His achievements include selling 53 million albums, eight top ten albums, two number one singles on the Billboard charts, and awards from both the American Music Awards and Grammy Awards.
Michael Bolton had an extensive, though not very successful, career under his real name, Michael Bolotin, before emerging in the mid-'80s as a major soft rock balladeer. Bolton began recording in 1975. This first album was self-titled using his original surname, Bolotin. Early in his musical career, he focused on hard rock. His band, Blackjack, once toured with heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne. He turned up on RCA Records in the mid-'70s singing in a gruff, Joe Cocker-like voice both his own blue-eyed soul songs and cover tunes. Neither record buyers nor critics were much interested by the result. He then became the lead singer in Blackjack, a heavy metal band that made two albums for Polydor at the end of the '70s and the start of the '80s. In 1983, he changed his name to Michael Bolton, signed to Columbia Records as a solo act, and relaunched his career.
Michael Bolton was released in April 1983, and made the Top 100 bestsellers, as did its single, "Fools Game." At the same time, "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You," which Bolton had co-written, became a Top 40 hit for Laura Branigan. Nevertheless, Bolton's second Columbia album, Everybody's Crazy (1985), was a commercial flop. His breakthrough came with his third album, The Hunger, released in September 1987. On this album, Bolton abandoned the more hard rock aspects of his style to concentrate on blue-eyed soul singing: both on his own songs, such as "That's What Love Is All About," and on covers like Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay." Those two songs became Top 40 hits.
Soul Provider, released in July 1989, turned Bolton into a superstar, reaching the Top Ten, selling four million copies, and spawning five Top 40 singles, including Bolton's number one version of "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You," and the Top Ten hits "How Can We Be Lovers" and "When I'm Back on My Feet Again." "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" won Bolton a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Time, Love & Tenderness, released in April 1991, was even more successful, hitting number one, selling six million copies, and featuring four Top 40 hits, including the chart-topping cover of Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman," and the Top Ten hits "Love Is a Wonderful Thing" (later the subject of a successful plagiarism suit brought against Bolton by the Isley Brothers) and "Time, Love and Tenderness."
Bolton won another Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, for "When a Man Loves a Woman," but he had to put up with abuse from two camps of detractors at the February 1992 ceremony. Just after Bolton had performed, pre-rock songwriter Irving Gordon won the Song of the Year award for "Unforgettable" and pointedly attacked songs that "scream, yell, and have a nervous breakdown" and singers who "have a hernia" when they sing. Then, backstage, Bolton faced a hostile press corps of critics unhappy with his tendency to copy great soul singers like Redding, Ray Charles, and Sledge. Bolton suggested they apply their lips to a certain part of his anatomy. He further responded with Timeless: The Classics in September 1992, an album made up entirely of cover songs. It went to number one, sold three million copies, and featured a Top 40 hit in Bolton's version of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody." Bolton's next album of original material, The One Thing, came in November 1993. It hit the Top Ten, sold three million copies, and featured the Top Ten hit "Said I Loved You...But I Lied." Bolton released Greatest Hits 1985-1995 in the fall of 1995, which debuted in the Top Ten. The following year, This Is the Time: Christmas Album appeared.
Bolton returned with All That Matters, his first album of new material since 1993's The One Thing, in the fall of 1997. Instead of continuing his success, it was a surprise flop. Not only did it not generate a hit single, it barely cracked the Top 40 and fell out of the charts after 15 weeks. Its lack of success didn't stop Bolton from turning his attention to My Secret Passion, a collection of opera and arias that he released in January 1998. By classical standards, the album was a hit, and the record received a great deal of press and surprisingly good reviews. He supported the two albums with a summer tour which were co-headlined with Wynonna Judd. He voluntarily stepped back for almost four years, disappearing from the public eye until the spring of 2002 when he began promoting Only a Woman Like You, his first album on Jive Records. After a brief sabbatical, he returned with Til the End of Forever, a hybrid new album of seven new recordings and a live greatest-hits concert. In 2006 he released Bolton Swings Sinatra, a 12-song tribute to Ol' Blue Eyes that included a duet with fiancée/actress Nicolette Sheridan.
It would be worth mentioning "Can I Touch You There" proved to be one of the all-time hit love songs from Micheal Bolton from the album Greatest Hits.
www.michaelbolton.com/
The Power of Love
Michael Bolton Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Just to be strong
We talk through the night
But never reach the other side
We fill our lives
With endless words, an aimless search
When all that we need, we hold within our hearts
We know that
Love is the power, love is the key
Love is the reason, reason to believe
Love is the answer, when we will see?
Love is the power, love is the power we need
Look at our lives
Look at this world we've made
We close our eyes, and, oh, the price we pay
We reach for the sky
But never get beyond our pride
Fighting like fools
This faithless game is such a shame
When all that we need we hold within our hands
Oh, when will we find the faith to understand?
We know that
Love is the power, love is the key
Love is the reason, reason to believe
Love is the answer, when we will see?
Love is the power, love is the power we need
All that we need we hold within our hands
Oh, when will we find the faith to understand?
We know that
Love is the power, love is the key
Love is the reason, reason to believe
Love is the answer, when we will see?
Love is the power, love is the power we need
The lyrics of Michael Bolton featuring Rascal Flatts's song Love Is Everything emphasizes that love is the most potent force in the world, capable of changing lives and even the world. The opening lines of the song urge the listener to ponder on how long they can continue with the incessant search for strength without finding it. This search for strength is done by talking through the night without making any headway or filling their lives with infinite words without having any specific aim or objective.
The song reveals that humans often search for love beyond their reach, and they tend to overlook the most obvious place to find it, which is within themselves. Love should start from within before spreading to others, and it is the reason why people should believe in it. The artists also point out the challenges facing humanity, such as the world they have made, which is full of social vices and the price paid for ignorance as they close their eyes to their problems.
The song's chorus emphasizes that love is the power that everyone needs to overcome the challenges they face in life. It is the key that unlocks the hidden potential in individuals, the reason to believe that one can overcome the obstacles and the answer to the question of when all that we need will be seen. Love is the power, and it must start with everyone, from holding it in their hands to finding faith to understand.
Line by Line Meaning
Tell me how long can we go on this way
Expressing the need for change from an endless cycle
Just to be strong
The struggle for emotional strength
We talk through the night
Communicating endlessly yet with no true progress
But never reach the other side
The inability to move past a certain point in a relationship
We fill our lives
Filling our lives with meaningless talk
With endless words, an aimless search
Searching aimlessly for the solution to our problems
When all that we need, we hold within our hearts
The solution to our problems lies within ourselves
When will we find our way out of the dark?
The need to find the light and move forward
We know that Love is the power, love is the key
The importance of love in our lives
Love is the reason, reason to believe
Love provides us hope and something to believe in
Love is the answer, when we will see?
Love is the solution to our problems
Love is the power, love is the power we need
Love possesses the power to heal and help us move forward
Look at our lives
Reflecting on our lives
Look at this world we've made
Examining the state of the world
We close our eyes, and, oh, the price we pay
Choosing to ignore the problems and paying the consequences
We reach for the sky
Aiming high in life
But never get beyond our pride
Allowing pride to hold us back in life
Fighting like fools
Arguing and fighting with no resolution in sight
This faithless game is such a shame
The shame of the fruitless cycle of arguments
All that we need we hold within our hands
The power to change is within our control
Oh, when will we find the faith to understand?
The need to believe in ourselves and in love
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Realsongs, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: Diane Warren, Michael Bolton, Walter Afanasieff
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind