Josh Almighty: Groban's hard-to-categorize sound has universal resonance
Edmonton Journal
September 3, 2004
By Bill Rankin
CONCERT PREVIEW
Josh Groban
When: Sunday, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rexall Place
Tickets: Ticketmaster, 451-8000
No one can deny Josh Groban's appeal as a singer, but what kind of singer is he?
In mid-summer, Billboard magazine had Groban's second CD, Closer, at the top of the Classical Crossover chart. Earlier in the year, Closer hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Pop rankings. His first, self-titled disc was No. 21 on the Pop Catalogue chart in July, and his uplifting single You Raise Me Up sat at No. 9 on the Adult Contemporary list.
The 23-year-old L.A. native doesn't lose sleep over which bin his albums get placed. He's just happy his music has a broad appeal.
"As soon as you start classifying yourself as a certain thing, you're going to have somebody in the pop category saying, 'Oh, that's not pop music,' the classical guy saying, 'Oh, that's not classical music.' " he says. "... But it's nice that it's been on every chart. I'm not going to be upset if it's on a classical chart or a pop chart, but if it was left up to me, I'd like think of it as pop music."
With their lush David Foster arrangements, Groban's songs, often in French or Italian, usually deal with matters of the heart and are known to move listeners, sometimes in very personal ways.
Doris McLeod of Niagara Falls, Ont., has a special connection to the song To Where You Are from his first CD. She heard it on the radio a month after her husband died. It was her first exposure to Groban's work. The song, written by Foster's wife Linda Thompson, spoke to McLeod's grief and helped her work through the loss, she says. She liked the sound of his voice, but there was much more.
"It was the voice that attracted me at first, and I thought I've got to hear more of that.
"I firmly believe that this (song) was created for me. It spoke to me in such a personal way, and what a voice, what a God-given talent he has. I listened to it a great many times, and it brought the tears each time, and I think it helped me work through my grief," she says.
Groban has received letters from listeners who have been similarly affected by his music, and he says such individual responses mean far more than the screams and standing ovations he gets in packed arenas.
"The letters I've received from that song alone have been just incredible, the way that it's helped people. It goes beyond me. It goes beyond my singing. It goes beyond the writer of the song when a song takes on that kind of life and just helps people."
Groban has sold millions of albums since being discovered by Foster in 1999. Foster hired him for an inaugural bash to celebrate then-California governor Gray Davis's inauguration. Up until then, Groban had never sung with a microphone, let alone in front of a tony audience. A few weeks later Foster had Groban filling in for the heart-throb Andrea Bocelli at rehearsals with Celine Dion for the Grammys broadcast.
Talk show host Rosie O'Donnell saw him there and invited him to appear on her show a few weeks later. He's been on Oprah and 20/20, and had a role on the 2001 finale of Ally McBeal, playing an awkward teen who didn't want to go to his prom. He's done his own PBS special, sung at the closing ceremonies of the Salt Lake City Olympics with Charlotte Church, and in January he appeared at the Super Bowl.
"One of the highlights of the year was doing the Super Bowl, which is such a male demographic audience," Groban says.
The majority of his fans are women, many over 35, but the Super Bowl is not a venue where Grobanites rule. However, he's found once men hear him, they too are usually impressed.
"It's been fun on this tour. A lot of women have dragged their husbands or boyfriends along to the concert and (the men) wind up standing and screaming at the end anyway. It's been cool to kind of win people over."
As for being labelled a classical singer, he says, sure, he's recorded a familiar Bach piece and a couple of other tunes that could be considered classical, but if he ever does do a truly classical disc, it will be unmistakably classical. For the time being, he's venturing in other directions, some of which can be heard on Closer, including side trips into uncharted territory for him like electronic sounds.
"I think a classical album will have to wait a little bit because there's so much more I'd like to dive into in terms of just using the voice as an instrument and just being more experimental with it."
He also foresees a foray into Broadway some day, but not yet.
"There are just so many (parts) that I've grown up loving, and I've got such a love for the stage and for theatre. I think I want to wait for the right time. I want to wait until things kind of die down a little bit in terms of the touring and the recording, and I can concentrate on doing something for half a year or a year at a time."
Groban wraps up his first-ever tour in Edmonton on Sunday. The tour began in April and included Vancouver, Kelowna and Calgary as his other Canadian stops.
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