Julio can still inspire hoopla

IN CONCERT: Julio Iglesias

Where: River Rock Casino Resort, Red Robinson Show Theatre

When: Friday (River Rock) and Saturday (Red Robinson) at 8 p.m.

Tickets: $138-$291 at Ticketmaster

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Although he has made 77 albums and sung in 14 languages, to Julio Iglesias it means the same thing: Crooning.

“I’m crooning.” he explains. Simple as that. “Crooning is crooning. There is always room for change. It’s always discipline. I’m a singer, but my musical career is based on crooning.”

As a style, crooning implies romanticism, an unforced, intimate approach to singing. He follows in a tradition set as long ago as by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra (who also could belt out a tune), Tony Bennett, Eddie Fisher and, to witness women melt, Iglesias is certainly a romantic figure. The only things that change around him are the size of his audience and the technology of recording.

“For me, the stage is nothing else but my passion,” Iglesias states. “In any case, the motivation for me is still my passion.

“Things are so much more sophisticated today,” he continues. “When I started out, I was thinking only to please my mother and father. When I discovered that other people liked it, then I made more, I tried harder.”

Iglesias is working on his 78th album. It will be re-recordings of older tunes.

“It is songs I used to do in the ’70s,” he explains. “It is my legacy.”

A hit such as “To All the Women I’ve Loved Before” made him one of the biggest international stars of the decade, long before Josh Groban travelled a similar route. He isn’t trying to replicate the ’70s as much as cast his “legacy” in a new light.

“Oh, I try to discover new situations and meet new people all the time,” he says of an ever-changing show that results in an ever-changing Julio.

On tour, he travels with an assembly of 35 musicians, singers and dancers, which suggests that his live show is as lush as his records. Yet he isn’t assuming that, as big as the show is and after 78 albums, everything now is comfortably predictable.

“No, I don’t think so,” the crooner says. “Whatever you do, there always is insecurity. You don’t know. You can’t take anything, like recording, for granted.”

Source: http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/Julio+still+inspire+hoopla/4557903/story.html#ixzz1IhBTMODs