with a new pattern.”
He listened to Top 40 radio and studied modern-day pop stars such as John Mayer. He also spent time poring over his 19-year-old son’s music collection.
“Too many people that record more complex music, classical or jazz, when they get into the pop realm they take for granted that they know everything. They don’t have conviction.”
“I tried to understand the (pop) language again . . . Then the pop sensibility just came out.”
It’s been about 40 years since Vannelli first started in the music business.
Under the moniker Van Elli, he signed his first record contract at 16. He then took off to the States, where he put out six albums in the 1970s, including Brother to Brother.
In his heyday, he was all over the airwaves. He opened for Stevie Wonder and, in 1975, became the first white artist to appear on Soul Train.
In those days, music “was everything” to people, recalled Vannelli.
“I came from the generation where kids didn’t have IPods and computers. People sat down and really listened,” he said.
“Today more people do something while listening to music. I had to come to grips with that. You’re trying to help people get through their day, and, yet you’re trying to be artistic and all those things to satisfy your own needs as an artist.”
Vannelli has hit the road again — his first “intense tour in years.” He’s currently playing shows in Ontario and Quebec.
On the Net: www.ginovannelli.com