MONTREAL – Canadian singer Celine Dion will release today her first album produced without direct input from her longtime manager and husband Rene Angelil, who died in January.
She has sold more than 220 million albums worldwide since 1981 when he discovered her powerful voice and helped a young girl to launch one of the most successful music careers ever.
After guiding Dion’s career for more than a decade as her manager, Angelil married her in 1994 when she was 26.
Her latest album, Encore Un Soir (Another Night), is her first in French in four years.
It is due to be followed up next year by another in English that includes a track called Recovering written by American singer-songwriter Pink.
AFP, Reuters
Over the summer, she went on a whirlwind tour of France and the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec, where she was born.
It included nine sold-out shows in Paris and a dozen performances in Quebec to promote the new album.
Combining piano ballads, pop-rock guitar riffs and even hip-hop rhythms, Encore Un Soir explores Dion’s loss through lyrics about bereavement, the strength of family and the joys of living.
She wrote and recorded the title track with longtime collaborator Jean-Jacques Goldman one month after Angelil died on Jan 14 from throat cancer at age 73.
The ballad, which the pop diva dedicated to her late husband, was released in May.
AFP, Reuters
