Céline Marie Claudette Dion OC, OQ, (born March 30, 1968) is a Canadian singer and occasional songwriter and actress. Born to a large, impoverished family in Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion became a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and would-be husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record.In 1990 she released the anglophone album Unison, establishing herself as a viable pop artist in North America and other English speaking areas of the world.
Dion first gained international recognition in the 1980s after she won both the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest. After a series of French albums in the early 1980s, she signed on to Sony Records in 1986. Under the guidance of her husband, she achieved worldwide success with several English and French albums, ending the decade as one of the most-successful artists in pop music. After releasing over twenty-five albums over two decades, Dion announced a temporary retraction from entertainment in 1999 in order to start a family and spend time with her husband. She returned to the music scene in 2002, and a year later, she signed a four-year contract to perform nightly in a five-star theatrical show at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.
Dion’s music has been influenced by various genres, which range from pop, soul and rock to gospel and classical, and while her releases have often received mixed critical reception, she is renowned for her technically skilled and powerful vocals. In 2004, after accumulating record sales in excess of 175 million, she was presented with the Chopard Diamond Award from the World Music Awards show for becoming the “Best-selling Female Artist in the World.”In April 2007 Sony BMG announced that Celine Dion had sold over 200 million albums worldwide.
Life and music career
Childhood and early beginnings
The youngest of fourteen children born to Adhémar Dion and Thérèse Tanguay, Céline Dion was raised a Roman Catholic in a poverty-stricken, but, by her own account, happy, home in Charlemagne.Music had always been a part of the family, as she grew up singing with her siblings in her parents’ small piano bar called ‘Le Vieux Baril.’ From an early age Dion had dreamed of being a performer; In a 1994 interview with People magazine, she recalled, “I missed my family and my home, but I don’t regret having lost my adolescence. I had one dream: I wanted to be a singer.”
At age twelve, Dion collaborated with her mother and her brother Jacques to compose her first song, “Ce n’était qu’un rêve” (”It Was Only a Dream”).Her brother Michel sent the recording to music manager René Angélil, whose name he discovered on the back of a Ginette Reno album.Angélil was moved to tears by Dion’s voice, and decided to make her a star.He mortgaged his home to fund her first record, La voix du bon Dieu (a play on words “The Voice of God/The Road to God,” 1981), which became a local number-one record and made Dion an instant star in Quebec. Her popularity spread to other parts of the world when she competed in the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo, Japan, and won the musician’s award for “Top Performer” as well as the gold medal for “Best Song,” with “Tellement j’ai d’amour pour toi” (”I Have So Much Love for You”). By 1983, in addition to becoming the first Canadian artist to receive a gold record in France for the single “D’amour ou d’amitié” (”Of Love or of Friendship”), Dion had also won several Félix Awards, including “Best Female performer” and “Discovery of the Year.”Further success in Europe, Asia, and Australia came when Dion represented Switzerland in the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Ne partez pas sans moi” (”Don’t Go Without Me”) and won the contest in Dublin, Ireland. However, American success was yet to come, partly because she was exclusively a Francophone artist.
At eighteen, after seeing a Michael Jackson performance, Dion told Angélil that she wanted to be a star like Jackson. Though confident in her talent, Angelil realized that her image needed to be changed in order for her to be marketed worldwide. Dion receded from the spotlight for a number of months, during which she underwent a physical makeover, and was sent to the École Berlitz School in 1989 to polish her English language. This marked the start of her Anglophone music career. According to an episode of VH-1’s Behind The Music, she learned English in just three months.
1990–1992: Career breakthrough
A year after she had learned English, Dion made her debut into the Anglophone market with Unison (1990). She incorporated the help of many established musicians, including Vito Luprano and Canadian producer David Foster. The album was largely influenced by 1980s soft rock music that quickly found a niche within the adult contemporary radio format. Unison hit the right notes with critics: Jim Faber of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Dion’s vocals were “tastefully unadorned,” and that she never attempted to “bring off styles that are beyond her.”Stephen Erlewine of All Music Guide declared it as, “a fine, sophisticated American debut. “Singles from the album included “(If There Was) Any Other Way,” “The Last to Know,” “Unison,” and “Where Does My Heart Beat Now,” a mid-tempo soft-rock ballad which made prominent use of the electric guitar. The latter became her first single to chart on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number four. The album established Dion as a rising singer in the United States, and across Continental Europe and Asia. In 1991, Dion was also a soloist in “Voices That Care,” a tribute to American troops fighting in Operation Desert Storm.
Dion’s real international breakthrough came when she duetted with Peabo Bryson on the title track to Disney’s animated film Beauty and the Beast (1991).The song captured a musical style that Dion would utilize in the future: sweeping, classically influenced ballads with soft instrumentation. Both a critical and commercial hit, the song became her second U.S. top ten single, and won the Academy Award for Best Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.”Beauty and the Beast” was featured on Dion’s 1992 self-titled album, which, like her debut, had a strong rock influence combined with elements of soul and classical music. Owing to the success of the lead-off single and her collaboration with Foster and Diane Warren, the album was as well received as Unison. Other singles that achieved moderate success included “If You Asked Me To” (a cover of Patti LaBelle’s song from the 1989 movie Licence to Kill) which peaked at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, the gospel-tinged “Love Can Move Mountains,” and “Nothing Broken But My Heart.” As with Dion’s earlier releases, the album had an overtone of love.
By 1992 Unison, Céline Dion, and media appearances had propelled Dion to superstardom in North America. She had achieved one of her main objectives: wedging her way into the Anglophone market and achieving fame. However, while she was experiencing rising success in the U.S., her French fans in Canada criticized her for neglecting them. She would later regain her fan base at the Felix Awards show, where, after winning “English Artist of the Year,” she openly refused to accept the award. She asserted that she was — and would always be— a French, not an English, artist. Apart from her commercial success, there were also changes in Dion’s personal life, as Angélil, who was twenty-six years her senior, transited from manager to lover. However, the relationship was kept a secret as they both feared that the public would find their relations inappropriate.
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