During the 1970s, Gino Vannelli attained massive international stardom with his emotive, soaring singing style on hits such as “Living Inside Myself,” “I Just Wanna Stop,” and “People Gotta Move.” Since then, he has gone on to sell 20 million albums, released several records that span a wide array of musical genres, and even performed for the Pope. With his 22nd album, The Life I Got (To My Most Beloved), which was released on February 7 via COA Productions, Vannelli has created his most poignant and personal work yet. He wrote the album as his wife, Tricia, was dying of cancer; at the time of her death last year, they had been together for 49 years. Calling from his home in Oregon, Vannelli reflects on his career, from the earliest days through making this latest album.
It’s so sad that your new album was created during such a terrible time for you and your wife, but what a beautiful tribute to her you have crafted with it.
GINO VANNELLI: It was the least I could have done for Tricia. She was just an amazing woman – “brave” wasn’t even the word. “Courageous” doesn’t even measure up to what she was like. She was always so concerned about me, and she didn’t want to be a burden to me. And she had no idea that towards the end, it’s not that I enjoyed it, but I found such a strange kind of deep comfort in being there for her – and at the end, it was hourly. It’s a strange kind of turn because being an artist, you’re pretty well selfish. You’re consumed with your next project, or you look at something from the perspective of, “How can I use this to make art out of this?” But with this album, it wasn’t that. It was the person that I’d been with for 49 years, and it was the first album I’ve ever written with a sense of gratitude and a sense of appreciation, and I could have only done it because of the last four or five years. We used to talk about music all the time, and what it meant to her. And my new album, what she liked and didn’t like about it. She used to tell me, “You sound too effete. Sound a little more manly. I need you to buck up a little bit on this track.” Just really smart and really good about all of those things. I could do nothing else but write a tribute to Tricia.
Despite being inspired by such a terrible thing, this album is also infused with a real sense of hopefulness…
GINO VANNELLI: Of course. I mean, there is a recognition of how hard it is. There is a little bit of a confession because when you’re losing someone, you regret that as good as she tells you you’ve been, you swear you could have been better. But the darkness that I broach upon is just a recognition of how when death is imminent – more importantly when there’s suffering entailed – it can get very dark, but you have no choice but to bring a little laughter and humor and love and companionship and camaraderie to the one you love. And that’s the element of hopefulness that you have to find. You have to find it, or else it’s too bleak. And thus, you have a song like “No Where to Go But Up.”
The video for that song is fantastic.
GINO VANNELLI: Yeah, it was fun. We did it in Belgrade, Serbia. I was invited to go there. I was invited to go play a concert, and this big media company said, “We’re big fans, we’d like you to do your videos here.” So I was really happy about that. And I enjoyed Serbia, too.
Do you think the way you approached your songs on this album will affect your songwriting process from now on?
GINO VANNELLI: No, it’s different with each record. With the last record, Wilderness Road [in 2019], it really was a foray into a fusion between Americana and jazz and of course contemporary music. And I’ve done albums where I did a fusion between contemporary and classical, [like] on the Canto album about eighteen years ago. And so every project seems to have a little sweetness to it that draws me to it, and I go, “Oh, this is what I really want to do on this one.” Of course there’s always a common denominator: my voice, my sensibilities, my capabilities.
How did you first realize you should be a musician?
GINO VANNELLI: Eight years old, I go to a pharmacy, running an errand with my dad. I see a set of striped wooden bongos on the top shelf. I can’t reach it. And the pharmacist sees this little boy lusting after this pair of bongos, so he comes down the aisle and gets on his little step ladder and takes them down and says, “Here, you want to look at them?” And I put them right between my knees and I started going, [sings an intricate beat]. And my father looked at him, he looked at my father, and he said, “Well, if you don’t buy this pair of bongos for him, I will.” So what I’m saying is that I looked up at those bongos and I just said, “I can do that.” When I heard a song, whether it was a sophisticated piece of work by Dave Brubeck or a British pop invasion [song], something inside of me just said, “You know, I think I can do that.” So while it took time to actually do it well, it starts off by you just telling yourself, “I think I can do that.”
And when did you realize you had the kind of voice that makes people stop and listen?
GINO VANNELLI: That took a little while because I never thought of myself as a singer. When I was fourteen, I had a group called the Jacksonville 5 in Montreal, and we were doing clubs and high school dances and things like that. We were working up “It’s Not Unusual,” the 1966 version by Tom Jones. And our singer really couldn’t quite make the ending, all the scatting and stuff like that. I got so pissed at him. He said, “If you think you’re so smart, you do it.” I said, “Well, I will!” He was a bit of a drummer, so he said, “I’ll play drums.” I got in front of the mic to sing, and I wished the mic would have been the girth of my body because I would have hidden behind it. There was no place to hide behind that skinny microphone stand. And I started singing, and I know I must have looked twice as uncomfortable as I felt. But something happened: by mid-song, I started hearing music, and kind of liking it. And lo and behold, people started gathering in front of the microphone, namely fifteen year old girls at this high school dance. I said, “Well, this is really cool!” [laughs] And there you go.
When did you start writing your own songs?
GINO VANNELLI: I started when I was fifteen. I wrote a couple of original songs for my group, and they were half good. The first decent song I wrote probably was by the time I was seventeen, and it got me signed to RCA Victor when I was right out of high school.
Now you’ve had a string of hits, which is obviously great – but now you have to sing them at every show. So how do you avoid burning out on performing them over and over?
GINO VANNELLI: I think the mindset for me is to try to sing it better all the time. So right away, the audience knows that I’m reaching. And a great band. And then tweak the arrangements so that they are a little more modern and updated. I mean, don’t completely mask the song, but I’ve always taken liberties with even the most known songs. My audience right now, especially live audience, expect that.
What do you think it is about your work that has made it endure like it has?
GINO VANNELLI: If someone was to give you a plane ticket with various stopovers, and it’s a very expensive plane ticket and you’re staying at four or five star hotels, and you get the opportunity to visit some of the most exotic places in the world, you’d really stop and take it in and try to understand the culture, the food, how people think. For me, I looked at life that way ever since I was a child. I had a feeling this was a stopover, and a very expensive ticket. The ticket is called the price of admission of life. And so for me, I wanted to understand every little bit of it. So I studied theology, I studied the humanities, I tried to study all the greatest poets that I thought existed. I tried to deepen my well. And the more I found that I deepened the well, the more there was to talk about. And the more it was to talk about, I found that this is what people will have on their minds, whether they know it or not, every day. And so, to answer your question more succinctly, I think I was able to touch upon things that people think, whether consciously or unconsciously.
