Teen

The Reader’s Digest Interview: Paul Anka

Idol The pompadour may be long gone, but

BY Robert
Kiener

the megawatt smile still dazzles and the voice

still thrills. Paul Anka, the Ottawa-born superstar,
racked up his first number one hit record with
“Diana”—a song he wrote in 20 minutes—when
he was just 16. More than half a century later,
he is one of the highest-paid entertainers
on the nightclub circuit. Unique among his fellow
teen legends—the Frankies, the Bobbys, the
WALDY MARTENS

Fabians—Anka made the difficult transition from

bobby-soxer crooner to Las Vegas superstar.
66 67
As a singer-songwriter, Anka has few when you go through the audience. and they start applauding,
peers. In addition to a slew of teen Anka | Oh, all the time. It’s the polite and I think, Wow! I’m get-
hits, he also wrote Frank Sinatra’s thing to do. If you walk through an ting accepted.
theme song, “My Way,” the 1970s hits audience, you shake their hands. You
“(You’re) Having My Baby” and “I have to have a human connection RD | You knew, as a teen, that you
Don’t Like to Sleep Alone,” as well as with people. The turnover in society had to look more like a “star,” so you
the theme for The Tonight Show (“It is just so rapid! There’s no longevity got plastic surgery on your nose.
put my five kids through college,” he in anything anymore. If you don’t be- Anka | I had a hockey-puck nose; it
jokes). come a franchised item that they feel was busted. I started realizing that to
At last count Anka has recorded they know, it’s over! So it’s very im- last, you had to have a hit, but you
more than 124 albums and written over portant to communicate. also had to look good. I realized these
900 songs. Not bad for a pudgy Ottawa kids wanted to look at something. I
kid who hit it big, thanks to what he RD | You once said “Diana” will al- was overweight, so I started working
calls “stupid little teenage songs.” ways be a number one hit for you be- out at the gym with a wrestler.
cause you are performing it every
RD | How have you survived so long? night. RD | What did growing up in Canada,

“
Anka | Part of it is an enigma. You can Anka  |  I don’t retire the songs, I having Canadian roots, give you?
work hard and you can be dedi- change the arrangements. The audi- Anka | There was a different empha-
cated—and a lot of artists are—and if ence still hears what they’ve heard
you stay tuned to an audience, the through the years, but it makes it It’s funny: No matter who you

( D i ana al b u m ) S T A R T L I T E R E C O R D S ; ( P a u l A n k a al b u m ) C O L U M BI A R E C O R D S
rest is really up to them. I believe and fresher for us.
I trust my audience. But if it goes,
what a ride! RD | You wrote “Diana” when you
are and where you are in
RD | Does it take a while before you
were 15?
Anka | Right, I was a teenager. I had
your career, you would always
feel you’ve “got” the audience when a talent for writing. I kind of dabbled love to have another hit.”
you’re on stage? at the local newspaper because my
Anka | No. My whole theory is that I neighbour was one of the editors— sis on education, family, values and hours. These were not luxury buses
have to get a sense of them in three Mr. Finn, at The Ottawa Citizen. I the growing-up process. It was a like today. It was me sleeping in a lug-
minutes. I walk in through the back wrote some short stories. Then I took totally different environment than gage rack. There were individuals
door, right down into the audience. I piano and I’m writing these poems anywhere else. And I benefited from who conducted their lives very differ-
want to get a feel for their enthusi- and I’m getting a little better at the it. Our community was a tight ently than I would conduct mine.
asm, to know who’s got the biggest piano. I took a poem about this girl I community. There were choices: My God, do I
smile. It’s the quickest form of com- had a crush on, and started putting a want to be one of them? Do I want to
munication. I’m not the guy who has melody to it. I started singing it at RD | You’re just a teenager, you’re do that stuff? Back then it was well
20 bodyguards and is hiding, and all parties, at the choir and in stage pro- touring America on a bus with other hidden. But you saw people totally
that stuff. I want them to know me; I ductions, and saying, “Dammit, I like musicians, and some are doing heroin. whacked out. I thought, People are
want to be accessible to them, as my this thing.” But you didn’t self-destruct. Was that liking my music and I’m not going to
music has been. I’m impersonating Frankie Laine linked to your upbringing? mess this up! And I’m not going to
and Johnnie Ray and Elvis Presley. Anka | Absolutely. No question about mess it up because I didn’t mess up in
RD | I notice you always touch people Someone says, “Get up” and I get up it. We were travelling eight, nine, 11 Canada. I wasn’t doing any stuff in
68 readersdigest.ca 07/11 69
Canada; I didn’t know what that was! Carl says, “Frank, you know we
It wasn’t around me. It wasn’t in my can’t do it anymore.” With that, Frank
school. My friends and I didn’t do that picks up this round table and he pours
on the weekend. it onto Carl Cohen. Carl gets up and
punches him right in the mouth, and
RD | Tell me about the night you saw Sinatra’s teeth go flying all over the
someone knock out Frank Sinatra’s floor. They rush him out; they’ve got
teeth. a private plane at the airport. They fly
Anka | One night at the Sands Hotel, him to a dentist in L.A. to get new
Frank wanted money to gamble. teeth. [Laughs.]
When he asked the casino for chips,
someone told him, “Frank we can’t RD | Do you ever consider yourself
give them to you. You haven’t paid the last of a breed?
for the ones you took earlier.” He Anka | Last of a breed? Hmm. I’d like

“
freaks. He gets up on the blackjack to know what that breed is. [Laughs.]
table and starts shouting, “I made this Am I a breed? I’m an entertainer. A
place. I’ll destroy this place! It was songwriter.

I’m not the guy who has 20

bodyguards. I want my fans to
know me; I want to be accessible
to them, as my music has been.”
sand before you built it, and it will be RD | Could Paul Anka make it today
sand when I’m through with it!” as a teenage recording artist?
I’m sitting there, going, “That’s my Anka | Why not? I think about it all
boy. Oh, man, do I like this guy! This the time. What would Paul Anka
guy has no fear! I love this man.” write if he were 17 today, with the
So finally they get him to come off same kind of energy and drive?
FERENC SZELEPCSENYI/ GETSTOCK

the table. Remember, this is in the

middle of the casino, and Jilly Rizzo, RD | What would Paul Anka be writ-
who worked with him, said, “Carl ing today? Rap?
Cohen wants to talk to you, Frank.” Anka | No, he’d be like Justin Timber-
Carl Cohen, the casino manager, was lake if he were starting today.
the most mild-mannered, sweetest
guy you’d ever want to meet. Frank RD | What about today’s music? Who
starts with, “I want money, I want my appeals to you?
markers…” Anka | The music industry today is a
70 readersdigest.ca 07/11 71
 The Times They Are A-Changin’
A look at the two pop sensations, then and now
Paul Anka: B Y B r u c e W ard

Advice for Justin Bieber Justin Bieber

Show Me the Money
Paul Anka

You’ve often been hard, to the point that it By the end of his 2010 “My World” tour, Paul Anka grossed $1.5 million in 1959,
compared with our infringes on your throat, Justin Bieber had grossed tens of making him one of the most successful
newest Canadian teen your health, all of that stuff millions from ticket sales and singer-songwriters in showbiz.
idol, Justin Bieber. Do that comes into play when merchandise, including CD and digital By the age of 18, he had sold 12 million
you have any advice people are greedy and it’s sales, and concert revenues. records.
for him? push-push-push. You have
Star quality and self-confidence
“I would tell him to be very, to have time off to stay in
very careful about whom tune with your body. Bieber has a “swagger coach,” who Anka found his own coach. Tony Bennett
he is listening to, and not Remember, you are a “kind of teaches me; he helps me to stay once told an interviewer about a nervy
product, a brand name, and swaggerific,” the singer says. kid who was at every show he gave at
get involved with drugs or
a Hull hotel in the mid-1950s. It was Anka.
any kind of bad habits; they you have to protect it. Your
“I want to learn from you, because I’m
will ultimately overtake asset is that little two- or going to be a singer,” he told Bennett.
you. That’s something he three-square-inch area
has to stay very clear of. My under your chin: your vocal On the Road
Paul Anka

© 2010 by postmedia network inc. postmedia news (aug. 24 ’10), www.canada.com/postmedianews

Canadian upbringing cords.”
Bieber’s gear is transported by nine When Anka was on tour in the 1950s,
helped me, and I hope it’s

( A n k a ) A R C H I V E S D U 7 I È M E A R T / G E T S T O C K ; ( B i e b er ) M I C H A E L BU C K N E R / G E T T Y
transport trucks. Tour personnel travel he travelled with suitcases packed with
instilled in him. So as his What about girls? on 11 buses. stage clothes and toiletries.
success grows and “What about girls!
broadens, he should try to Relationships are tough in The Hair
stay close to that centre our industry. It’s tough to Bieber’s former side-swept hairstyle was Anka wore his hair in a pompadour,
line in life, remembering weed out why the girls are widely copied by teenage boys. Bieber swept straight back from his forehead—
where he came from and there, what they’re there kept it looking puffy and perfect with the sort of like John Travolta in Grease,
keeping his nose to the for, what they’re attracted help of top stylists armed with hair sans the furry sideburns. It was held in
grindstone. It’s a question to. They have to discover dryers and gel products. place with Brylcreem.
of longevity.” you, who you are, and not
The Big Break
what the name is. At his
What do you mean age, he has to go through a At 12, Bieber uploaded a video of himself Paul Anka left for New York with “a hun-
by longevity? lot of experiences to get to singing in a local talent contest onto dred bucks and tons of Brylcreem,” he once
“Justin has to have his ‘the one.’” YouTube. Music marketer Scooter Braun joked. With a bottomless belief in himself
Justin Bieber stumbled upon him—along with millions of and four songs he had written, he got a
antenna up and be really
young girls—and signed him immediately. contract with ABC-Paramount Records.
careful of whom he trusts
and, importantly, the PR Savvy vs. Tech Smarts
schedule they make him
Bieber has 9.4 million Twitter followers. After he hit the big time, Anka sent
keep. You cannot succumb
“He’s talking to millions of girls,” says Christmas cards to influential DJs. He
to pushing yourself too manager Scooter Braun. “What other also kept in touch by phone, chatting up
way is a teenage boy going to talk to girls?” columnists. He figured journalists were
the best way to keep in touch with his fans.
72 readersdigest.ca 07/11
little different than it was. It’s in two
parts for me. There’s what I call “the
readersdigest.ca/july
Bieber Fever or Beatlemania: How
entertainment abuse of capitalism do today’s young people and their
noncontent side of it.” What I mean obsession with pop culture compare
is that there’s a marketing of sexual- with the previous generation’s
ity, navels, busts—form over content, admiration for teen idols?
with so-so singers. Out of that group,
Christina Aguilera can sing. And I’ll Absolutely. You cannot be afraid to
stop at that. fail.
And then there’s the other part, Once I got my arms around that as
where you have good content, where a youngster and for about three or
you have talented people such as four years in my career, I wasn’t afraid
Sting, Elton John, Whitney Houston, to make choices. I wasn’t afraid to
Sade, Billy Joel, Creed, Limp Bizkit. make changes. I wasn’t afraid to say,
Even some rap, if you can look at it as “This teenage thing has got to end,
a musician, has some quality to it. and I’m not afraid to do a nightclub
Some Eminem is brilliantly done. Dr. act and go into nightclubs. I’m not
Dre. Some of that—it may not be your afraid to compete with those guys in
cup of tea—but you can respect its Vegas. We’re not creating a cure for
content and what’s put into it, the cancer here. This is show business. It
musicality of it. has to be fun; it has to be a business.
But don’t be afraid to fail; take those
RD | Have artists come to you for chances. Find out who you are.
advice?
Anka | I worked with Michael Bublé, RD | Do you still desire another big
John Prine and Steve Goodman. You hit, another number one?
want to pass it on and help young per- Anka | Sinatra and I always used to
formers. You want to give them talk about that. It’s funny: No matter
knowledge like it was given to you. who you are and where you are in
your career, you would always love
RD | Looking back, was there a useful to have another hit.
lesson you learned? I can make a lot of money, but I’ll
Anka | I learned early in life not to be still sit there and in the back of my
afraid to fail. It’s been a philosophical mind, think, I gotta make one more
guideline for me throughout my life. record.

hence, the problem

I showed my wife a newspaper article about how getting plenty of rest
can improve one’s memory. She remarked sadly, “I can’t remember the
last time I had a good night’s sleep.” R. Cheetham

74 readersdigest.ca 07/11