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Paul anka

his way

A portrait of Paul Anka, composer, singer, actor, father and a man who keeps

redefining himself

ou might say that judging by Paul Anka’s success, he was just one of those lucky guys with a lot of talent who rose to the top of his game. For over 55 years, Anka has perfected his craft as a songwriter, performer and even as an actor. But his road has not always been easy, even if it looks that way. As with many career choices, changes in technology, social norms and even politics can completely turn an industry upside down, leaving some pro-fessionals by the wayside, not knowing how to move forward. For those who have seen their jobs disap-pear due to similar societal or industrial changes, Paul Anka’s never-give-up attitude is an inspiration. Yes, even celebrities won-der if their luck has run out at some point in their career and have to take stock of how they can reinvent themselves. In his newly released memoir, My Way (St. Martin’s Press), Paul Anka takes us through how he faced many of these challenges in his career, how he was able to recognize luck when it came his way and how he capitalized on his good fortune with innovation. Time and again, he succeeded in his own “personal reinvention.” Not only did he have talent and the ability to recognize the lucky breaks, but he added a little “pluck” to the combination, catapulting him to the next redefinition. Anka was born Paul Albert Anka in Ottawa, Canada on, July 30, 1941 to parents of Leba-nese Christian descent. The name “Anka” means “noose” in Arabic, and he tells a great story in his book about how his name was changed by the immigration officers, as so often happened at the time, when his parents came to Ottawa. He was smaller than his classmates as a teenager and he admits, overweight. Rather than play on the hockey team, he was a cheerleader. He was a big ham at home and around friends...always knowing that his dream was to be a writer and singer. From the top: Michael Jackson and Anka; Anka and the Beatles backstage at the Olympia in Paris before anyone in America knew who they were; Paying tribute to his friend, Frank Sinatra; Anka and Dick Clark, 1960.Right page: Anka at the music board in the studio.

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T he first of many breaks that he parlayed from luck to success happened when he was 15 years old. He tells the story of how he used his summer job savings to fly to Los Angeles to visit his uncle. Hitching a ride, carrying his music, he paid a visit to Modern Records in a little garage setup. He walked in off the street and told the mom-and-pop record business owners that he was a singer-songwriter and had a song that was sure to be a hit. “Okay, sing it to us,” they said. And he did. They wanted to record his very first song with the unusual name of “Blau Wilde De Veest Fontaine” with the Cadets. The song was not a hit, selling maybe 300 records. He returned to high school as a sophomore. It was 1956. On April 18, 1957, a rock ‘n’ roll show came to the Ottawa Auditorium. Anka’s brainstorm was to get backstage and meet the artists: Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, The Platters, The Drifters ... He snuck through the back door and ap-proached Chuck Barry with his song “Diana”. Berry’s reaction: “That’s horrible, that’s not a song, man, that’s a conversation you have at the Dairy Queen.” Not to be deterred, the teenage Anka made his way to New York City’s Brill Building at 1650 Broadway, a mecca for music writers and publishers. He managed an audition with Don Costa, a producer at ABC-Paramount Records and played his four songs: “Diana”, “Tell Me that You Love Me”, “Don’t Gamble with Love” and “I Love You, Baby”. He was offered a contract on the spot. From there he was on a roll with songs about teenage love, from “Puppy Love”, “Put Your Head on My Shoulder”, “You Are My Destiny”, “Lonely Boy” and more. He was the rage in the era of “ducktails, flips and pompadours.” To broaden his experience and public awareness, he became an actor with roles in teen movies, Girls Town, The Private Lives From the top: Anka, age 2; Anka with his sister and brother in 1950; The famous Diana (left) with her cousin and Anka; Anka with his wife, Anne, and their daughters in 1977. Left page: Anka when he first arrived in New York City.

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of Adam and Eve and Look in Any Window. Later in The Longest Day, playing a kid from the Bronx fighting on D-Day, and he even had a cameo in Captain Ron. When the British Invasion hit, many per-formers were not ready or willing to believe what was happening. The Beatles dominated the world. “It was an especially bitter pill for me to swallow because I’d always been the youngest on the bus, the youngest in Vegas...I’d always been the kid.... And then, after all you think you’ve achieved, you suddenly realize you’re being left behind....” As Anka saw it, “changes were happening in the music business in part because of thechanges in technology, the advent of the stereo sound system, FM radio, track tape machines, the electric guitar, transistors – all develop-ments that made rock ‘n’ roll possible.” One of his solutions was to focus on writ-ing for movies, TV theme music and writing for other singers. He wrote the theme for The Longest Day, the musical overture for the Tonight Show theme and more. He appeared in variety shows like Hullabaloo and The Dean Martin Show. Anka wrote the classic My Way, recorded by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and others. He co-wrote Michael Jackson’s single, This is It. Anka also penned She’s A Lady for Tom Jones and the instrumental theme song for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He is among Billboard magazine’s Top 25 most successful recording artists, putting him along- side Elvis Presley and the Beatles. He took control of his business career, producing, buying and owning his master re- cordings, and continues to do so today. One of Anka’s secrets to his longevity, both

physically and career-wise, he says, is a rela-tively healthy lifestyle. He managed to stay somewhat out of the vices that toppled so many artists such as alcoholism and drugs. His secret? “I eat well. I drink a little wine, maybe a glass of brandy. I exercise regularly, mostly cardiovascular workouts, weights and the occasional yoga routine. I consume hugeamounts of an eclectic array of vegetables and fruit. I drink a lot of tea....I saw my friend Sammy Davis Jr. slowly kill himself from abuse and I wasn’t going to follow him down that path.” Anka has made 123 albums in four lan-guages, from English, Spanish and German to Italianbut not without having to reinvent himself. In April of this year, Duets, a new 14-song collection, was released through Legacy Re-cordings, a division of Sony Music Entertain-ment, which coincided with his new book, My Way. Duets, displaying Anka reinventing him-self once again, presents collaborationswith a ‘Who’s Who’ of entertainment royalty including Dolly Parton, Michael Jackson, Gloria Estafan, Willie Nelson, Patti LaBelle, Celine Dion, Tom Jones and Frank Sinatra singing My Way. For Anka, he is as young as he feels. He says, “I am in my seventh decade and my childhood in Ottawa feels just like it was yesterday....I swear I can’t feel the journey being that long....I feel and act with my life and work onstage like I am a forty-year-old.

Clockwise from top left: Anka and Ed Sullivan on The Ed Sullivan Show, December 17, 1961; On Hullabaloo in the 1960s; Anka and Annette Funicello; Anka’s movie debut in Look in Any Window (1960) with actress Ruth Roman; Anka and Connie Francis. He wrote her song, “Teddy.”; Scene from The Longest Day.

“I am in my seventh decade and my childhood in Ottawa feels just like it was yesterday....I swear I can’t feel the journey being that long....I feel and act with my life and work onstage like I am a forty-year-old.”

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FI don’t know what it feels like to be seventy! Of course, living that preventative lifestyle, seeing others who are younger than I am who can barely walk, function, etc., you have to count your bless-ings....Of course, I take in the genetic factor, but I have to believe...that by doing all the right things, in terms of your body and your health, you have the opportunity to feel the way I do.”

or those who have been successful in life, there comes a point when they think of retiring. On the issue of retirement, Anka feels “it’s a question of what do you do with yourself if you don’t work?...I always believed, if you stand still, they will throw dirt on you. It would really scare me to do nothing. Especially when I find that I am still writing songs, producing, performing – and at this age – still having too much fun to stop.” In today’s world of American Idol and other talent shows, it seems there are many more young artists who think they can make it to the top quickly. Anka shares his thoughts on the new breed this way: “Whenever I meet any of these new kids on the block, they look at me and I know exactly what they are thinking: ‘Shit, I hope I can last that long.’...I tell them, ‘Don’t tell me how hot you are, tell me how long you have been around!’ You have to think about your longevity in this business. That has nothing to do with age. It’s a potpourri of dynamics that go into the mix. And I think luck.” You might think that performing for so many years, often with tried and true material, Anka would hang up his microphone and sheet music. “No way.” He says, people often ask me if I get bored doing the same show over and over, eighty to ninety times a year. No, because whenever I perform the audience is reacting to what I am giv-ing them and it stimulates me every night – just as it were the first time. The Chinese have a saying: If you find something you love to do, you will never work a day in your life. “When people ask, ‘When are you going to retire?’ I look at them and say, ‘Never; as long as I am living and doing what I do.’ In fact, I remind them if someone says to me that they are thinking of retiring, I reply, you already have...” tMy Way by Paul Anka with David Dalton. Published by St. Martin’s Press ©2013. Duets, music CD, released through Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music Entertainment.

Paul Anka is center stage again with his newly released book, My Way, and Duets, a CD

collection of superstar collaborations.

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