Iglesias hitting stride
Crooner says he's getting better with age
By Mike Bell, Calgary Herald
Julio Iglesias performs Thursday at Century Casino.
A man gets married, it seems reasonable to congratulate him.
Especially when that man is singing legend Julio Iglesias and he has, after two decades in a relationship with model Miranda Rijnsburger -which has already produced three sons and twin daughters -finally made it official with a private ceremony late last year marking his second nuptials. (His first in the early '70s produced three other children, including pop star Enrique Iglesias.)
So, again, congratulations would seem to be in order.
"Congratulations for what?" Iglesias asks with a puckish laugh. "You know, I've been married for 20 years. Finally I sign a paper because my wife, she wanted me to sign it. And when I sign it, I lose half of the money . . .," he jokes before adding. "I adore her."
Adoration is something the 67-year-old Iglesias is well familiar with. It is what he receives all over the world thanks to a 40-year-plus career that's seen the Spanish crooner sell, according to his website, more than 200 million albums, while accumulating dozens of No. 1 hits in both the English and Latin-speaking industry, as well as awards and accolades from all parts of the globe.
Currently, he has embarked on yet another world tour, which will bring him back to Calgary for a show Thursday night at the Century Casino. Iglesias will perform familiar material such as Vincent (Starry, Starry Night), Me Va, Me Va and To All the Girls I've Loved Before with that smooth, smoldering voice that he says is still in fine form.
"My voice is better than yesterday," he says. "Crooners sing better even at the end of their lives. Only crooners. I was talking with Placido (Domingo) and when you sing opera you have to have the sense of the voice to the limits. When you sing rock 'n' roll you have to scream like crazy. But . . . crooning is much more in the style of the singing."
If that's the case, if Iglesias's croon has become even better, expect him to add to those career totals and accolades in the very near future. Later this year he'll re-record all of his favourites for a special collaboration with the Grammy Awards. The project marks his return to the studio after a long absence and something he's looking forward to -but not for the reasons you might think.
"That's a good thing . . . because after so many years it's good to record again the things that I did bad," he says, once more letting out a chuckle. "When you paint something, you paint for history. But when you sing something . . . you can sing, again, with the same meaning of the track, but different sounding."
Which brings up the question of why, with all that he's accomplished and all that he's accumulated over his career, he would feel the need to continue recording and performing live. "If not, I die," he says simply. "If you take away from me my passion for the music I die. I don't die physically, I die psychically, which is even worse."
And perhaps that mortality is something a little more important to him these days, considering the recent passing of his friend Elizabeth Taylor. While he admits her death was a sad and tragic occasion, he also sees it as cause for a more celebratory outlook.
"Elizabeth was a very close friend of mine for many years," he says. "We all pass away, and sometimes there is people like her where they pass away in a very beautiful way, because they stay, for history, with us. Her legend is stronger than her life. And it's amazing because she dies, and like Sinatra, like Elvis, like James Dean, like the Kennedys, like those legendary people, they pass away they are more alive than the others."
When it's put to him that it is a fate he, himself, seems destined for, Iglesias offers yet one more laugh. "I don't know if it would happen, the same thing," he says. "I don't really look for that, by the way."
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