Transcript
Laura Pausini
Welcome to Estudio Billboard. I am Leila Cobo, and I want to thank all of you for joining us every week on this musical journey. I also want to thank the audience here in the studio for enjoying good music along with us. For an entire hour, we will have the honor of sharing unique life stories with artists who show their musical processes to us. You can also participate in the program with your questions on our web site. Estudio Billboard starts here.
This Italian singer has one of the most distinctive and beautiful voices from Pop these days. She feels at ease whether singing in her native Italian, in Spanish, or in English. She is a European star who embraces many styles and many languages. Let's learn about part of her extensive career.
Many years have passed by. These years have influenced my life and the decisions I have made. They have forced me to stop and think, to reflect, and even to investigate my own inner being more carefully.
Escucha atento el mensaje que es para ti, dime si estás ahí.
Today I sing in Italian and Spanish. They are two thoughts I have always had in my mind, almost like one. They are two languages alive in everything I do. They are two very strong influences in my life.
[singing in Italian]
I have always been very instinctive. You can call me sensitive, big-headed, or stubborn. Without a doubt, I am not a teenager or a girl anymore. I want to be more mature because I am a grown up woman now.
[singing in Italian]
Many years went by before an Italian singer managed to cross frontiers and sell millions of copies on the international market. She did it thanks to her unique voice, her respected work ethic, and also due to the fact that she learned how to speak English and Spanish flawlessly. Besides evolving as a singer, she evolved as a composer, and as a person who is an advocate for social causes. Stay tuned. When we come back, we will have an exclusive interview with Laura Pausini. We'll be right back.
I went to Austria where there is a very famous doctor. In his office there were pictures of Whitney Houston and Celine Dion. I said: "This one is going to heal me".
She was born on May 16, in Faenza, Italy. Her parents are Fabrizio and Gianna. She started to sing in local piano bars with her father when she was only 8. When she was 19, she won the San Remo Festival award with one of her most famous songs, "La Soledad". In 1994, she performed again in San Remo, and she won an award with the song "Amores Extraños". That year she also released her first album in Spanish, which made her popular among the Hispanic audience. Thanks to her powerful voice, the traditional romanticism of Italian songs was alive again in the musical world. We are very excited to have Laura Pausini here with us today.
[clapping]
Hello.
Miss Laura.
Hello, dear.
Welcome.
How are you? Hello, everybody! Alright!
Laura, thanks for being here with us.
Thanks to you, dear.
I know you have a very busy agenda.
Very busy, yes.
You will be in this show, and then you will be going back to Europe. Why?
I had the good fortune of winning an award in Monte Carlo, at the World Music Awards, so...
How many years have you won that prize?
I believe this is the third year I have won that prize.
How do you do it? You have won many awards... World Music Awards, a Grammy, Billboard... You have been given awards for singing both in Spanish and Italian...
Look, I am a very lucky girl. Touch me. I bring good luck! As many of my colleagues say, our life is obviously made up of art and talent, but also of stubbornness and determination. There is a group of people who helped me create some of the songs. Without those people, I wouldn't have been able to win those awards. Their songs make me feel excited, and I am able to put forth a lot of emotion when performing. When I write a song, I also get very excited. People love that intensity. They don't want dull songs.
Now that you mention stubbornness. You were very stubborn yourself, right? Ever since you were a little girl you said, "I want this". And this is exactly what you have now.
Exactly. My father is a musician and...
What does your father play?
He plays several instruments. He is basically a bassist. Life wasn't easy for a musician in Italy back in the '60s. So he came up with this idea of having a piano bar in the region where I come from, Villa Romagna.
Share with us some childhood memories from when you first realized that your father was a musician, and you said, "When I grow up I want to be one, too, dad".
That was on my 8th birthday. My father was playing in the piano bar. It was my birthday, and my mother said, "You, me, and your sister are going to see your father play". Papichulo.
[laughing]
I had a papichulo. My father was holding the microphone in front of everyone, and he asked, "Laura, today is your birthday. What do you want?" He probably imagined... I don't know... maybe a doll or something like that, right? I was eight. So that is what he imagined I wanted. I told him, "I want the microphone. I want to sing". He was... I mean, his eyes were wide open.
He was proud.
Absolutely happy.
La mia figlia.
Exactly, la mia figlia, my own daughter. I started singing with him that night, but not always. My mother is an Italian teacher, and she had this idea that music is what you need to live. However, she had always allowed me to do what I wanted. Of course, she would warn me, "You are only 8. You are going to sing with your dad only on Saturdays and Sunday afternoons". In the end, I spent the last three years singing with him almost every night and...
Do you remember what you used to sing?
Anything. I mean... When you play in a piano bar... I don't know, I think it's the same thing here. You sing all the songs you like, but the ones you hate as well. People come in, and they request traditional music from my region...
Romagna mía, um cha, cha, um, cha, cha.
[laughing]
I mean, not my style.
Was any song meaningful to you at that time? Anything you could relate to in the song that revealed the real you? Anything that was Laura Pausini's trademark every time she performed?
There was "New York, New York" by Liza Minelli. There was "Simply the Best" by Tina Turner. And another song was "Yo Canto" by Ricardo Cocciante, which I sang on my latest album.
Sure.
When I was thinking about dedicating a song to my country and the writers from my teen years, I decided to include the titles of the most important songs I used to sing at the piano bar.
Can you sing a little something for us?
Yes, of course.
Well, we have here... Laura came here with someone, her fiancé. Is he your boyfriend or your fiancé?
My fiancé? I hope. He's my guitarist, first of all.
Even better. Men who are part of your life have to have something to do with music, I guess.
Yes. If you don't have a man who understands what it means to live with music and the lifestyle... always moving... It is not like I chose the one I love because he is involved in music. It just turned out like that. It is natural to find somebody, talk to him, and discover he likes the same things you like. I just fell in love.
Of course. You have a lot in common. He is here now, and he is going to...
To play.
Is he going to play a little bit?
Yes. Paolo.
Paolo.
[clapping]
La niebla que se posa en la mañana, las piedras de un camino en la colina, el ave que se elevará, el alba que nos llegará, la nieve que se fundirá corriendo al mar. La almohada aún caliente guarda vida, inciertos pasos lentos de una niña, los pasos de serenidad, la mano que se extenderá, la espera de felicidad, por esto y por lo que vendrá yo canto, tranquilamente canto, la voz en fiesta y canto, la banda en fiesta y canto, corriendo al viento canto, la vida entera canto, la primavera canto, la última acera canto. Oh, oh.
Wow! Wonderful!
[clapping]
Thanks.
Wonderful. Well, I think we have never heard such a lovely voice in this studio. I think your voice has a very interesting pitch, right? It is like... When I write about Laura, I always say she is like a bell.
I love being a bell. It feels good. I mean, it is better being called a bell instead of... nothing.
A kettledrum. Did you take singing lessons when you were a child?
No. My father didn't approve of singing lessons. Being raised with that way of thinking, I feel the same way about it. It's basically because I know many singers who I have been in contests where they all sing the same. It depends on where they studied... If they all went to the same teacher, they all sang exactly the same.
What lessons did your father teach you?
Nothing. He only told me rules like, "Don't go to the beach because it is going to make your voice break. Sleep eight hours a night. Don't smoke. Drink plenty of water..." In the end, all of those recommendations have really helped me. I have had to sacrifice things, for example, like going to the beach. In sea water there is... Iodine. That affects me a lot. Every singer has his own issues. For example, if I drink red wine the day before I sing, my voice breaks when I perform. Some colleagues don't drink milk, for example. Everyone has their own issues.
In fact, one time you lost your voice, right?
Yes, it was... amazing. That is the bad thing about not going to singing school. I wasn't breathing through my diaphragm. I didn't understand what was wrong. I thought it was something related to gynecology. And I didn't even know there was a diaphragm in the human body. During a concert, I felt like I was going to lose my voice. The concert finished and the next day I was in San Remo as a madrina...
After winning the previous year.
Yes. I was going to sing without rehearsing because I arrived right after I had a concert in Holland. It was a live performance of "Amores Extraños" together with the contestants from that year. I had to sing the highest part. If I had sung in my usual tone, it would have been fine. However, I hadn't rehearsed before, so...
Son amores proble... Ah, ah...
In the middle of the show...
Yes. The audience in San Remo is made up mostly of Italians. I had never seen that... I don't ever want to see that show, because...
You just couldn't talk.
I lost my voice for two months. I started a "doctors of the world tour". I had several doctors caring for me. Everyone told me... Everyone told me different things. I went to Austria where there was a very famous doctor. There were pictures of Whitney Houston and Celine Dion in his office. I said, "This one is going to heal me." It was an entire hour... I mean,... I had a camera inside my throat. It was horrible. I discovered then that there are not only seven vocal chords, like the musical notes. That is what I used to think. There are only two. He told me, "Ok. You are very tired, and your chords are too weak to close". They were open. You can't talk if they don't touch each other. He said, "Put olive oil in your throat for 15 days". It was useless. After 15 days I was... [talking with effort] Hi. How are you? Then, once again, my father came to rescue me. He told me, "I found a doctor who is not very famous yet. He lives close to our country. I want you to go there". The doctor told me, "Laura, you need to do Logopedics". That is a technique in which somebody teaches you how to breathe and use your diaphragm. So I started to take breathing lessons. The first time, I fell asleep. It has that effect on you, right?
Complete relaxation.
Yes. Of course it wasn't very nice being with a doctor like that, and I... [imitates snoring] But, when... [imitates snoring] there was a sound of the voice coming. I'm kidding. Little by little, I started to talk... very slowly. taking the time to breathe properly and then to talk. Ten days after that, I was singing.
Unbelievable. I want you to tell us something more about San Remo later in the show.
Yes.
Stay tuned. We'll be back with more about Laura Pausini.
I like the fact that the voice can be used to express sensations through tonality and vocal expression. I find my life's purpose.
[clapping]
We continue enjoying the company of Laura Pausini on Estudio Billboard. Laura, we have been talking about San Remo.
Yes.
San Remo was a milestone for your career. You were a rising star then, but after the festival you became a super star. What happened?
The second time I was in San Remo, I was singing "Amores Extraños". There was a Dutch radio station that heard the song, and they asked if I was interested in going to Holland to promote that song in Italian. I mean,... I thought people wouldn't understand the song. A few months later, it was #1 in Holland, and the album wasn't ready yet. My record company had not published the album yet. So, we released it right away. After that, we released it in Holland, Belgium, France, Finland, and Sweden, all of those countries... ...and...
In Italian?
In Italian... I still sing in Italian in Europe. When I was a child, I knew I wanted to sing. I wanted to do it, and that was that. But I didn't dream about being famous. So being famous in my native country after San Remo was pretty weird and awkward. I remember when I won. I was with my family in the bedroom all night, and I asked my parents what you do when you...
When you win in San Remo?
...in San Remo. I mean,... What was I supposed to do after that? I really had not thought about what would happen after that. So, you can imagine when I received a call and someone said, "You are number one in Holland". I didn't know how that was possible. Partly kidding, I said, "It's obvious people over there don't understand the lyrics and that is why I am number one". My first songs were songs for teens because I was a teenager back then.
Then you won the festival with "La Soledad".
I won with "La Soledad" in '93, and then "Amores Extraños" was third in '94.
"La Soledad" is a song that you still sing.
Yes, always. It is a song that makes me feel excited. It doesn't tear me apart.
Can you sing a short part for us?
Yes, of course.
Did I convince you?
I'll be glad to sing it.
Marcos se ha marchado para no volver, el tren de la mañana llega ya sin él, es sólo un corazón con alma de metal en esa niebla gris que envuelve la ciudad. Su banco está vacío, Marcos sigue en mí. Le siento respirar, pienso que sigue aquí. Ni la distancia enorme puede dividir dos corazones y un solo latir. Quizás si tú piensas en mí, si a nadie tú quieres hablar, si tú te escondes como yo, si huyes de todo y si te vas pronto a la cama sin cenar, si aprietas fuerte contra ti la almohada y te echas a llorar, tú no sabes cuánto mal te hará la soledad. La soledad. Oooh...
That was nice!
I guess you have a thousand ways to sing it.
It is very exciting. I got goose bumps.
All of us did.
Thanks. It is a song that starts and then grows with emotion. And later... It is about sadness and grief combined with anger because Marcos is leaving, right? In the end, I like the fact that you can use your voice to express sensations through tonality and vocal expressions. I find my life's purpose when I sing.
When you sing this song.
Singing is so beautiful...
You not only sing in Spanish, but you also speak Spanish very well.
I learn more every time I speak Spanish.
Not every singer speaks Spanish. Is it important for you to know the language that you are expressing yourself in?
I don't sing in languages I don't know. If I don't understand what I am singing about, even if someone has translated the song for me, how can I make the audience believe in me if I sing something I don't understand? I know every word in my songs and their meaning. Even in French, which I don't speak very well, but I understand everything that people say. Or in Portuguese, or in English. I know what I am singing about.
Was it hard for you to learn Spanish, Laura? I mean,...Was it a process? I don't think so because you have...
I love it. I mean,...Even in Italy, I speak Spanish sometimes. I do.
You are Latin.
I feel Latin.
How did you learn to speak Spanish? Was it by reading about the language? Did you take classes? What do you do to keep practicing your Spanish?
I try to speak Spanish. I tried to learn by speaking, by watching TV, and by buying books. Sometimes I would buy easy-to-read magazines because initially, they are easier to read. They always use the same words. And I also read García Márquez. I bought books by him in Spanish, his original language. I don't know if someone here has used that method... People in Italy say, "If you listen to something while you are sleeping, you will learn it".
And you learn, as if you were in a...
Is it true or not? If so, I am going to study all of the languages I want to...
I am being told the audience has some questions for you.
Ok.
(Continue to [Page 2])
Laura Pausini in Estudio Billboard [1] [2]
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